Time+Tide’s NYC Discovery Studio has a BIG new hire, Watches and Wonders 2026 kicks off next week
Zach BlassTime+Tide’s editorial masthead reads The Home of Watch Culture, and we take that very seriously. When it comes to our retail team in all of our Discovery Studios around the world – Melbourne, London, and New York City – a constantly reiterated core value is service over sales. Of course, Time+Tide is not a non-profit, but the fact that our executive leadership team sets the rubric of performance primarily on customer experience and feedback is just one of the many poignant points of distinction that make our Discovery Studios so novel and special.
In the last few years, our team has massively expanded. A spotlight on all of our amazing Discovery Studio team members is long overdue, and we will certainly carve out some time after all the Watches and Wonders chaos to give you a better chance to get to know all of the veterans and newcomers to our Discovery Studio teams (though the best way, of course, is in the metal, face-to-face, in one of our Time+Tide Discovery Studios). But today I am thrilled to announce that Rashawn Smith is joining our Time+Tide NYC Discovery Studio team as our new Community Manager.
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Swipe to the second slide in the above Instagram carousel to see the video announcement.
Rashawn is a longstanding member of the NYC watch community and a seasoned member of the watch industry with ample experience in watch retail, media, and events. Known as one of the most joyous, friendly, and insightful members of #watchfam, you can have the pleasure of running into at watch gatherings, we are glad that many of you can now meet or reunite with Rashawn in our NYC Discovery Studio.
Through his time with SuperNiche and Wrist Check Pod, which I once had the pleasure of being featured on, Rashawn is definitely well-embedded in watch culture, and through his experiences with Watches of Switzerland, WOLF, and Bucherer, understands well how to best ensure watch lovers have excellent, memorable moments of horological discovery. If you have watched his recent 3-Watch Throw Down with us, none of this will come as a surprise. So, if there were not already an ample number of reasons to come visit us at 460 Broome Street in NYC, you now have yet another.
Now, as you are all probably painfully yet excitedly aware of, Watches and Wonders Geneva 2026 begins next week. To ensure you are across all the big news that comes out of the Super Bowl of watch fairs, be sure to bookmark the Time+Tide website in your preferred browser and follow/subscribe to our Instagram and YouTube channels.
Ahead of the fair, I have set up a Watches and Wonders 2026 YouTube playlist, where all of our videos, once live, will be added. The link to that playlist is right here. Trust me, we have a ton of videos coming soon, short and long, that will bring all of you remotely engaging with Watches and Wonders Geneva 2026 as close to the action as possible.
The first announcements will begin at 12:01 am CET on April 14, and after that, the floodgates will open. We look forward to seeing your reactions to all of the latest and greatest debuts of the fair in the comments section.
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Zach and the Time+Tide Team
Watch meme of the week: An oldie, but a good one…
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In the watch industry and community, you meet an incredible number of amazing people. This is why I wish more people would just make their account names their actual names, or at least clearly displayed in their bio. Then again, I can remember that the SBGA211 is the ‘Snowflake’, yet I cannot remember with any certainty whether the gentleman I met last week at an event was named Scott. Or was it Steve…?
Wrist shot of the week: John Mulaney’s Gérald Genta is no joke
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John Mulaney is well-known for his humour, but while attending the premiere of Your Friends & Neighbors last week, his wristwatch game was no joke. The actor and stand-up comedian was sporting his new Gérald Genta Minute Repeater in yellow gold with a black onyx dial. Despite being a beautifully decorated high-comp minute repeater calibre, the GG-002 has a more than weekend-proof 80 hours of power reserve. Search ” Grail watch” in the dictionary, and a picture of this watch will come up.
Time+Tide Shop pick of the week: Baltic Heures du Monde
Baltic expands beyond its usual playbook with the new Heures du Monde, introducing a compact, stone-dial worldtimer that blends vintage restraint with added functionality. Housed in a modest 37mm steel case with 100m water resistance, it pairs labradorite, tiger eye and sodalite dials with a 24-hour ring and rotating city bezel for intuitive global time tracking. Powered by a modified Soprod C125, it ditches the GMT hand for a cleaner execution. Limited to 200 pieces per dial, it’s a confident step up for the brand.
The Baltic Heures du Monde is available now at the Time+Tide Studios and online at the Time+Tide Shop. Price: €1,300 (leather), €1,360 (bracelet).
Our favourite Time+Tide coverage of the week
The how and why of Universal Genève’s revival, or the ramblings of a UG romantic
Borna, our resident Universal Genève romantic, shares his thoughts on the highly anticipated relaunch of the brand he is very invested in.
TAG Heuer’s Heritage Director talks 165+ years of chronograph history (& teases Watches and Wonders 2026)
TAG Heuer doesn’t just make chronographs. It is the chronograph. For over 165 years, the brand hasn’t been chasing the complication — it’s been defining it. And with Watches and Wonders 2026 on the horizon, and a new calibre (TH-80 — yes, Nick let that slip) about to drop, there’s no better moment to understand what this brand actually is, and where it came from. Check out the video above for a full history lesson ahead of the fair.
Norqain’s new concept Wild One Skeleton X-Lite weighs just 45 grams
This week, Norqain pushed its ultra-lightweight pursuit even further, unveiling its new concept Wild One watch, the Norqain Wild One Skeleton X-Lite Limited Edition, which weighs just 45 grams.