Face Time: Tudor Heritage Black Bay Dark

The Heritage Black Bay has received a lot of love as Tudor’s emblematic dive watch since it was first presented in 2012. Inspired by key elements of the brand’s early dive watches from 1954, the timepiece was characterised by its domed crystal, domed dial shape and an oversized winding crown. Its throwback angular hands, lovingly nicknamed Snowflake hands, were also one of the well-loved features by watch collectors.

The Heritage Black Bay was destined to be iconic, and now, the Swiss watch manufacturer has launched an even more lust-worthy variant: the Heritage Black Bay Dark. Like its name suggests, this souped-up take on the popular diver is entirely blacked-out, and the only colour on its monochromatic facade is the red depth rating and lume pip on the rotating bezel. Unlike the glossy, sleeker-looking Black Bay Black launched in 2015, the Dark version has a brushed satin finish, which is then PVD-coated in black for a subdued military look.

Within this watch lies Tudor’s very own movement, MT5602, which is a step away from the previous Black Bay tradition of using the ETA 2824. Besides an in-house designation, this movement is —impressively — also COSC-certified, operates at 4Hz and offers a respectable 70-hours of power reserve on tap. Introduced just last year, the movement was also used in the North Flag and Pelagos, and is great for those who fancy an adventure in extreme conditions because of its magnetic- and temperature change-resistant silicon hairspring.

The Tudor Black Bay Dark comes with two strap options: a steel bracelet or aged black leather option; both of which also comes with a dark grey NATO-style fabric strap. The former will cost S$6120, while the latter, a slightly cheaper S$5,688.