Since then, bronze has made it to the regular Divers Sixty-Five collection, mostly on bezels. On the other side of the 2019 mood board is bronze, a material that was introduced on the scene a few years ago by Panerai and has since made its way over to multiple brands – and that includes Oris, which started to use bronze with the (very) cool Carl Brashear edition and the subsequent chronograph version. It’s an undeniable fact: two-tone watches are all over the place again – something that Rolex certainly appreciates… But… Things have changed and the repetitive cycle of trends came to a point where two-tone is cool again – just think about a two-tone Royal Oak 5402SA and you’ll get my point.

Two-tone used to be the opposite of cool, the perfect definition of outdated – and not the nice kind of outdated. Who could have thought that two-tone would become cool again? If you would have asked me five years ago about the return of two-tone steel-and-gold watches, my answer would have been “no way, mate!” (and I would have been one among a thousand to answer that). And what if both were reunited in a single watch? Oris did it, with the Divers Sixty-Five Bi-Colour or “Bico” – and that includes the bracelet too. So what are the main trends for 2019? One one side we have two-tone watches ( even on instrument watches) and on the other side, bronze cases. Look at the array of luxury sports watches or gradient dials introduced recently. And, like or not, watchmaking cannot escape trends. They come, they go and then they come back again.

We often hear that trends are an endlessly repetitive cycle.

Oris carl brashear patina