WAY2150.BD0911 41mm Calibre 5 Rose Gold
List Price £3950 Bicester Price £2765
TAG Heuer Boutique / Bicester Village, 11th March 2019
Something a little different this time, browsing the stock at the Bicester Village store I couldn't help noticing a collection of four two-tone Aquaracers: two quartz, two automatic, two gold, two rose gold. It's not often you get to see a collection of watches like that since most stores would be unlikely to stock more than two pieces at any one time, and to be honest I can't remember having ever seen any of these pieces before anywhere.
Starting with the WAY2150 pictured above, what we have here is a 41mm Calibre 5 Aquaracer in rose gold. The rose gold has a kind of brushed finish to it which looks great and tones it down quite a lot. By contrast the WAY2151 features polished yellow gold and to me at least it looks a little bit gaudy.
WAY2151.BD0912 41mm Calibre 5 Yellow Gold
List Price £3950 Bicester Price £2765
I do appreciate that the gold is restricted to the bezel and the smaller, alternate centre links which helps a bit, but only in as much as this watch would look even more tacky with a full set of gold centre links. Yeah, I'm really not a fan of the gold on this watch, the rose gold looks so much nicer and goes better with the creamy dial in my opinion. It's a slightly odd combination in any case but it does kind of work, I'd certainly be happy to wear the WAY2150.
WAY1151.BD0912 41mm Quartz Yellow Gold Aquaracer
List Price £3500 Bicester Price £2345
Moving on to the slightly cheaper quartz models, we find two very similar pieces: one in polished gold, one in brushed rose gold, but whereas I'd usually take a similar looking quartz piece at a cheaper price, here I think the difference isn't enough to warrant taking that course. Not least because if you go for the quartz model you sacrifice the horizontally slatted dial in favour of a much simpler and rather less interesting design.
WAY1150.BD0911 -41mm Rose Gold Quartz Aquaracer
List Price £3500 Bicester Price £2345
Again the WAY1151 is the less palatable of the two, the rose gold WAY1150 looks much classier, but the dial looks rather dull and uninspired... actually I'm trying to formulate an order of choice here and I'm struggling beyond the obvious winner. The yellow gold is horrible, but the quartz dial is really boring... it's a tough one!
WAP2150.BD0839 - 39.5MM Rose Gold Calibre 5 Aquaracer
List Price £5300 Bicester Price £3445
There is another option though, as TAG Bicester also have in stock the slightly smaller and considerably curvier WAP2150. I must admit I did initially mistake this for a ladies watch, such is it's less angular design and markerless, fixed gold bezel. This one has a display back whereas the other four have your generic 'diving helmet' Aquaracer back (yes, even the automatics) and if I remember correctly a capped bezel and links as opposed to plated. But that's reflected in the price, as this one weighs in at a slightly startling £3445 (down from £5300).
As you can probably tell, I'm not overly enamoured with any of these watches, but from the choices here it's an easy win for the WAY2150. I can imagine the WAP2150 going to a lady who likes a bigger watch, because it really does look quite feminine, especially when looked at next to the WAY alternatives, but in all honesty it doesn't really look like a £3.4k watch, much less a £5.3k one...
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