And so we come to the final four watches that were released at the '2025 LVMH Watch Week'. We've already looked at the five new Formula 1 Calibre 16 chronographs, the latest iterations of the Porsche Chronosprint glassbox and most recently the purple glass box chronograph and tourbillon, so now it's the turn of these four, umm... Carreras.
Now, some time ago I gave the illustrious 'Council' the choice to opt 'in' or 'out' of voting on women's watches, because I noticed that some members routinely gave everything a four (unless it was truly heinous) and I just thought it was better to give them the option to 'ignore' them rather than drag the scores down because they just weren't interested.
But the problem is you see, with women's watches getting bigger, and men's watches getting smaller, it's getting harder and harder to define what is a man's watch and what is a woman's watch. In the past it was clear; 27mm with diamonds and a mother of pearl dial, clearly for ladies... 43mm with a rubber strap that looks like a tyre tread; clearly for men. Simples!
But since these particular watches were somewhat ambiguous I decided to send them to all the members regardless, and yet even though the man in the Milton Keynes boutique assured me that the brand no longer make 'specific watches for men and women'* one of the council members actually had the audacity to decline to score them on the grounds that they were 'ladies' watches. I know, right? He eventually changed his mind and agreed to score the 39mm ones, but you see the problem here...
And yet, if you visit the TAG Heuer website and use the 'Timepiece' menu, you find they categorize their offerings by sex. So when I clicked on 'Watches for Women' the first thing I saw was the 39mm diamond Carreras. But when I clicked on 'Watches for Men' these were nowhere to be seen... but, right at the very bottom of the page (for some reason) I found the new peachy-pink and lilac 36mm diamond hour Carreras. I mean I don't know about you, but if anything I would have expected that to have been the other way around... right?
Also, it's interesting that the show a woman wearing the new 44mm Formula 1 chronograph.. on top of her sleeve for some reason - maybe it looked ridiculous on her actual wrist? But they don't show a guy wearing the lilac 36mm Carrera for some reason.
Personally I wouldn't/couldn't wear any of these... even if I liked the 39mm glassboxes (which I don't) they wear too small on me and honestly I think the diamond hour markers on those look awful. I don't like that peachy pink colour much either, in fact the only one I find remotely interesting is the 36mm with the lilac dial. It's nice to see a brand new colour being used and my wife absolutely loves it. What a pity the 36mm case is too big for her tiny woman-wrists...
When I visited the aforementioned boutique I did see the blue dial 39mm chrono and I didn't like it very much. It does strike me as pretty feminine, and that's not just because it has diamonds on it, as I said when I talked about the purple glassbox it does look quite feminine in certain colours anyway and the diamond and blue together with the domed crystal definitely gives that impression. Combine that with the very small wear size and I can kinda see why TAG Heuer didn't include it in their 'Watches for Men' section.
For the record I'm not against diamonds on men's watches, I've tried on a Grand Carrera with a diamond bezel and really liked it, I've also pondered buying a Link with diamond hour markers before, but both of those watches still looked like men's watches, these just don't (to me).
As for that peachy-pink colour, I'm not a fan of that on either model and I would think that's even less likely to find its way onto a man's wrist. As I said the lilac is interesting, but I really think it would look better without the diamond hour markers (as indeed do all the 36mm Carreras in my opinion).
Isn't it funny how we're constantly being told that men's watches are too big and we really need to get them all back to 39mm, and yet for some reason we're encouraging women to wear watches that look like dinner plates on their wrists? Whatever happened to ladies wearing elegant 27mm watches? Oh dear, did I say that out loud, please don't cancel me!
Is it perhaps because the luxury watch world exists by the simple rule of convincing people that what they have is no longer 'cool', so men now need to get rid of those 'dreadful' 43mm monsters and downsize, while women need to lose those 'dated' 29mm pieces and get with what's hot now?
Could be.
Or is it that having convinced women to stop buying quartz (by removing most of the options, honestly... because mechanical is luxury, even though it's less accurate and annoying to set if you don't wear it day in day out, which let's not forget is why women generally preferred quartz in the first place) they are now in the part of the cycle where the watches need to get bigger so their friends can see how much they spent on their new toy?
Could be.
Or is this all part of some Swiss masterplan to ultimately bring all watches to one medium size (let's call it 37.5mm) so they don't have to waste money making different size cases?
Could be...
Okay, I'm done. Let's toss these into the bling-hatin' Council's enclosure and see how long it takes them to rip them apart. I will confidently predict at least one sub 5/10 score here... maybe more!
GB39 Blue 6/10, GB39 Pink 5/10, 36 Pink 8/10, 36 Lilac 10/10: "The diamonds add an extra 2 points per watch and the 'Lilac Super Beauty' is WOTY!"
GB39 Blue 6/10, GB39 Pink 4/10, 36 Pink 4/10, 36 Lilac 5.5/10: "I'm not into diamonds, but I think I prefer them in the outer ring of the glassbox over the weird tachy bezel under glass look that we normally get."
GB39 Blue 4/10, GB39 Pink 2/10, 36 Pink 1/10, 36 Lilac 3/10: "I suppose if you move away from making watches for ladies and men, that doesn't leave a huge customer base."
GB39 Blue 5/10, GB39 Pink 5/10, 36 Pink 8/10, 36 Lilac 8/10: "5.5/10 for the 39mm watches, they are just too busy and way too blingy (wife concurs). However, the wife gives 8/10 for the 36mm watches -- if the pink one came on a strap instead of the bracelet, she'd give it a 9 and put it on her wish list."
GB39 Blue 3/10, GB39 Pink 2/10, 36 Pink 4/10, 36 Lilac 2/10: "Diamonds again… 😏"
GB39 Blue 6/10, GB39 Pink 6.5/10, 36 Pink 5/10, 36 Lilac 5/10: "These are 'fabulous', but who the hell are they for exactly?."
GB39 Blue 3/10, GB39 Pink 3/10, 36 Pink 3/10, 36 Lilac 3/10: "Placing diamonds on the outer bezel looks pretty at first glance, but then one wonders what the point of the outer bezel is. I would think that if diamonds are to be placed, they should be placed for 60 diamonds. It is unacceptable for a chronograph watch that it does not fulfil the function it should."
GB39 Blue 5/10, GB39 Pink 5/10, 36 Pink 5/10, 36 Lilac 5/10: "Diamonds in watches aren’t my thing, 5/10 across the board, unless they cost <£1k"
GB39 Blue 6/10, GB39 Pink 6/10, 36 Pink 6/10, 36 Lilac 6/10: "They're okay. not really my cup of tea though."
GB39 Blue 5/10, GB39 Pink 4/10, 36 Pink 6/10, 36 Lilac 6/10: "Middle of the road again."
GB39 Blue 5/10, GB39 Pink 5/10, 36 Pink 4/10, 36 Lilac 4/10: "Not a gemstone fan at all, but I’ll vote 5/10 for both chronos, and 4/10 for the time and date models. If they just dropped the diamonds for polished markers 😖"
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