MEET THE TEAM: Luke’s top 5 dress watches from Watches & Wonders
Luke BenedictusWhile the popularity for steel sports watches continues to rage, I find myself retreating into an increasingly unfashionable position. That’s because I’ve always been more drawn to the quiet understatement of a dress watch. Something slimline and subdued that tells the time with minimal fuss as it discreetly peeks out from beneath a shirt cuff. Life is complicated, after all, so I appreciate a simple watch. This is a highly subjective list of my top five dress watches from Watches & Wonders.
Cartier Collection Privé Tank Chinoise
Cartier unleashed some formidable releases this year. There was that Santos Dumont with the beige lacquer bezel and the wildly innovative Masse Mystérieuse. But the watches I found myself giddily swooning over were some of the Tank Chinoise models from the Cartier Privé collection. In the same way that a Kit-Kat delivers just the right amount of chocolate around the wafer, here I was enamoured by the thickness of the branchards on the sides of the rectangular case. They’re available in platinum, rose gold and yellow gold, but I’m struggling to pick between the first two options that come perched on grey alligator-leather straps.
| Case Material | Platinum, rose gold, platinum |
| Case Dimensions | 39.5mm x 7.70mm |
| Water-Resistance | 30 metres |
| Dial | White |
| Straps | Alligator leather |
| Movement | 430 MC |
| Power Reserve | 38 hours |
| Complications | Hours, minutes |
| Price | TBC |
Chopard L.U.C. XPS 1860 Officer
At first glance, this looks like a pretty simple dial, but it’ll slowly draw you under its dark, green spell. Housed inside the 18k yellow-gold case that’s a paltry 7.2mm thick, lurks a beguiling sector dial. This divides into a smooth outer ring for the applied gold indices, while the centre features a hand-finished guilloché pattern within a grid of honeycomb pieces. This apian pattern is continued on the hunter caseback that opens to reveal the company’s first in-house movement and an engraving of a beehive on its inside door. The sting in the tail? Those filthy teases at Chopard are only releasing 50 pieces worldwide. Bah!
| Case Material | 18k yellow gold |
| Case Dimensions | 40mm x 7.2mm |
| Water-Resistance | 30 metres |
| Dial | Green |
| Straps | Brown alligator strap |
| Movement | L.U.C 96.01-L |
| Power Reserve | 65 hours |
| Complications | Hours, minutes, seconds, date |
| Price | 33,500 CHF |
Patek Philippe Ref. 5320G-011 Perpetual Calendar
We get it, you’re busy. But it just so happens that you only need to adjust this perpetual calendar once every 122 years. With that task out of the way you can spend more time drinking in the elegant nuances of this salmon dial. Particularly, the way the black outlines delineate those applied Arabic numerals to make them practically glow against the dial’s soft pink hue.
| Case Material | 18k White Gold |
| Case Dimensions | 40mm x 11.13mm |
| Water-Resistance | 30m |
| Dial | Salmon |
| Straps | Brown alligator leather |
| Movement | Calibre 324 S Q |
| Power Reserve | 45 hours |
| Complications | Hours, minutes, seconds, perpetual calendar |
| Price | 73,000 CHF |
Laurent Ferrier Classic Origin Blue 
This sportier and more casual take on the dress watch now comes with a fresh blue dial that shifts in tone from a lighter hue at the centre to a deeper shade around the edge to delineate the minute track. It’s housed in a Grade 5 titanium case whose soft contours are complemented by the curvature of the pocketwatch-style crown. Eschewing the formality of leather, the watch comes on a midnight-blue Nubuck strap to make it eminently wearable at work or play.
| Case Material | Grade 5 titanium |
| Case Dimensions | 40mm x 11.1mm |
| Water-Resistance | 30m |
| Dial | Blue |
| Straps | Nubuck |
| Movement | Calibre LF116.01 |
| Power Reserve | 80 hours |
| Complications | Hours, minutes, seconds, |
| Price | 31,000 CHF |
Grand Seiko SBGW283 “Kishun”
Grand Seiko is the brand that never sleeps. In fact, by the time you read that sentence they’ve probably pumped out another new release. Lat year, they quietly dropped three delectable US-only limited editions in their Elegance collection and the SBGW283 “Kishun” picks up the baton with a pale blue dial on a navy crocodile leather strap. The best news? This one isn’t limited, so you actually have a fighting chance of one day strapping this fully polished case onto your lucky wrist.
| Case Material | Stainless Steel |
| Case Dimensions | 37.3mm x 11.7mm |
| Water-Resistance | 30m |
| Dial | Blue |
| Strap | Blue crocodile leather |
| Movement | In-house manual wind 9S64 |
| Power Reserve | 72 hours |
| Complications | Hours, minutes, seconds |
| Price | $4,800 USD |