Everything you need to know (and want) in watches this July

WATCH this space – to stay in know with udpates from all our favourite watch brands. Everything you need to know to stay in the know and up to date. Whether it’s just for shooting the breeze by the coffee machine or feeding your craving for all things time.

Keep scrolling for the latest news in watches for July.

Hermès heads back to Cape Cod

French house Hermès has revisited one of its earliest icons.

The Cape Cod watch, first introduced back in 1991, has been reworked using titanium, satin-brushed on top and beadblasted along the sides, measuring 41mm lug to lug and just 33mm across. At 10.36mm thick, it sits close to the skin, the kind of watch that vanishes under a shirt cuff until the light catches it.

That original silhouette for the Cape Cop came from Henri d’Origny, whose square-within-a-rectangle shape drew on the links of an anchor chain (akin to the House’s Chaîne d’Ancre jewellery line), a detail often mistaken for an equestrian nod. Under Creative Director Philippe Delhotal, close to eighteen years into his tenure now, the design has sharpened, its curves traded for cleaner, more angular lines that echo their best-selling H08.

The black dial carries a Charmilles-textured centre and rhodium-plated Arabic numerals coated in Super-LumiNova, with an orange seconds hand supplying the only real flash of colour. Turn the watch over and the Manufacture H1912 sits behind a four-screw titanium caseback, its 45-hour reserve driven by a Vaucher base movement, water-resistant to 100 metres.

Rubber straps in black, bleu abysse, orange and jaune de Naples round out a watch built for ease over formality. Priced at A$12,650 and part of the permanent collection, the Cape Cod Titanium delivers something genuinely rare in luxury: weight that simply isn’t there.

Grand news from Grand Seiko on their Evolution 9 Collection

Grand Seiko has renewed the core of its flagship Evolution 9 Collection watches, with nine new references to have you reaching for your wallet.

Let’s break it down by numbers:

Five run the Spring Drive U.F.A. Calibre 9RB2, accurate to ±20 seconds a year and, by the brand’s research, the most precise mainspring-driven movement on the market.

Four carry the Hi-Beat mechanical Calibre 9SA5 with an 80-hour power reserve. Seven are cased in Ever-Brilliant Steel, a stainless alloy prized for its corrosion resistance and brightness, two in High-Intensity Titanium, and all gain a three-step micro-adjustment clasp allowing tool-free changes in 2mm increments.

The dials remain postcards from Nagano and Iwate: Lake Suwa’s rippled surface, now also in black to suggest moonlit water; white birch forest; the Genbi Valley’s rock formations. Most measure 40mm but one particular blue Lake Suwa comes in 37mm. Spring Drive models arrive in September, the mechanicals in October, priced from $14,500 to $16,300.

Hammer time: One of the largest watch auctions is about to kick off in Australia

Oh to be a tech founder whose biggest struggle right now is that they have too many watches…

It’s the conundrum behind what has been described as the most valuable single-vendor consignment of Swiss watches in Australian history: 28 pieces collectively valued at over $2 million slated go under the hammer this month via First State Auctions.

Headlining is a Rolex Daytona “Rainbow” in 18ct yellow gold, its bezel set with 36 baguette-cut sapphires in gradient, estimated to fetch over $500,000. First State claims it’s the first example of the reference (126598RBOW, for those keeping score) to be auctioned anywhere in the world. The house expects it to eclipse the current Australian single-watch record, a Patek Philippe that sold for $450,000 in late 2023.

The supporting cast is hardly filler: a factory diamond-set Richard Mille 016 ($130,000–$150,000), a rose-gold Audemars Piguet Royal Oak ($75,000–$85,000), an 18ct gold Submariner, plus Datejust and GMT-Master II references. 

The wider sale throws in a 10-carat VVS1 diamond, an Hermès Birkin and a Paspaley pearl necklace.

Auction one runs July 12–19, with the Rainbow. Auction two follows, July 19–26 and you can register online here.

Hublot award Red Dot Award

Hublot’s Big Bang has collected another trophy for the cabinet. The Big Bang 20th Anniversary King Gold Ceramic – released last year to mark two decades since the model first landed – has won the Red Dot Award for Product Design, selected by an international jury of design experts who singled out its bold aesthetic and the integrated chronograph architecture of the in-house Unico movement.

The anniversary piece reinterprets the original 2005 Big Bang codes, pairing early design DNA with the contemporary Unico calibre – a self-winding flyback chronograph with column wheel, 72-hour power reserve and 354 components.

The case is crafted in King Gold, Hublot’s proprietary alloy with enhanced platinum content that gives the metal a warmer, richer tone, and is framed by a polished black ceramic bezel with the house’s six signature H-shaped titanium screws. The dial carries a stamped carbon-effect finish, a nod to the original.

“Design at Hublot starts with a mindset: challenge, refine, reinvent,” said Sadry Keiser, Hublot’s Chief Product Officer in an official statement about the win, adding that the award “marks a new step as we move into the next chapter of the Big Bang Original Unico”.

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