Hello, dear readers! i am so excited to share something new here today. replica Tissot has been the brand i prefer and focus on many years – specifically, the vintage-inspired pieces with that fantastic retro tissot logo on the dial. the watch arrived alongside some amazing tissot swag, and it has nearly a 300-page interesting book on the story of the company. it even pictures a tissot pocket watch circa 1923 that this design clearly draws some inspiration from. knowing the connection between this watch and a model from nearly a century ago allows me to truly appreciate the history of tissot whenever i put the heritage 1936 on.
i’ll provide a quick primer for those who aren’t familiar with this watch. this design celebrates a historically important point in timepiece history – it’s modeled after some of the first wristwatches ever made. we call it as trench watches, which gained popularity during ww1, and rapidly accelerated the shift from pocket watch to wristwatch. these trench watches were essentially pocket watches with wired lugs soldered on, and when you look up images of them you clearly see the resemblance in many other design elements. this nod to the past is big for me – i very much gravitate towards watches with a story.
so now that the history lesson is over, let’s just move ahead to the size. it’s not only the width – coming in at a modest 45mm – but it’s the thickness (13mm) as well that makes this a beast of a watch. these numbers would typically scare some away, but the watch really doesn’t feel (or really even look) that large, and i have a rather small wrist. something about the wire lugs and the narrow (18mm) band make the size of the case size look correctly and not feel over-the-top, which is important for a vintage-inspired piece.
the craftsmanship on the dial is amazing – the numerals appear as if they’ve been hand-painted on, although this was hard to grasp in photos. the seconds sub-dial is another nod to a general design element in early trench watches. the crown features the tissot signature, like any proper luxury watch should. the band is a sturdy, brown leather nato style strap, which appears so good with the wire lugs. it’s really comfortable and cozy on the wrist. i’ll probably invest in a black leather nato to switch things up in the future.
in my opinion, the size allows me really appreciate all that went into this watch as a matter of fact. while 45mm doesn’t typically scream vintage, i think the history behind the design allows for a pretty solid exception. besides, it’s a limited edition so i don’t expect to see many of these on wrists or on the secondary market.
