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TAG Heuer Boutique / Spitalfields, London 15th April 2023
Spitalfields isn't an area of London I know all that well; I remember going there a few years ago to visit a gallery for Nathan Sawaya's 'Art of the Brick' show, but I hadn't been back since and the only reason I was back there now was because I had tickets to the Dali Immersive Experience in Brick Lane. However, somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that there was a TAG Heuer boutique in the area, and as we turned up way too early for our 12:30pm ticket time my wife and I decided to go check it out.
The store is a bit anonymous from the pavement to be honest, and it's not exactly on the busiest street either... which all seems a bit strange. But once inside it's very nice and cosy and we were greeted warmly by Rafiq and his crew who had several new pieces for us to try on.
I was immediately drawn to the new gold bezel Aquaracers, which at the time were still hot off the press... and wow do they look a LOT better than they looked in the photos. You probably don't remember, but in my 'First Impressions' post a few weeks ago I mentioned that my wife (who is a member of the C.O.C.O. council) thought the new two-tone Aquaracers were, and I quote, "awful". In fact she bestowed a rather brutal 3/10 rating on the lot of them!
Well she certainly changed her tune when she saw them in real life for the first time. As we sat in the boutique I asked if she thought she'd been a bit hard on the watches and she said 'Yes, now I would give this (the blue one) 9/10'.
Kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it. And I must admit that I too had to upgrade my rating significantly. So much so that I actually paused for a moment to consider my options when it came to buying the new green dial Aquaracer that I've waited so long for. Ultimately I decided to stick to my guns but it was touch and go for a while, and honestly if it wasn't for the £1900 price difference it might have been a different story - but that is a HUGE premium to pay for a gold bezel insert and crown.
The store had the ladies (30mm) models in both colours, but the men's was only available in blue. Looking at the rose gold version I quickly decided that one was markedly inferior and indeed I've since seen the men's black/brown/rose gold in another store and I don't like it much at all. The blue is magnificent though and much, much better than the blue and steel one to my eyes.
I don't know if there is any difference between the execution of the dials but the blue one seems less regimented in it's fade - something that is also true of the green dial. Compared with the smoky black dial (which seems almost white in the middle) the fumé seems more 'all over' rather than radiating from the centre. There's probably someone at TAG Heuer rolling their eyes right now and snorting into their coffee that 'they are exactly the same'... but they don't look the same to me.
Regardless, the cool blue dial looks a million times better surrounded by that 18K 3N yellow gold bezel... but just imagine if they made a green dial 200 Professional with a yellow gold bezel on a green rubber strap, that would be insanely cool - though patently not for me as I've already committed to the steel version!
It was certainly worth the short walk to the boutique; alongside the new Aquaracers, Rafiq also showed us the new 42mm Carrera with the orange swoosh and the new Formula 1 Gulf Special Edition, more on those anon...
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