0024watchworld.com

Sure you can fire up a timezone app on your smartphone, but so much easier simply to have the time difference displayed on your watch. These are great, functional complications, and often look superb too. I was reminded just how smart this week at an event with Hamilton watches, in which the brand’s new 2012 watches were on show. There are some nice pieces coming up, but what really caught my eye was this humungous GMT Count-Down, a complicated 48mm watch from the early 1970s that’s rippling with period cool. Buttons everywhere, hands everywhere, timezones everywhere, and the famous Chrono-matic movement inside (Calibre 12, I’m told).

That was then, and this is now. The revamping and expansion of the IWC aviation watch offering includes a very smart black/white world timer in its classic range.

The most exciting world timer coming up that I know of, however, is from British high-flyers Bremont, the World Timer ALT1-WT, a civilian version of the smashing C-17 Globemaster that is only made for the military. That’ll also be launching at BaselWorld, which is only a little over a month away.

Meanwhile, there are plenty of watches around with a smart GMT hand to give you a second time zone on your watch. News just in from Breitling is the new Chronomat GMT. I like the 24-hour time display, but what's really interesting about this watch is the fact that it's been downsized to (a still big) 44mm - another trend among watch brands at the moment reflecting both the influenced of the slim-wristed Asian market and the fact that, just perhaps, the market as a whole is reassessing just how big a big watch should be. No bad thing in my book.