It’s time for retro-plastic watch mania again—or, at least, it is if you’re based in one of just seven cities worldwide, or are prepared to move very fast online.
Dropping next week is the reborn TAG Heuer Formula 1, the buoyantly colorful, plastic-cased sports watch that revitalized the Swiss maker in the 1980s, and has become a collector favorite in recent years.
Those original F1s sold in their millions, but this revival is geared specifically to the modern hype-world fetishes of collectability, rarity and collabs. In a partnership with the hipster-approved fashion/lifestyle brand Kith, just under 5,000 watches will be available in total, spread across 10 hard-to-get limited editions. Seven of these will only be available from Kith’s boutiques (five in North America, one in Japan and one in France) and website. The entire collection will be displayed in the two brands’ Miami stores from Thursday, and go on sale on Monday.
This, of course, follows the major frenzy—and certifiable cultural moment—created by Swatch two years ago with its bioplastic MoonSwatch tie-up with Omega (the latest, Snoopy-adorned version of which dropped just last month). Since then, the possibility of TAG Heuer following suit with its own famously colorful plastic favorite has been keenly anticipated.
After all, the Formula 1, which appeared in 1986, was in some ways seen as the brand’s answer (though of a notably higher spec) to the original Swatch, the cheap, plastic, battery-powered timepiece that had revolutionized the market three years earlier.
The Swatch’s soaraway success helped pave the way for Switzerland’s return as a watchmaking superpower, after a decade-long pummeling by cut-price Japanese watches and economic shocks. Heuer, as it was then known, had been one of the major victims of that crisis: once a family-owned specialist in chronographs associated with the glamorous world of motor sports and Grand Prix racing, it was near bankruptcy when it was sold to Piaget, another Swiss firm, in 1982.
Piaget’s ownership was brief and mercurial, but it included the development of a fun, inexpensive and vibrantly post-modern take on the dive watch, noticeably influenced by Swatch’s success. Though it had a metal core, the case exterior and uni-directional rotating bezel (a dive watch trope) were made from a thermoplastic polymer reinforced with fiberglass, known as Arnite, whose durability and fire-retardant qualities made it more commonly used for electrical devices like fuse boxes and circuit breakers. It was to be created in a panoply of color combinations, on basic plastic straps.
In fact, it would be the first watch to bear the brand’s new name, “TAG Heuer”, after the Piaget family sold it to Techniques d’Avant Garde (TAG), a firm with interests in motor sport, aviation and hospitality, founded by Saudi businessman (and reputed arms dealer) Akram Ojjeh.
TAG’s heavy involvement with Formula 1—including co-ownership of McLaren—along with the Ojjeh family’s determination to break into the realm of European luxury brands, made Heuer, with its pit-lane credentials, an attractive prospect; and it followed that its funky new watch, now market-ready, should be audaciously named after the world’s biggest motorsport. Produced until 1990 in its original format, over three million watches were sold.
“It was a major moment for the rebirth of the brand,” says Nicholas Biebuyck, TAG Heuer’s heritage director. “The 1990s would be a period of monumental brand building, and the Formula 1, along with dive watches, were the foundations that the house of TAG Heuer would be built on.”
According to TAG Heuer, the return of the plastic Formula 1 has been in the planning since before the MoonSwatch’s success, though the latter has surely laid some useful groundwork.
The Formula 1’s vintage market, Biebuyck says, has soared in the past couple of years. Of the 37 colorways originally produced, examples in good condition can reach around $700 or $800, though the most desirable—such as the red/yellow/green/blue “Ukyo Katayama” made for only one year when the Japanese F1 driver was driving for Larousse in 1992—can reach $2,000.
The new versions, all of them battery-powered with bezels in Arnite thermoplastic and cases either in Arnite or stainless steel, not only replicate the 35 mm case sizing of the 1986 range, but in fact drew on the actual molding used back then, after a project to digitize TAG Heuer’s development records led to the uncovering of the old schematics and supplier records, according to Biebuyck. The original supplier, still in business today, had retained the mold used.
Concessions to modernity include sapphire crystal instead of plastic for the dial covering on these new models, and high-grade rubber straps instead of the plastic of old. The range includes five versions with stainless steel cases (two of which have black PVD coatings to match their bezels), and five featuring cases in the original Arnite, in fun colorways designed in partnership with New York-based Kith.
Ronnie Fieg, Kith’s founder and an influential figure in today’s streetwear and sneaker world, is also a passionate collector of vintage TAG Heuer Formula 1s. The all-plastic versions, plus two steel versions with bright blue and green bezels respectively, are exclusive to Kith—find them in New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Toronto, Hawaii, Tokyo and Paris, or on its website.
But expect to move fast, because if the MoonSwatch is any precedent, the scalpers will move faster—notwithstanding the fact that at $1,350, the new Formula 1s are five times the price of a MoonSwatch.
But they are rare: there are only 250 examples each of the Kith exclusive all-Arnite models, and 350 of the two steel Kith exclusives. The two models with black-coated steel cases, also with green or blue bezels and straps, are exclusive to TAG Heuer stores (and will not be online), and limited to 825 pieces each.
Finally, the version with a stainless steel case and bracelet, and black bezel, is shared between both brands, and limited to 1,350 pieces. All models feature quartz movements and 200-meter water resistance, just as the originals did. There is also, according to TAG Heuer’s press release, a boxed set featuring all ten watches, though the brand has yet to confirm how and where it is available.
As well as featuring Kith’s “Just Us” slogan on the dial, the watches are also co-branded, with “Kith” replacing “TAG” in the watchmaker’s logo—the first time TAG Heuer has ever co-branded a watch, and reflective of the company’s keenness to speak to the Gen Z consumers that are meat and drink to brands like Kith.
Indeed, modern TAG Heuer, owned by LVMH, the luxury conglomerate, since 1999, has been going through its own series of rebirths in recent years. These have included the development of its high-end Connected smartwatch; the introduction of lab-grown diamonds for high-end models; attempts (ongoing, but as yet unsuccessful) to revolutionize hairspring production with nano-technology; a recent reintroduction of its long-dormant eyewear business; the introduction, with Citizen’s help, of solar-powered models; and multiple changes in both management, product and pricing strategy.
TAG's latest CEO, Julien Tornare, took over in January (from Frederic Arnault, son of LVMH chairman and world’s richest man, Bernard Arnault), against the background of a seven percent slide in sales, according to Morgan Stanley.
However, recent redesigns under Arnault’s leadership of its core Carrera and Aquatimer collections have been well received, leaving the modern-day Formula 1 line, which continues to be the brand’s entry point with battery-powered watches priced between $1,450-$3,800, sorely in need of a similar dusting down.
Whether the return, in limited measure, of the old-school Formula 1 opens the door for a continuing line of plastic-cased watches, in the vein of the MoonSwatch, remains to be seen, but is unlikely; the sustainability commitments of modern luxury brands would seem to mitigate against it, unless TAG Heuer can find a material to work with similar to Swatch’s bioplastic.
However, for a brand that initially dangled its Connected smart watch as a gateway product that could later be exchanged for a mechanical watch (a strategy that was discontinued), the need to build emotional connections with younger buyers remains a continuing priority. Accordingly, it’s expected that the retro Formula 1, playing firmly to 1980s and 1990s style associations that have plenty of currency in today’s fashion world (even if the petrolhead name does not) will lead the way for a wider overhauling of the range.
“It’s the beginning of a story for the reimagining of the Formula 1,” says Biebuyck. “We don’t want to remanufacture old watches into the core collection, we want something that is fully modern and up to date. But this is a chance for everyone to reflect on what the Formula 1 has historically stood for, and return to that sense that the people who created these objects have an understanding of that and want to push it forward.”
