A very unique take on the Gshock GM-5600B specially redesigned for the Arab Watch Guide shop.

The inspiration behind the model is a throwback to the Damascene Mosaic art in furniture and architecture; a continuation of the current theme on our website bringing all the arabic design elements inherited from Syria into the modern world of horology.

The strap has a unique pattern of Mozaic that you usually find in many objects found in Syrian homes such as wooden tables, chairs, tableware, art pieces …

We decided to stick to the main colors usually used in Mozaic, mainly the blue, white, beige and black to create our unique pattern for this edition.

The edition is limited to only 30 that will be produced one time off and sold exclusively on the AWG shop.

The post Revealing the Gshock GM-5600B Special Edition AWG – 1st Shop Edition appeared first on Arab Watch Guide.

The post Interview with Rijal Magazine appeared first on Arab Watch Guide.

In 2018, during Baselworld, strolling around the majestic booths of the big brands, I encounter one of my good friends from Zurich wearing a K Chaykin original Joker however with a special case back engraved for him and a piece unique written on its case back.. I asked him, does the brand custom make special orders to collectors – and the answer was Yes.

The idea stuck to my head and a few months later I contacted the company asking them for a piece unique for myself – however  I wanted to change the face of the Joker and his expressions. When I received the first render, I decided to share it with some of the collectors of the club – not really knowing whether this is something that would interest them or not – I just wanted their opinion about my piece unique – the reaction was very unexpected as they all decided they wanted to be part of this project.

I got back to Chaykin, this time  asking for 5 watches and a totally different facelift of the Joker with the colors Green. Purple and black dominating the look – since these are the colors of the Real Joker after all.

One thing was bothering me; the fact that most of Chaykin Joker at that time were either in Steel or Titanium; I wanted the case to look different and not been produced before. So I asked him to propose something different to us; this is when we came up with the black coating on the steel case that supports the newly designed black dial and complements the full colors of the joker.

From there, the special edition started to shape up – we were 5 at the time and decided to share the entire project with the rest of the team; little did we know, we will reach 20 in the next hour.

As a final design tweak, we asked Chaykin to engrave our logo at the case back with everyone’s initials, or name. This is as personalized as it gets.

Only one issue – our contract stated that we will need to wait for a full year to receive the watches! that was like giving a candy to a kid and then taking it right away!! but since we were very excited with the project, we decided to get on with it and hope the excitement remains the same until 2019.

A year later, May 2019, we started receiving pictures and videos of the final work in progress of our watches; the project was shaping up and we seemed very close to the end.

However, we have faced one major hik up that we didn’t expect at all!!! Our watches were hostages in Moscow and there was no way to get them back home without us flying there in person to collect the watches – seems there was some difficulties with shipping abroad as we were advised by the brand.

Would you imagine we had to spend almost 2 months coordinating the pick ups of our 20 watches and finding the time for several collectors to travel to Moscow and have their watches collected. It was the most difficult project logistically for the club since inception.

But eventually we received the watches and started enjoying them after the excitement around them was almost going to fade away from all the hassle and struggles to have them on our wrists.

With this final release, we close our Special Editions for 2019 .. however, we will soon have a mega announcement of the most exciting and unique project ever made to date from any watch club worldwide, with one of the most prestigious brands in the industry today!!

Stay tune, this is going to be big!!!

The post The Real Joker – Arab Watch Club 12th Special edition appeared first on Arab Watch Guide.

The exhibition set top by Cartier was to celebrate 100 years of Santos where they have recreated the story of how the legendary watch came about to creation. If you are not aware of the story, let me shed some light on its in a quick summary.

In 1906, Brazilian-Franco Albert Santos Dumont flew from Paris’ Château De Bagatelle in an aircraft fitted with a wheeled undercarriage and made a controlled landing – no crash, achieving history. Whilst celebrating his achievement, he met his friend Louis Cartier and complained about having to reach out to his pocket watch during the flight- Booom!! the Santos Dumont Cartier was born! First Pilot wristwatch to be ever created.

Since then many variations and developments have surrounded this successful line leading us to where we are today and our private exhibition with Cartier.

Cartier recreated the 14bis flew by Santos in his first flight and installed it on top of our dinner table :).. Now that’s what I call dining in style.

During the evening, we had the chance to go over an animated history of the Santos flight and also have a look at some historical pieces of the famous line – of which the wonderful 90th anniversary Santos Dumont in platinum and salmon dial

Before moving on to our dinner with Christophe Massoni, we also had a look at the latest models introduced by Cartier in 2018 and 2019 – unfortunately the SIHH pieces were not yet in Dubai – however this will be left for another day to explore.

What also made this dinner quiet special is the fact that our members have flown from KSA, Kuwait and Bahrain to be with us in Dubai. For the club, it is quiet a proud achievement to be able to partner up with one of the most luxurious brands out there and have a very private and unique experience offered to our club members exclusively. It has also followed a special visit to the Cartier Manufacture in La Chaux De Fonds that I have had right after SIHH – however this needs another article to discuss the mesmerizing world of Cartier watchmaking.

You cannot have a  collectors dinner without the usual wrist shots poses that we are all known for by now. It was a surprise I believe for Christophe when he saw 20+ arms being stretched to the max to reach each others fists in the most awkward yet traditional watch geeks shots – professional photographers were on alert mode and trying to find the best and longest chairs to support them in taking this marvelous aerial wrist-shot.

With this, I leave to enjoy our gallery and will be back soon to tell you more in depth about the Cartier manufacture experience and many many nitty gritty details that blew my mind in La Chaux de Fonds.

The post Dinner with Cartier under Burj Khalifa appeared first on Arab Watch Guide.

It has been an amazing journey since we started in 2015 and today we hit the 10th edition mark – the club with the most special editions to-date. For this release we have decided to collaborate with a very special brand that has been quiet forgotten for sometime and revived few years ago.

Of course, I am talking about Angelus watches and more specifically the U50 Diver Tourbillon they released in Baselworld 2018. It was whilst we were visiting their booth this March , that we discovered the beautifully executed diver watch model and decided that this should be our next edition; first it’s our first TOurbillon, and also first Diver. Great way to end 2018!!

What is exactly the U50 Diver Tourbillon Desert Mint AWC all about !!! Well, first it is crafted in a 45mm-wide lightweight Titanium case – It features two large screw-down crowns. The two-position crown at 4 o’clock is used for winding and setting the time, while the crown at 2 o’clock is used to rotate the uni-directional 60-minute flange ring

Opposite the crowns on the left side of the case at the 9 o’clock position, a helium escape valve is placed to ensure the watch’s water-resistance of 300 meters (1’000 feet).

With its core functions – hours, minutes, small seconds and one-minute flying tourbillon – the A-300 caliber has 23 jewels, a Swiss lever escapement and measures just 4.3 millimetres in thickness and 32.8 millimetres in diameter. The 4 Hz / 28,800 vph frequency is a guarantee for high performance and precision

Even though the A-300 caliber in the U50 Diver Tourbillon is intended as a high-performance movement ready to take on more extreme situations, the ultra-slim movement has painstakingly executed contemporary haute horlogerie finishing with snailed black ADLC coating and chamfered edges. The design is enhanced by a skeletonized ratchet and barrel in the exclusive Angelus six-spoke design.

We have created 16 of this beautiful masterpieces for the club members and released them in a private event at PDL shop in Dubai where the team from Angelus flew from Switzerland to hand deliver the watches to all the collectors.

The post Releasing the 9th AWC Special Edition: the new U50 Diver Tourbillon Desert Mint appeared first on Arab Watch Guide.