The One-Two Gosling punch

You have to love Ryan Gosling. He can dance, he can sing, he can act, he’s got that cool and quiet demeanor that sometimes verges on a dry sense of humor. But most of all, he’s doesn’t collect ambassadorships, endorsements and lucrative favors from brands. The man is definitely selective. Yet he seems to have found a match with TAG Heuer. In 2021, he became the brand’s global ambassador and the face of the TAG Heuer Carrera collection.

Recipe
Oddly enough, when an actor signs a deal with a watch company, he almost never wears his watches on film, because art precedes commerce and the two might interfere. So maybe the latest deal between TAG Heuer and Netflix was designed to make the Canadian actor’s life easier. Or maybe to deliver a one-two punch with Gosling wearing the glove. Or most probably because the action-packed movie The Gray Man has just what it takes of car chases, epic bouts and offbeat humor to fit TAG Heuer’s mantra “Don’t crack under pressure”. 

Not so gray
Despite the title, there’s nothing gray about Gosling’s character except his name. Nor is there about the movie. It’s all colors, and most of it is red, yellow and orange like muzzle flash. Or streetcars crashing into high street windows. Or grenades dropped in military airplane’s cargo bay for that matter. That’s what directors Joe and Anthony Russo decided it would take, if that, to “locate and destroy” agent Sierra Six. The Russo Brothers have become famous for directing the last two episodes of the Avengers saga, as well as several other Marvel Comics Universe feature films. So expect a lot of pow, as this is Netflix’s biggest-ever production.

The star
As for the Carrera Date itself, it benefited from a discreet yet thorough overhaul the year the partnership was signed. The steel case measures 39mm in diameter and 11.5 to the hilt. That is a modest size within the collection, where sportiness usually rhymes with heftier pieces. But then again, the Carrera has always been about a certain understated elegance. The version Gosling wears in the movie is one of several colors available, with a silver-toned dial whose surface is sunray-brushed. The matt background allows the polished hands to stand out, all the more so as they’re filled with Super-LumiNova®. Along with the 1960s vintage applied indices, they provide the Carrera Date with impeccable readability and style.

Chasing the light 

Times are changing for solar-powered timepieces. They’re moving upscale with new technological features that make them more reliable and efficient. Most important of all is the fact that the latest innovation in micro-solar cells gave complete design freedom to TAG Heuer. Once, the Aquaracer Professional 200 Solargraph would have been constrained by poor surface to charging power ratio, and would have forced the dial to look… like solar cells. Which is not a satisfactory solution for a high-end brand like TAG Heuer. Now, joint research with movement manufacturer La Joux-Perret, itself a subsidiary of Japanese quartz movement behemoth Citizen, brings about new and better abilities. This results is the Aquaracer Professional 200 Solargraph looking like any other Aquaracer might have. The dial in particular has the same ribbed pattern as the rest of the collection. Except its recesses open on the underlying surface, which turns photons into electrons.

Solar and polar
That is not to say that the Aquaracer Professional 200 Solargraph looks like just any Aquaracer. It retains the 40mm angular bezel, the crown guards, the full caseback, the water resistance to 200 meters, the six-month power reserve and every design attribute that defines the collection. In addition, this series has been crafted out of black materials: black DLC steel, black carbon fiber bezel, black rubber strap. Touches of white for contrast give a diver’s watch rhythm to the dial and bezel markings, while hints of Polar Blue can be found on the minute track and, more visibly, the seconds hand.

Chasing the deep

As part of the recent revamp of the entire Aquaracer collection, TAG Heuer introduces the new iteration of its deep-dive, high performance Superdiver. Now in its third generation in nearly 40 years, the Superdiver stands out from the rest of the Aquaracer Professionals by a lightweight yet uber-resistant construction. It’s certified to sustain a 100 bar underwater pressure, or 1,000 meters. But the requirements of the diver’s watch official norm, ISO 6425, states that it should go 25% beyond that. In order to achieve structural integrity at theses depths and not strain the arm’s muscles, it’s made of titanium, bracelet included, with the exception of the one-way, two-tone bezel, crafted out of ceramics. As a result, this hefty piece, which measures 45mm in diameter and a little over 15mm in thickness, doesn’t weigh down the professional (and aspiring) divers it’s been designed for. Legibility rests on the high contrast between black dial and orange and white hands.

Engine bay
The Superdiver opens a new era in terms of movement. For the first time, TAG Heuer partnered with movement manufacturer Kenissi to source automatic Caliber TH30-00. It’s proved to be reliable, accurate and extremely resistant to adverse conditions. It offers a week-end proof, 70-hour power reserve and is COSC-certified. But since this is a week-end type of watch, let’s rather say it has more than half a workweek’s worth of autonomy. TAG Heuer relies on the movement’s ability to maintain chronometric performance even at the lowest stages of winding.