It was the first time for me to host such a private collector dinner in Bahrain with top Piaget clients and members of our Arab WAtch Club.  We were staying at the Four Seasons, really one of the nicest hotels in Bahrain and among the Four Seasons chain globally.

The event took place at Cut in the cigar lounge, where we privatised the area so our guests feel more comfortable and cozy while having the dinner and also enjoying a nice cigar with some watches here and there!!

I was wearing on that night one of my favourite watches in the line up of Altiplanos. the 38mm Altiplano skeleton rose gold – an ultimate classiness on the wrist and a gentlemen’s choice especially when suited.

The guests started coming in and it was such a delight to reconnect to so many collectors that I have been in touch with mostly on Social Media without having the chance to meet in person.  One of the most enjoyable aspect of those evenings is to learn more about each collectors’ path in watch collecting and their theories and personal tastes.

From the AP savy collectors to the Patek and Rolex aficionados, we ended up all on a Piaget table discussing their latest Polo Skeleton that took our breath away ; specially the one with the diamond bezel – this is definitely my ultimate Polo skeleton choice.

As the cigars started to light up and the evening diverted into exploring more of the Piaget offering from the Polo range to the Emperador very unique designs; many collectors have set their eyes on one or two pieces – interestingly enough, the variety of opinions and tastes almost covered all the breadth of models we have been looking at throughout the night.

For some reason lately, all the watches that are catching my attention from Piaget have a diamond bezel – whether the Polo , the Altiplano or the Emperador lines. There is something extremely attractive on a men’s watch with a well crafted diamond bezel. In excess, it will look tacky , but in the right setting and the proper alignment, it is actually very tasteful.

After several hours of chatting , eating and smoking; we had to conclude a wonderful evening with very enthusiastic collectors from Bahrain with a very big Thank You to the Piaget and the Bahrain Jewelry Center teams who made this event happen

https://www.piaget.com/ae-en/watches/piaget-polo

https://www.bjc.com.bh/

The post An Evening with Piaget in Bahrain 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.

1 month later, we had our first draft renderings of our 26 watches representing 6 countries and 12 cities – of which almost 10 piece uniques

When we saw the rendering we were ecstatic – I couldn’t believe that this project was going to happen and Nomos really did it for us. I went to Baselworld to meet with the team and to see their first prototype of the watch – I still remember them asking me: ” Hassan, are you sure this is the Green you want? everyone in the manufacture was starring at this dial, they have never thought Nomos would push its boundaries this far” – it was perfect: the right shade of green that pops, you cannot Not notice it, with a very light yellow font for the cities and the strong Red color for the HomeTown city. The watch was exactly what I have envisioned it in my head 3 months earlier.

When we saw the rendering we were ecstatic – I couldn’t believe that this project was going to happen and Nomos really did it for us. I went to Baselworld to meet with the team and to see their first prototype of the watch – I still remember them asking me: ” Hassan, are you sure this is the Green you want? everyone in the manufacture was starring at this dial, they have never thought Nomos would push its boundaries this far” – it was perfect: the right shade of green that pops, you cannot Not notice it, with a very light yellow font for the cities and the strong Red color for the HomeTown city. The watch was exactly what I have envisioned it in my head 3 months earlier.

6 more months passed by and the watches were ready – I decided to pay Nomos a visit in Glashutte with some of the collectors from the AWC to have a tour of their facilities and finally get to see our watches being assembled and completed.

I won’t tell you the details of how we made it to Glashutte!! just because it was an utter nightmare flying from London on British Airways to reach Berlin only with 6 hours delay and drive to Dresden for another 2.5 hours.

However, we made it , did a tour around the factory, met the watchmaker who assembled all our watches and even had the chance to witness the assembly of the last piece of AWC Nomos.

The post Unveiling Arab Watch Club 8th Special Edition: Nomos Zurich Mint Green appeared first on Arab Watch Guide.

The idea of this collaboration imitated when we first saw the release of the Sinn 556 Anniversary piece and we decided it is a perfect fit for our next summer edition. The watch size is perfect, small and classy; the MOP dial we have worked on is very unique as every watch would have its own shade.

So the adventure began early 2018, when we got in touch with the Sinn team with our proposed idea- initially we had a totally different dial colors in mind – an MOP more tending towards a pinkish shade then the one with settled for after over a month of back and forth with the manufacture designing the dial.

The aim was to produce a Limited edition of 50 watches for all club members with a very minimalistic design that is wearable in all occasions but also subtle and unique as most MOP dials ares. However , we decided to add a small twist to the dial at 6 o’clock where we wrote the name of our club in arabic as it appears on our logo – same font, same writing and same size.

The movement on this 556 is impressively finished and well taken care of by the brand; it is an ETA 2824-2, self winding mechanism with a special engraving of “Arab Watch Club” and the number of each watch out of 50 – the movement has also the second stop function , shock resistance and Anti-magnetism.

The case is a stainless steel case in 38.5mm with a satinized finishing – the dial is covered by a sapphire crystal glass with anti reflective coating on both sides. The transparent case back has also anti reflective coating on the interior. The pressure resistances is up to 20 bar.

The indices on the dial are coated with luminescent color and hour the hour and minute hands coated also. The case thickness is only 11mm and the watch weights 65 grammes without straps

As for the straps, we have had several options so we decided to let every collector decide on his own choice of colors and materials that fit his own taste.

The watches have been released in July 2018, however their delivery will be around September once everyone is back from summer break and factories operational again.

We are very thrilled of this collaboration as it has opened our eyes to many possibilities in the future in the non-swiss watchmaking world and the uniqueness and precision of these underrated brands.

The post Introducing the 7th AWC edition in partnership with Sinn Uhren appeared first on Arab Watch Guide.

Since we launched our Laureato yellow edition in 2017 we have received several requests from our ladies club members to create a similar edition for them however using the Laureato Ladies Royale watch instead.

The iconic Laureato collection was chosen to create a 34mm timepiece adorned with 54 diamonds and available in three different versions: full pink gold, two-tone pink gold and steel, and full steel.

The AWC Ladies Limited Edition Laureato is graced with a mesmerizing purple dial that expresses the supreme femininity of Arabian women, while the date is naturally displayed with Arabic numerals.

Bearing the mention Limited Edition and the individual edition number, the case-back is fitted with a transparent sapphire crystal revealing the famous Girard-Perregaux quartz movement.

The latter’s 32,768 Hz oscillation frequency was discovered by the brand in 1971 and has since become the universal industry standard.

The watch is limited to only 8 pieces in the three different material and has been only sold to club members from the Gulf region. It is an extremely limited and unique pieces that we hope we will kick off a long trend of ladies special editions whether from our club side or other clubs that decided to follow our foot steps – what matters is we paved the way for the rest 🙂

The post AWC first ladies Edition in collaboration with Girard Perregaux appeared first on Arab Watch Guide.

We started our journey with our bahraini friends at Projekt8 who have been our facilitators with HYT team to make this stunning project come true. As a team, we have given the brief to the HYT team around what we wanted to achieve from this editions – specially the sandy colors, the damascus steel feel patterns on the dial and the entire look and feel of the edition.

From there, The H0 x Arab Watch Club was born as an exclusive, numbered limited edition, developed for Arab Watch Club members. Its design language whispers wind- sculpted sand dunes, golden light and sun-kissed metal surfaces. Expressing the soul of the H0, with its absorption of the fluidity of time, are liquids, detail and an additional rubber strap in the brightest blue. The dryness of the desert encounters the freshness of fluid time in a watch that welcomes the winds of change.

Liquid brings life and the H0 x Arab Watch Club accurately translates this truth into the passage of time. Its patented micro-fluidic module symbolizes the precious vitality of water. This is heightened by allusions to the planet’s driest territories. The juxtaposition of aridness and moisture merges ground- breaking technology with absorbing storytelling in a refreshing visualization of the recent past, the present and the immediate future.

An Arabian nights mood is created by a matt sand-colored dial with an intricate wave pattern and a matching beige strap. A titanium folding buckle on the strap adds a shimmering finishing touch.

Hindu Arabic digits and white Super-Luminova® markers mimic a mini-mirage in timekeeping terms. And, as if by magic, the striking fluidic capillary, pebble-shaped case and drop-like dial surface form a seductive oasis for the eye

Since the project was in partnership with Projekt8 in Bahrain, we have decided to do our first launch in Bahrain in the Capital Club in the presence of the HYT team and all the AWC members.

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