Introducing The Affordable TAG Heuer Carrera Year Of The Tiger Watch

This year, TAG Heuer joins in the Chinese Zodiac spirit and releases the limited edition Carrera Year of the Tiger watch. While certain brands regularly release watches in honor of the Chinese New Year, this is a bit out of the norm for TAG Heuer. However, this LVMH brand releases a spectacular piece that is discreet and alluring on the dial side and bold and beautiful on the reverse side. The only problem: I wish this were a reversible watch.

Crafted in stainless steel, the 41 mm Carrera Year of the Tiger watch case encircles a dial made in two-tone blues that mimic the tiger’s stripes. The watch offers day and date indication as well as hours, minutes and seconds (with green luminous hour and minute hands that glow in the dark) and uses 18-karat gold-plated  stick markers to keep the dial clean so that only the tiger’s stripes make a statement. The lighter blue stripes are created with a brushed metal that is coated with blue PVD treatment and the darker stripes are painted textured metal.

The back of the watch, for big-cat-loving me,  is even more alluring. Thanks to a transparent sapphire case back, the automatic movement is visible, and a beautiful blue/black striped tiger paws his way across the sapphire crystal caseback in all his magnificence.

The watch is powered by the brand’s Caliber 5 automatic movement on an ETA base. It beats at 28,800 vibrations per hour and offers 38 hours of power reserve. The watch is finished with a blue leather strap with gold-color stitching.  Other than the fact that this watch is not reversible, the only down side is that it is being built in a limited edition of just 300 pieces. The up side: each one retails for  cool $3,750.