It has been a phenomenal year for the watch world. To round off 2022, we are celebrating the hits, the wonders, the visionaries and all the people in watchmaking who have made it so memorable in our annual Revolution Awards and Power Lists.

Today we crown the Best Men’s Watch, none other than the Ferdinand Berthoud Chronomètre FB3 SPC.

The power of a great watch is that even if it is recently created, it feels like it has always existed. Such is the logic, elegance and beauty of the Ferdinand Berthoud Chronomètre FB3 SPC that connects the brand’s most accessibly priced watch with the soul of the watchmaker to the French Navy. Berthoud’s marine chronometers were made to be precise and this wonderful COSC-certified chronometer, finished in spectacular fashion, wearing its balance wheel replete with cylindrical hairspring as well as its escapement on top of the dial, is a masterful interpretation of Berthoud’s core values.

In our original coverage of this watch, we were particularly taken by the design of the calibre. We said: “The very architecture of the watch is also very openly displayed: the mainplate forms the core of the movement sandwiched by six bridges on the dial side, and ten at the back that hold all the movement components together. Reflecting the aesthetics of the time of Louis Berthoud, which was transiting from an ornate and elaborate baroque style to the more tempered elegance of neo-classicism, the decoration of the caliber FB-SPC is accordingly restrained, and refined, eschewing the flurry of conventional finishes for the relative austerity of matte surfaces executed by fine sandblasting, outlined by polished bevels. The balance bridge, in a distinctive heel shape, references Ferdinand Berthoud’s No. 3 astronomical watch; the barrel bridge that spans 120° at 12 o’clock recalls a bridge on the No. 2575 quarter-repeater watch made by Louis Berthoud.”