Luxury Watches For Trick-or-Treaters: Halloween Horology
- Halloween puts a premium on ideal accessories.
- Dress the part with a luxury watch that’s in sync with the season.
- Unlike All Hallows’ Eve, the tricks and treats of luxury watches endure all year-long.
- watchuwant.com offers free overnight delivery to have you strapped for action on October 31.
Halloween may be the only time of the year that a luxury watch can double as a costume accessory. Between midnight revelry in adult company and in-character escort duties for sugar-addled ankle-biters, the holiday presents abundant occasions to break out a new chrono-confection.
While all of the following luxury sports watches are stellar year-round companions for the daily grind, they really come into their own on a night when a haunting holiday and haut horlogerie coincide.
The Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600M Chronograph represents more than a go-anywhere luxury sports watch; it’s a maritime Rolex-slayer that’s loaded “to the gills” with with advanced content: co-axial escapement, helium release valve, in-house movement. Also accented by the Planet Ocean series’ signature orange highlights, the Seamaster 600M is ready to answer the knock of trick-or-treaters with seasonal aplomb.
A robust 45.5mm case is the centerpiece of Omega’s 600M chronograph. While large, the case retains elegance and never strays afield of good taste; alternating brushed and polished facets add articulation and break up the sprawling expanses of metal. The proportion of bezel-to-dial embodies ideal balance and speaks to Omega’s eye for detail.
The basic aesthetic recalls the original 1957 Seamaster Professional that inaugurated the era of the hardcore Omega dive watch, but the technology within the case is lightyears removed.
An Omega co-axial caliber 3313 chronograph movement features the Biel/Bienne firm’s famous tangential-impulse escapement. Designed by the legendary watchmaker George Daniels and first implemented in the late 1990s, the modern co-axial has evolved into one of the most accurate and respected technologies in Swiss horology.
Omega’s innovative offerings notwithstanding, alternative escapement watches such as the co-axial remain the domain of six-figure pricing.
Omega Seamasters are dive watches, and the 600M is a beast within that hardy class.
A unidirectional orange dive bezel is Great Pumpkin-approved and ideal for timing events of short duration such as skin dives and SCUBA outings. 600M equates to 2,000 feet, but luxury is about exceeding utilitarian minima, and this watch delivers.
Besides, it always pours when the kids are going door-to-door; why not hit back against Mother Nature with a watch that laughs at the weather?
Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms Speed Command Flyback Chronograph continues our Monsters’ Ball.
Like the Omega, Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms draws its underlying inspiration from a 1950s forebear, but the Speed Command marks a more ambitious departure from the source material.
The black-and-orange Blancpain is every inch the luxury dive watch, but the Speed Command special edition adds significant motorsports overtones. Its 45mm PVD black stainless steel case and matching sapphire-capped bezel envelop a unique dial crafted of race car-style carbon fiber.
High-tech woven carbon composite is a staple of the modern motorsports industry at every level from karting to Formula 1.
The carbon dial of the Fifty Fathoms Speed Command emphasizes that this is a sports watch equally at home trackside and surfside. While the standard Blancpain Fifty Fathoms includes a lacquered dial with triangular indexes and minimal numerals, the Speed Command emulates dashboard instruments with a bold orange array of sharp Arabic numerals.
A matching black calf-skin strap with an orange contrasting stitch adds to this special edition’s visual cohesion and impact.
A high-performance machine inside and out, the Fifty Fathoms Speed Command packs a Frédéric Piguet F185 movement that has stood for three decades as the point of reference for builders of high-end chronographs. Its vertical clutch/column wheel tech tandem has set the template for distinguished emulators from Patek Philippe to Rolex.
But there’s only one original; marvel at its excruciatingly detailed finish through the sapphire caseback.
Rolex is the first name in luxury watches, but as the ideal All Hallows’ Eve companion, this Rolex Milgauss Sonar Stealth by The Bamford Watch Department has been reserved for last.
The combination of “murdered” black metal, minimalist black dial, and shocks of green and orange make this Milgauss the exclamation point on any Halloween style statement. It’s the perfect way to stay on time for your SAW movie marathon.
The standard Rolex Milgauss is tank-tough and surprisingly fashionable for an no-holds-barred engineer’s watch. Its minimalist dial and graceful lines lend the Milgauss dress versatility that its bulkier brethren in the Rolex Oyster line cannot touch. But it lacks the visceral punch of a true styling standout… until Bamford strikes.
Based in London, England and operating under the umbrella of the four-billion pound multinational JC Bamford Excavators, Britain’s equivalent of Caterpillar Diesel, The Bamford Watch Department is a heavyweight. The take-away is that Rolex watches modified by Bamford are backed by the technology and R&D muscle of a parent with way more engineering chops than the one-horse “black watch” PVD shops dabbling in the Rolex business. A Bamford coating is tough, rich, and can be restored by Bamford; that’s the difference.
And this Milgauss “Sonar” is different.
Even the dial has been completely stripped, reprinted in two-tone, and equipped with a discreet 60-minute track to emulate a naval sonarscope. One of only eight (8) ever produced, it features both a complete metal transformation and custom dial courtesy of The Bamford Watch Department. While the standard Rolex Milgauss is handsome, the Bamford is downright menacing.
Even better, the Milgauss as modified by Bamford retains the mechanical integrity and chronometer-grade performance of the factory-spec model.
Halloween lasts for only one night, but all three of the watches featured herein are standout sports models with the style and substance to thrill all year-long.
Whether you prefer the extrovert presence of the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Speed Command, the comparative subtlety of the Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600M, or the otherworldly impact of the Rolex Milgauss by Bamford, watchuwant.com offers a luxury watch option to put a trick up your sleeve and a treat on your wrist this Halloween.
