It’s certainly not the most catchy of model names, but the – let’s say – “Aston DB5 Breitling” is a strong start to the Gaydon carmaker’s latest bid for horoligically mediated brand equity. Once it was Jaeger-LeCoultre, then it was TAG Heuer, followed by Girard-Perregaux… But the wings from La Chaux-de-Fonds seem more likely to fall into formation with those of James Bond’s automotive go-to than ever. Especially given that Breitling has chose to go with the retro ‘Top Time’ to chime with Aston’s vintage icon, DB5; each an enduringly febrile, peerless twist on their respective sectors, from touring ‘grandly’ to timing said tour with unwavering precision. Crisply squared-off curves, crimps, class and all.

Vanguart’s breathless progress was never really in doubt. Two nimble-of-tweezer polymath co-founders don’t come more golden as Axel Leuenberger and Jeremy Frelechox, who crafted futuristic concepts for Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi in Le Locle for 15 and 6 years respectively (as well as a stint at Girard-Perregaux’ complication’s hothouse, up the valley in La Chaux-de-Fonds, down the city’s gridded streets from Vanguart HQ). Enhanced by baby-blue ceramic elements, the new iteration of ‘Orb’ adds a deceptively playful twist to an otherwise hugely ambitious technical leap (with circa-£160,000 pricetag to prove it) featuring a floating, flying tourbillon, but now with an unusual winding system: switch from ‘manual’ to ‘automatic’ via the crown and a 2mm-wide titanium ring springs into life, spinning around the circumference of the open worked movement, winding it. You only know it’s there for the single diamond set in.

Its breakaway and self-assertion away from the shadow of mothership Rolex has been one of the watch world’s biggest stories of the last ten years. But the first indications of Tudor’s indie flex – i.e. not just a different logo on a more-affordably kitted-out Submariner, say – goes back to 1970, with its own ‘Oysterdate’. The English Rose’s first chronograph (a cam-operated Valjoux 7734 workhorse ticking inside) was straight out of the pits with racy motorsport colourways, and so it goes with this summer’s vibrant positively buzzing yellow-and-black newbie – now boasting Tudor’s very own in-house Calibre MT5813, adapted (and, whisper it, improved?) from Breitling’s ’01’ base mechanics.

Over more than a decade of ‘Official Engineering Partnership” with the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One team, IWC Schaffhausen has created a restless series of watches dedicated to the team, and for the team – not just drivers 1 and 2, George Russell (UK) and Kimi Antonelli (IT). Come the glitzy Singapore GP in October, the two principal Silver Arrows pilots will be joined with their lens-facing pitcrew by a special edition of IWC’s iconic ‘Pilot’s Chronograph’ workhorse cockpit instrument, only – as well as standard-issue cases crafted from sand-blasted grade 5 titanium and black dials with Petronas-green details – an exotic colourway and design inspired by the Singapore orchid ‘Vanda Miss Joaquim’, conjured in collaboration with Mercedes-AMG F1 and Adidas.

It could be the dashboard of a Sixties nuclear-reactor control room, only in miniature. Unapolgetically functional, yet rendered in 50 examples of exquisitely polished, rectangular ‘Honeygold’ – 18 carats of warm, scratch-resistant precious metal entirely proprietary to the Saxon watchmaker, which under the aegis of Geneva’s Richemont Group has reasserted itself with a Germanic integrity ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall, post-1990. Equipped with a tumbling ‘tourbillon’ balance oscillator (essentially a pendulum in wheel form), plus a date display so big it comes with two windows (but no half-moon specs required), it’s uncompromising but jubilantly, nostalgically ’Teutonic’ as a result. Turn it over, however, and you quickly forget about the modern history – the hand-engraved movement’s bridges speak of historical romance reaching back so many more centuries.

Few athletes have dominated their sport as quickly and profoundly as Tadej Pogačar, having burst onto the cycling world with a third place at the 2019 Vuelta a España at just 20 years UAE Team Emirates colours. The Slovenian rider has – at the time of writing – taken a record-equalling fifth yellow-jerseyed win in the Tour de France, joining Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain in the canon of the Tour’s most successful cyclists. Typical of Monsieur Mille’s ‘Spidey sense’ when embracing new talent – with dogged loyalty, whatever the ups or downs. Inspired by Pogačar’s Colnago bike’s lightweight brilliance, Mille’s RM 64-01 Tourbillon Colnago faithfully translates the Italian bike-maker’s tubular architecture in lacquered titanium, with torsional rigidity thereof.

A stylish and feminine size, at 34.5mm, but… no longer ‘feminine’ per se. Up till recently, this diameter would never have rangy and distinguished Vacheron Constantin of Geneva professing a balance of ‘sporty elegance with refined proportions perfect for versatility, with the hexagonal Maltese Cross bezel taking visual prominence in the non-diamond-set execution.’ But times, in the business of actual time, have changed. The most venerable of Swiss watchmakers has truly honed its sportier Overseas line to this delicate balance: multi-finished lacquered dials, warm and appealing in either pink-gold-tone or vibrant deep red hues for expressive contemporary character. Own it, and despite your wrist girth (or because of, perhaps) own it.

“Breitling remains the core brand and cornerstone of our new ‘House of Brands’,” the CEO of every aviator’s favourite watchmaker Georges Kern reminds us (IWC: we still love you), “but, as of early September this year, Gallet will address the luxury entry-level segment, overlooked by so many watch brands.” And just like that: Gallet, bookending Breitling’s new multi-brand universe, with similarly revived Universal Genève at the upper end; “A key piece of the puzzle, allowing us to re-enter a price segment that Breitling and many competitors have moved away from in recent years,” says Kern astutely. Videlicet ‘Yachting Big Eye’, bringing renewed clarity to the chaos of the pre-start regatta phase, as racing yachts ‘jostle for the line’ in the final minutes before the gun.