Something New:  TAG Heuer Connected Caliber E5

As a watch-appreciating endurance athlete who has raced across the Sahara and thrown myself into various deep waters and rocky mountain trails around the Middle East, I’ve worn quite a few sports watches, and very few have delivered the goods. Most are aimed at recreational joggers who want to access their social media while out for a twirl, and hardcore, science-backed tech and data just isn’t possible for most brands to conjure up convincingly enough to compete with industry leaders Garmin and Coros, both of which pack a hefty tech and data punch (but don’t focus on aesthetics).

TAG Heuer Connected Caliber E5

When I read about TAG Heuer’s new Connected Caliber E5, I was curious. This isn’t the first foray into the connected sports watch segment for TAG, and the fifth-gen E5 promises to be the brand’s most data-driven edition to date. When you’re deep in the pain cave of an ultramarathon, you really don’t care about heritage or horology. What is mandatory from your watch is reliability and legibility.

The E5 doesn’t pay lip service to style. It’s a full-blooded Swiss watch — 45mm or 40mm of brushed rose gold PVD, black DLC titanium, or steel and ceramic. But what about its performance on the move? It houses a Qualcomm 5100+ chipset, dual-band GNSS, heart-rate variability tracking, and up to 17 hours of endurance in sports mode. So far, so good. Running plans are built in; heart-rate and recovery metrics are visualized, and even the haptics have been thoughtfully engineered. The Wellness app on the TAG Heuer Connected Caliber E5 tracks movement, calories, steps and active time, with insights to maintain focus and motivation. Continuous heart-rate monitoring provides detailed readings across rest and training zones, visualized through intuitive graphs. A forthcoming sleep-tracking update will analyze sleep phases, SpO₂, breathing rate and heart-rate variability, delivering a complete picture of performance, recovery and overall wellbeing in one elegant system.

Could this be the grail of sports wristwatches — the gritty spirit of an athlete with the good looks of fine watchmaking? I’m dying to find out. And after a season of festive indulgences, this may be the watch we actually really need.

Something Special: Richard Mille RM 07-03 Marshmallow

I’m not sure even the most heartfelt letter to Santa will conjure up this sweet confection beneath the tree, but the Richard Mille RM 07-03 Marshmallow remains one of the most memorable watches I’ve ever seen. First unveiled at SIHH 2019 as part of the Bonbon collection by Cécile Guenat, it has stuck in my memory as a watch I would love to own. Redirecting my letter to Ninety, the official Richard Mille certified pre-owned boutique in London’s Mount Street, might bear more horological fruit this Christmas — it’s where collectors go when Santa doesn’t answer their mail.

Richard Mille RM 07-03 Marshmallow

Far from just being sweet to look at, the Marshmallow is actually a masterclass in material experimentation. Its dial combines enamel powder and fine sand, pressed and delicately sanded to achieve the soft, fluffy texture reminiscent of the real thing. The case is crafted from lavender pink TZP ceramic and white ATZ ceramic, and houses the automatic in-house Caliber CRMA2; a skeletonized automatic winding in-house movement with hours, minutes and adjustable rotor geometry. The caseband is made of gem-set red gold with set pillars (pink sapphires, citrine and tsavorites).

Guenat’s vision was to re-inject playful joy and color into high watchmaking, and the Bonbon collection did just that; the Marshmallow was part of a limited and instantly covetable collection of 10 watches, with 30 pieces of each model. The lineup also included the Cupcake, Litchi, Citron, Fraise, Cerise, Réglisse, Sucette, Kiwi and Myrtille. For all the diamond-set snowflakes and frosted dials this season, few watches capture the playful spirit of Christmas quite like this pastel-hued fantasy from Richard Mille’s candy counter.

Something Old: Gérald Genta Mickey Mouse Watch

Christmas is about nostalgia and childhood, and I don’t think there’s a more nostalgia-infused wristwatch in existence than a watch featuring Mickey Mouse. I would be confident to assert that most of us have owned a wristwatch featuring a cartoon character, and as Christmas approaches, is there a more perfect way to upgrade the horology of our youth than with the decidedly adult version of a Mickey Mouse watch? The most revered watch designer of the 20th century, Gérald Genta is more readily associated with the very serious Royal Oak, Ingenieur or Nautilus — his designs were revolutionary and bridged high design with mechanical craft. Genta secured a licensing agreement with Walt Disney in the 1980s, an unexpected plot twist in his oeuvre till date. The result was a series of mechanically sophisticated timepieces with the frivolity and joie de vivre of Disney escapism.

Gérald Genta Mickey Mouse Watch

Today, the Gérald Genta brand is owned by LVMH, which acquired it when it purchased Bvlgari, the previous owners. Under La Fabrique du Temps, LV’s in-house watchmaking manufacture, gérald genta — now quirkily styled in lower case — is experiencing something of a revival. Whether we will see a designer mouse popping his head out any time soon remains to be seen. In the meantime, the OG Genta Mickey watches remain covetable, both for their undeniable horological heritage and for the instant, childlike delight they inspire.