The three watches every man should dream of owning, and why

As the celebrated writer behind the Post Magazine watch column (stop sniggering), there’s always one question people ask when they meet me in person. Well, actually, that’s a lie; there are three questions people ask me: first, “If money were no object, what watch would you buy?”; second, “You’re not very tall, are you?”; and third, “What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here.” Strangely, I get more annoyed at the first question than the second, or third, as it is such a hard question to answer. My dream watch list is long, very long. Moreover, I have dream watches for different scenarios, seasons, and land, sea and air. Yes, I think about this far too often.

To narrow things down, and to end the torture of this set-up, let’s go with the question of what my dream watch would be out of the ones released so far this year – if money were no object. And top of the list, as of this week and subject to arbitrary change, would be the Breguet Classique 7787.

Why does this top the list? Well, if you are into watches, the heritage and the whole bloody-minded craft of it all, then Breguet usually makes the podium for connoisseurs and the 7787 encapsulates all that’s great about the brand. There are many touches of class here, from the enamel dial to the “fluted” case band – you can’t see it in the picture but there are fine ridges that run along the case at the side in a nod to watches of yester­year.

The dial is beautiful, with an artfully rendered moon­phase and a prominent indicator for the 38 hours of power reserve you get from the superb in-house 591DRL move­ment. Breguet, of course, invented many of the features that are now commonplace in high horology, such as the Breguet hands (the clue is in the name), the self-winding mecha­nism and having a lot of the critical parts of the movement made of silicon to reduce fric­tion. This watch has all of those.

The 39mm case comes in white gold (HK$241,000/US$30,851) or rose gold (HK$236,900) but, personally, I would go for the former.

Where there’s a Breguet on my list, Blancpain isn’t often far behind and this year I’ve been jonesing the Villeret Semainier Grande Date 8 Jours. Again, this watch is squarely aimed at the connoisseur crowd as it is stubbornly old school in its aesthetics, with an enamel dial and a layout that’s awash with numbers and numerals.