Sideburns optional
By Julien Moreau, Geneva ·
Cushion cases went out of fashion at roughly the same moment as my father's sideburns, and I am pleased to report that only one of them has returned.
Glashütte Original's Seventies is not a reissue of anything in particular, which I find refreshing. It is a 1970s mood rendered in a modern case: 40 mm, cushion shaped, 13.5 mm thick, on a steel bracelet with 22 mm lugs and a blue dial that shades darker toward the edge. The Panorama Date (the big double-window date the Saxons are so fond of) sits at four, and the chronograph is a flyback, which is a pleasing extravagance on a watch you will mostly use to time pasta. The 37-02 runs for 70 hours, and 100 m means you can forget about it by the pool.
Two complaints. The caseback is closed, and with a Glashütte movement that feels almost perverse; half the joy of German watchmaking is looking at the three-quarter plate and the hand engraving, and here you are asked to take it on trust. And at fourteen thousand eight hundred to nearly sixteen thousand dollars, it is priced alongside a steel Daytona at retail. You will not get the Daytona at retail, of course, which is GO's quiet argument.
For someone who wants the 1970s without buying an actual 1970s chronograph and its service bills, I can see it. I would want a longer look at that thickness under a shirt before committing.