WATC H E S
WORDS CHRIS HALL
PAYING HOMAGE The latest Carrera is a celebration of 160 years of Tag Heuer
48
A
s we entered the Twenty-Twenties, my social media feeds were packed with tedious posts summarising people’s achievements over the past ten years (the obligatory then-andnow selfies, plus a list of suitably wry boasts or laments). There was also a stream of new watches as some of the largest brands convened in Dubai to parade their latest creations. It inspired me to look at Tag Heuer, which has covered more ground than most since 2010. Mid-market, high-volume brands do tend to cycle through designs, strategies and ideas quite quickly – essential when you’re in the business of being a lot of things to a lot of people – but even so, a re-read of its 2010 brochure is a look back to a very different time. Brand ambassadors Leonardo DiCaprio, Lewis Hamilton and Tiger Woods have all moved on, and Tag Heuer’s motoring tastes have moved with the times, too – out with the gas-guzzling Mercedes-McLaren SLR hypercar tie-in, in with a sponsorship deal for Porsche’s all-electric Formula E team. Gone, and not overly lamented, are the fantastically expensive “luxury” mobile phones; in their place, Tag Heuer has committed more wholeheartedly to smartwatches than any other Swiss brand. Despite not winning the hearts of watch purists, the Tag Heuer Connected watch, launched in 2015, seems to be selling, and this spring a second-generation model is rolling out. There have been big changes to its traditional watches, too. A decade ago, the Grand Carrera sat proudly at the top of the collection. Modelled by a youthful Hamilton, it revelled in a techy, modern
Today’s Carrera uses a genuinely in-house chronograph calibre
