Words: Josh Lee
Since the middle of the 20th century, Tudor has been the official supplier of dive watches to the French Navy. The Pelagos FXD model, which launched in 2021 and was seen as a modern-day tribute to that long-standing horological alliance, has been given a fresh spin recently, with the line broadened to ensure that there’s also something suitable for those in the French Naval Aviation. To this end, the latest iteration, labelled the Pelagos FXD GMT ‘Zulu Time’, spreads its readings across three time zones. There’s local time, indicated by the snowflake hand. There’s Zulu time, the military term for Universal Time Coordinated (‘Its standardised use in global aviation prevents confusion in communications between nations and time zones,’ states Tudor), which is recorded via an orange hand that does a lap of the dial every 24 hours. And a third time zone can be seen via a combination of the orange hand with the lumed 24-hour bi-directional titanium bezel – we quite like the beige details which, when paired with the flight-suit-green fabric strap, has an all-action, throwback look.
Holding it all together is a 42mm satin-brushed grade-II titanium case with fixed strap bars (hence ‘FXD’), and the caseback features the French Naval Aviation logo and ‘M.N.24’, meaning Marine Nationale 2024, a direct reference to the house’s original M.N. engravings found in the 1970s and 1980s. When taking downtime from sky-bound adventures, you’ll be able to put the watch aside for 65 hours and return to it still ticking.
Tudor Pelagos FXD GMT ‘Zulu Time’, £4,000, tudorwatch.com
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