Tiflamingo? Flamingo & Co? Can’t wait to learn the nickname the watch enthusiast community will stick to this new Tudor Black Bay Chrono Flamingo Blue watch. Tudor, the great equalizer since its founding by Rolex-founder Hans Wilsdorf, remains true to that unofficial mantra and delivers a highly desirable color at a competitive price point. Good for Tudor.
On a personal note, I genuinely believe my horological spirit experienced a strong sense of relief since we cumulatively and quietly left the craze of Tiffany blue dials behind ourselves a year or two ago. I was genuinely mad at the trend of people over-paying — or even lusting after — a different-colored dial that might have been $0.00 more expensive to do than any other, simply for its power to most profoundly broadcast the primitive message of, “I have it and you have it not.”
Therefore, I do truly hope that this Tudor Black Bay Chrono Flamingo Blue watch (reference M79360N-0024) will actually go on to be not the last of the Tiffany Blue frenzy-induced watches, but the first where the fun factor of this color is what is appreciated — and its perceived status is not. May you wake up with a million insects in your PJs one morning if you buy this to flip it just for its different-colored dial. That said, I sure hope Tudor is not in the tier of brands for which one is expected to have a stupendous purchase history just to obtain a watch of their liking — it should be down to luck, and maybe perseverance, but not to something else, for a fan of Tudor (or any other brand) to get the watch they like. I feel like I opened this can of worms with the statements above, so let’s just move on and leave that discussion for another day.
Tudor calls this Flamingo Blue and admits in its official press release that, “You already know flamingos aren’t blue. Tudor does, too, but if you were to describe ‘flamingo blue’ to someone, chances are you would come up with this very tone of turquoise, so distinctive of the tropical waters flamingos are known to love.” It comes a year after the brand launched the same watch with a pink dial — a popular watch we explained hands-on here. Sadly, a year after its launch, that watch is still listed for a markup of at least 50% over its recommended retail price, even though there are plenty of them on sale at any given moment. Maybe Tudor should just pump out a few thousand pink dials and offer to swap them out on any other Black Bay Chrono for $500 and put these flippers out of their misery. What did I say about that can?
The watch built around this dial remains unchanged: The 41mm-wide case is still rather beefy at 14.44mm thick, partly due to the high, 7.23mm thickness of the Breitling B01-derived MT5813 movement and impressive 200m water-resistance rating. On the plus side, this high-performing and heavily Tudor-modified movement offers an extensive 70-hour power reserve, is a COSC-certified chronometer, and it features variable inertia balance (you can easily pay five to 20 times as much for luxury watches from Switzerland without this feature) and a non-magnetic silicon balance spring. In fact, Tudor claims to test these watches not to COSC’s -4/+6 seconds’ variation but a more stringent -2/+4 seconds — which isn’t too far from Rolex’s world-class -2/+2 tolerance. That’s one heck of a spec sheet for a chronograph movement well under $10,000. Also, kudos to Tudor for still mentioning the MT5813’s Breitling origins in the press release.
The Tudor Black Bay Chrono Flamingo Blue watch is paired with a five-link bracelet — it is clearly Jubilee-inspired, but the Rolex equivalent has links that are flat near the wrist, whereas on Tudor’s version, the links are elongated ovals. A neat touch, though maybe not the best match to a chunky watch head with such pronounced and vertical case profiles in polished stainless steel. The brand’s T-fit rapid adjustment clasp with 8 millimeters of travel ensures that this bracelet will be up there among the more comfortable out there. To further prove that Tudor is not holding back on features, the Black Bay Chrono comes with a 5-year warranty that is transferable and is not dependent on mandatory maintenance checks within that period.
Looks like we can expect a new, vibrant-colored Tudor Black Bay Chrono every year — which, if true, would be an awesome development. We at aBlogtoWatch have long championed colorful dials, since way back when “blue” was considered to be the only option on most all luxury watches. Then came green, for a short while, and then things opened up, leading us to where we are now. Sadly, along with new colors came new ideas on desirability and “investing,” but, hopefully, we will be past that soon. Tudor claimed that last year’s pink version will be a one-time production run — fortunately, we are yet to find that claim about this new Tudor Flamingo Blue watch. And the pink version is still listed on the website with a price under a new product category of “Daring Watches.” So, there is hope.
The Tudor Black Bay Chrono Flamingo Blue watch is priced at $5,875 USD. You can learn more at the brand’s website.
