Mr. Porter Reveals 10 Year Anniversary Collection

The online fashion destination Mr. Porter is celebrating their 10th anniversary this year (and they’re in good company) with a collection of watches from 10 brands that range from Baume & Mercier and Oris, to Roger Dubuis and Ressence. The wide ranging collection features one offs, limited editions, and even taps into Vacheron Constantin’s Les Collectionneurs program for 10 vintage examples from the brand’s own in-house restoration outfit. 

Standouts include an Oris Divers Sixty-Five Caliber 400 with a green dial and bezel set. This one gets Oris’ latest in-house caliber (which we’ve talked about plenty), and a unique PVD coated grey steel case that measures 40mm. This example will be limited to 200 units produced, priced at $3,700. The slightly darker case against a deep green dial and bezel suit the Oris diver well, making for yet another highly limited, compelling variant of this watch.

The green theme continues with a Ressence Type 1 Slim that’s been given an earthy green base upon which the unique ballet of the Ressence ROCS 1 module performs. The Type 1 Slim is, well, slim at just 11mm in thickness across the gently curved 42mm case diameter. The titanium case will make this one a featherweight on wrist, and while just 10 examples are planned for production (priced at $20,600), a non-limited version of this watch does exist (sans the green). 

Finally, it’s worth touching on the Vacheron Constantin watches that appear in the collection. This is the first time a partner ‘outside’ of the brand will be offering watches from the Les Collectionneurs program. A curation of 10 watches are listed as a part of the 10th anniversary collection, with some pure classics among them. From the stunning Vintage 1945 4241 Complete Calendar Hand-Wound Chronograph (those lugs!) to the more contemporary Vintage 1985 Chronomètre Royal Automatic Chronometer 36mm.

The Les Collectionneurs program sees Mr. Christian Selmoni and his team procuring vintage (at least 20 years old) Vacheron Constantin watches and putting them through a restoration process and finally offering them to the market once again. There’s a lot more to the program, which you can read about right here, but this is the kind of fostering I’d love to see from other brands in a position to do so. There are very murky waters surrounding vintage watches (up and down the price spectrum) these days, so a service such as this offers, theoretically, a safe route for would-be collectors to enter the game. According to Selmoni:

“There are several aspects that are mandatory to enter the collection. First of all, we need the watch to be fully authenticated by our archive, meaning that we need matching numbers between case number and model number. If we don’t have matching numbers, we just don’t buy. If the movement has been changed, and we don’t have a full history, we cannot buy.” 

Read more about the program over at Mr. Porter right here, and browse the entire 10th anniversary collection right here. Image credit to Matthieu Lavanchy via Mr. Porter.