If you haven’t been following along on Live, I’m over in the UAE for what is quickly becoming an unmissable event on the global horological events calendar – Dubai Watch Week. It’s been an absolute blast hosting a few sessions, sharing what it is we exactly do at our website, and meeting tons of new friends. Of course a highlight of coming all the way over to Dubai for Watch Week are the watches. And though I’ve seen my fair share of the high-comps, this TAG Heuer is the one I’m still thinking about.
DWW host and seminal retailer Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons have launched a few products to commemorate this year’s event – all of them cool – though this one being a standout for me. Taking the successful TAG Heuer Autavia 02 series replica watches, they’ve made some aesthetic changes that make a world of difference.
First, the dial is no longer black like the traditional version or even silver like the Jack Heuer Edition, but a beautiful cream color dial that I have never seen on TAG Heuer limited edition fake watches. The color and texture are milky white, and really remind me of something like you’d find on a 6239 Daytona with a serial number in the 9xx,xxx range. You know the watches, they look like this. The lume plots on this dial and on these hands are again darker than what we’ve seen on other Autavias, and they complement well.
The sub-registers aren’t black here either, instead taking a stunning caramel “tropical” color that to me, is the nicest rendition of an artifically sun-kissed dial I have ever seen. The color, the texture, and the over all pattern of this “desert sand” dials on these is just spot-on, and in homage to not only the sands of the UAE, but the types of dial often found on the great chronographs sold in the region in yesteryear.
The bezel is no longer black, but again “faded” to brown which completes the complete tropical, aged look. And because the Seddiqis don’t do anything without going all the way, the strap on this limited edition? Yup, it’s camel leather.
The look of this watch is simply fantastic – I saw it on the press preview day and immediately fell in love with the organic brown earth tones of it. The look is proper vintage, and as I said above, I think it’s the nicest execution of faux-aging I’ve seen to date, across all brands. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that Mr. Mohammed Seddiqi himself was involved with the development of the project, and he himself as you may remember, is a very serious vintage watch collector. You can feel the touch of a connoisseur on this watch.