Thoughts on the new Vacheron 222 in steel?

"Vacheron Constantin now has a Historiques 222 in steel. It has the same great dimensions (37mm by 7.95mm), the same movement, and the same vintage touches, now in more casual and affordable stainless steel, for $32,000. And yes, it’s awesome."

Thoughts? I think it looks fantastic. Maybe we're generally towards the end of the integrated bracelet watch craze though (at least grey market prices are dropping massively). Love the colour they've gone with on the dial.

https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/introducing-vacheron-constantin-222-steel



The Movement

Caliber: Caliber 2455/2
Functions: Hours, minutes, date
Diameter: 26.2mm
Thickness: 3.6mm
Power Reserve: 40 hours of power reserve
Winding: Automatic
Frequency: 28,800 vibrations per hour
Jewels: 27
Chronometer Certified: No
Additional Details: Hallmark of Geneva certified timepiece

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Pricing & Availability

Price: $32,000
Availability: Immediately
Limited Edition: No, but exclusive to Vacheron Constantin boutiques.

Incredibly expensive. And it just misses something that the gold version has

I think it is a really nice watch. I might pay $5k for it. The reality is that new watches just simply price themselves out of everywhere except the absolutely brand new watch market, where they sure make some money.

Yeah interesting take, I think I recall reading in a few places that Vacheron had had a very good growth in the past few years, at least financially.

https://revolutionwatch.com/vacheron-constantin-morgan-stanley-luxe-consult-billionaire/

Agree that somehow even though it's the exact same watch, I really quite like the yellow gold model, but the steel is nice yet not stunning. Agreed that breguet seems a bit vague. I'd suggest there are a lot of brands far more lost than vacheron at least... AP have turned themselves into a 1-trick pony, even Omega I think massively cheapens their brand by having a million and one limited editions of all their most popular watches, plus some kinda average watches on the cheap end, I mean Omega is always going to play second fiddle to Rolex with this approach (which seems to be where they're happy to I guess). Where are ulysses nardin, blancpain, glashutte original going as brands? I'm not a huge fan of them but Breitling and Tag Heuer seem to at least have fairly compelling brand vision and direction!