This is it, the last week of the year! It’s time to say farewell to 2018 and usher in the New Year in style. If your calendar is full of fancy festivities over the next few days, then look to one of these four formal black watches to complement any black tie dress code.

Opened all your gifts, ate enough sweets and need a break from the Christmas carols? Then check out some stunning casebacks. The time that the back of a watch was nothing but a plain piece of metal is long gone. The vast majority of high-end watch brands now utilize the back of their watches to give you an insight into their technical capabilities.

One of the most popular complications in the world of watches is still the chronograph. It adds a dynamic feature to a watch and more ways to interact with it. With various subdials it also makes the watch look more sportive and technical. No wonder that the vast majority of brands often have several chronograph models to choose from. However, there are a few that go beyond just being a chronograph, and have once broken the mold in this category.

While symmetry and beauty often go hand in hand, it takes true talent to bring balance and harmony to asymmetrical designs. When done right, off-center dials on luxury watches are pure pleasure to look at.

Lange & Söhne is not a brand that fills the market with introduction after introduction. As a very exclusive manufacture this is simply not their style, but when they do introduce a new model, you can count on it that it is something very special!

Understated watches are a realm of their own. They often require a connoisseurs eye to recognize them as something special, but special they are indeed. They please their owners with refined movement, subtle details and the knowledge that they have something exceptional around the wrist. They are the 'sleeper cars' of the watch industry, and these are four of the most desirable.

The Saxonia Dual Time from A. Lange & Söhne is in many ways a very discreet watch. This starts with its size. Measuring just 38.5 millimeters in diameter, and with a height of only 9.1 millimeters, is this watch modestly sized. On the wrist, it wears slightly larger as the vast majority of its diameter is dedicated to the dial. While also available in pink gold, the white gold version adds even further to its discretion.

Instagram: for many of us it has become an ever-renewing visual database to the people, brands, and products we love. Many watch brands have also realized that it is the perfect platform to highlight what makes their products so special, as well as keeping their fans up to date with the most recent developments and events. Next time you are on Instagram, make sure that you check out the following brands!

The history of the minute repeater goes back to a time before electric light. As lighting an oil lamp was quite some work, watchmakers build repeating mechanisms in pocket watches so that they could sound the time on demand. The invention of the minute repeater was claimed by both Edward Barlow and Daniel Quare, but it was Quare who obtained a patent for it in 1687. Initially, watches equipped with a repeating mechanism used bells to chime the time, later to be replaced with wire gong, which took up less space. These weren't minute repeaters, at first, but quarter repeaters, chiming the time to the closest quarter.

The jump hour is a complication loved by many, yet only a few brands have one in their collection. One of the reasons for this is that it is difficult to make. The jump hour is a volatile complication in which power is build up in a spring during the hour to be released upon the hour. Not only does this require superb power management within the movement, but there is also to challenge to achieve perfect alignment of the hour disc after the jump has taken place.

The greatness of many Haute Horlogerie creations is often evident. Being objects of art, they are extrovert by nature. But some follow a different path. That of understated excellence. Watches that require the knowledge of a true connoisseur to be revealed for what they really are. Here are five watches that have that down to a T!

This year the large date joined, once again, the Saxonia collection of A. Lange & Söhne, and it might be a watch a lot of watch connoisseurs have been waiting for. It combines A. Lange & Söhne 's purest design with their iconic oversized date. The result is an epiphany of German style and class, now in a slightly large package than the original dating back from 1994.

This U.S. boutique edition watch features a white gold case with a grey dial. It’s the first time a Lange timepiece with an outsize date has white numerals against a grey background

One of the conclusions of the report is that large, well-funded companies that already have strong brand recognition are doing much better than smaller brands. That advantage is reinforced among luxury holding companies, which again benefit from having big pockets

An inside look at the four-day Watches & Wonders event, which made its American debut for the first time ever, choosing Miami as its venue.

One article was simply not enough to highlight our personal favorites of the SIHH 2018. So after part I, we now continue with part II!