Tudor isn’t known for having an expansive use of complications. Their strength generally lies in their ability to find character in simple instrumentation. It’s why we love their divers so much, but it also applies to their approach to the formal genre. While their tool watches enjoy the lion’s share of attention, at least in markets like the US, Tudor has quietly built up a robust catalog of relatively diverse formal watches across the Black Bay One, Clair de Rose, 1926, and Royal collections. This week, for the first time ever, Tudor is introducing a moonphase complication within their 1926 collection in a watch called the Luna, underscoring their commitment to expanding the brand’s design language in unexpected ways.
With all that said, the 1926 collection, and this Luna in particular, certainly land on the safe side of the equation. It’s a relatively conservative design and the addition of the Luna doesn’t exactly tread new ground that we haven’t seen the likes of many other micro brands explore. There’s a sunray dial, applied polished hour markers, leaf hands, and a symmetrically oriented moonphase aperture at the six o’clock position courtesy of a Sellita based movement. It’s a standard formula that works pretty well and this is no exception. However, I can’t help but wonder what this might have looked like within the frame of the slightly less conventional Royal.
Just because it isn’t revolutionary doesn’t mean it’s not handsome, and the 1926 Luna is certainly that. As usual, that comes to the attention given to the details. That begins with the 39mm steel case with a classic tapered lug design. Total thickness is just 10mm, but the more interesting measurement is the lug width of 21mm, which provides a proportionally unique relationship between the case, bracelet, and dial. The seven link bracelet doesn’t appear to have quite as much taper as I’d like to see with such a wide measurement at the case, but it’s a well crafted design that works well on the wrist, most importantly.
Tudor is offering the 1926 Luna in three dial colors at launch: black, blue, and champagne, each with a sunray brush finish. The blue gets standard polished steel at the hands and hour markers, as well as the negative space within the moonphase. The other two get a little more interesting, as they are inversions of one another. The black dial gets champagne colored accents, while the champagne dial gets sharp black accents. Even the date discs follow suit. There is a subtle beauty captured in these two references that set them apart, all while building on the existing palette of the broader 1926 collection.
Inside sits a Tudor caliber T607-9, which is a modified Sellita SW-280, not entirely dissimilar to what you’d find in a range of similar offerings in the micro-brand space. The upshot here is that it keeps the price in reasonable territory at $2,800 including the steel bracelet, which is inline with what you’d see from a Christopher Ward or Farer sans bracelet. Overall a nice value that adds a new wrinkle to the growing 1926 stable. Tudor
