We live in a time when rugged-looking tool watches regularly get paired with formal wear, but then again so do wrinkled work boots, gnarly beards, and worn denim—all of which were once blasphemy at the office or cocktail bar. The Tudor 1926 harkens back to that era when, even if you’d just swum the English Channel or scaled The Matterhorn, you shaved and tuxed up for the evening’s affairs. Meanwhile, your wristwatch—of which you owned just one—needed to withstand rugged adventure while looking downright debonair. I call such timepieces dressy tool watches, or DTWs.
For nearly a century, the Rolex Oyster series (e.g. Datejust, Day-Date, etc) has remained the pinnacle of DTW technology and style, and it follows that Rolex’s little brother Tudor would have also excelled in this surprisingly uncommon category. While the bulk of Tudor’s novelties for Baselworld 2018 are vintage-inspired tool watch classics, Tudor’s 1926 series are pure DTW.