The Aquaracer line has always occupied a beloved spot in my brain – there’s just something so effortlessly familiar but also unique enough to feel refined. The overall presentation just sticks with me. The design platform of the Aquaracer also lends itself so well to many different design languages. Then insane garbage like this happens.
Watches and Wonders 2023 saw the release of a new iteration in the Aquaracer line – the Tag Heuer Aquaracer Professional 200 Steel and Yellow Gold. Marketed as the perfect intersection between luxury and performance, what I find most noteworthy is how skillfully the watch fails at both concepts. As a performance instrument, putting soft gold on the crown and bezel insert feels as situationally appropriate as drinking soda when your dehydrated.
| Case Size: | 40mm x 47mm x 12mm |
| Movement: | Tag Heuer Caliber 5 Automatic |
| Power Reserve: | 38 Hours |
| Crystal: | Sapphire Crystal |
| Water Resistance: | 20 ATM (200 Meters) |
| Price: | $5050 USD |
On the luxury front the Tag Heuer Aquaracer Professional 200 Steel and Yellow Gold is just a few more bad decisions away from being included within Invicta’s next email fire sale. Additionally, there’s two types of lume featured here with blue lume on the minute and seconds hand and green lume on everything else.
Between the fumbled attempt at combining functionality and luxury, the poor legibility of the gold bezel insert, and the inexplicable use of two lume colors, this latest Tag Heuer release has all the aesthetic appeal of a catalog watch that someone threw together in the dark. I guess despite my affection for the Aquaracer line, they all can’t be winners.
Images: Tag Heuer
Co-Founder and Senior Editor
Kaz has been collecting watches since 2015, but he’s been fascinated by product design, the Collector’s psychology, and brand marketing his whole life. While sharing the same strong fondness for all things horologically-affordable as Mike (his TBWS partner in crime), Kaz’s collection niche is also focused on vintage Soviet watches as well as watches that feature a unique, but well-designed quirk or visual hook.