Zach Kazan

If you've attended a recent Windup Watch Fair in Chicago, there's a very good chance you've run into Doug LaViolette. Doug is the founder of the Brian LaViolette Scholarship Foundation, a Wisconsin based watch enthusiast, and honestly one of the nicer people you'll encounter in this hobby. For years, the scholarship foundation named for his late son has raised money for over 1,200 scholarships for students across the United States and abroad, and now a new watch from Sheffield, a limited edition of just 95 pieces, will help in the cause.

Jacques Bianchi, the Marseille based brand specializing in dive watches, has released the first watch in what is expected to be an ongoing partnership with Olympique de Marseille, the city's historic football club. This has been a big summer for soccer, of course, with the World Cup being held in North America right in the middle of summer, and if your individual case of football fever hasn't exactly been cured yet, the new diver based on the brand's popular JB200 platform might be of interest. And even if it's not, it's an interesting diversion from Jacques Bianchi that might point to some broader ambition from the brand as it relates to artistic craft, and chronometry.

Don't look now, but Longines is having an uncommonly strong year. The release of the reworked HydroConquest dive watch in March remains one of the most discussed new releases of the year from a major brand, and their quiet but smart update of the Master Collection in June was also well received. Last month, they launched a new version of one of the more curious watches to be plucked from their archives in recent years, and while it's certainly more of a niche product than the diver or the classically styled pieces in the Master Collection, it shows that the brand is still considering the enthusiast in spite of what is clearly a larger, big tent approach focusing on core models.

Just ahead of Geneva Watch Days, we see the debut of a new haute horlogerie brand, brought to us in part by Wei Koh, founder of Revolution and the Rake, an

You know, I actually wasn't going to write about this watch. An $18,000 vintage inspired dive watch from a brand that doesn't hold a ton of personal relevance to me was just not super high on my list of priorities as Geneva Watch Days prep is now in full swing (this time next week, I will be surviving on CHF 10 Coke Zeros). But, over the weekend the collective watch internet kind of lost its mind over the new Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe 70th Anniversary Limited Edition, so I shifted my to-do list around a bit and, well, here we are.

It's somewhat hard to believe (well, hard for me to believe, anyway) but 2026 marks the ninth year of Ming. If you had told me in the earliest days of the brand in 2017 that less than a decade later they'd factor in as one of the more important independent watch brands of their era, I'm not sure how I'd have reacted. For me, the early days were a tough sell. Ming had trouble meeting demand for their watches in those first years, which can be a good problem to have of course, but can also lead to all kinds of issues with would-be customers as the expectations game gets played out in public. They've solved for that largely with smart planning, and a release strategy that sees a mix of accessible pieces with more

Ask me on any random day to name my favorite indie watchmaker, and there's a pretty good chance I'm likely to respond with H. Moser. They are all the things I like, in or out of watches: kind of provocative, colorful, approachable, fun, and can be viewed as either completely understated or ridiculously ostentatious (OK that last one is more or less exclusive to watches). They were an early fixation for me as I began to discover higher end independent watchmaking in earnest, so their whole vibe has imprinted on me somewhat, and I'm a little biased by the sheer amount of time I've spent thinking about the brand. But the thing is, they've changed a lot, even just in the last few years, and the brand that felt fresh and irreverent to me a decade ago feels, well, different now. And the watch I got to spend a good chunk of the summer with is a reflection of those changes, both positive and (maybe?) negative.

A Lange & Söhne has introduced new limited edition versions of their 1815 Up/Down model, one of the brand's key references for years. The Up/Down is a true enthusiast favorite, prized by Lange collectors for its unique and very German presentation of the power reserve on the dial, located within a circular subdial at the 8:00 position. This style of power reserve indicator is traced back to German pocket watches made in the late 19th century, and I personally have always loved the way it looks on Lange 1815s.

One of the splashiest Geneva Watch Days releases this year was the all new M.A.D.3, the latest entry in the ongoing series from M.A.D.Editions, the popular MB&F spinoff. You're probably pretty familiar with the M.A.D. project at this point, but just in case you're stumbling onto it here for the first time, a brief primer.

As part of their Geneva Watch Days presentation, Alpina unveiled several new solar quartz references in their Solarmetre line, which effectively places solar quartz movements made by La Joux-Perret in familiar Alpina references. It's about the most natural move possible from a business perspective. Alpina and La Joux-Perret are both owned by the Citizen Group, who of course make Citizen watches and have been leaning heavily into solar quartz technology for years. The Alpina watches sit at a higher price point than the average Citizen, so the expansion of solar quartz across Alpina's collection naturally begins an interesting conversation about value for enthusiasts who might have an interest in both brands.