Why Did TAG Heuer Recreate a Vintage Abercrombie & Fitch Watch?

Your favorite mall brand from high school once sold some of the coolest chronographs around.

Published August 8, 2024

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TAG Heuer and Hodinkee are continuing their hot streak.

After previously teaming up on reimaginings of two iconic vintage Heuer Carrera watches in the Skipper and Dato — both of which have since been retweaked and reissued by TAG Heuer as models in its permanent catalog — the two brands have teamed up to bring back another classic chronograph.

But this time, the reborn watch wasn’t inspired by a vintage Heuer. Instead, it’s a reimagining of a vintage watch from … checks notes … Abercrombie & Fitch?

TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Seafarer × Hodinkee

$7,950 at Hodinkee

Wait, Abercrombie & Fitch made watches?

When you hear the name “Abercrombie & Fitch,” you probably think of your local mall in high school and the shirtless male models and suffocating amounts of bro cologne that dominated the brand’s image from the ’90s through most of this century.

More recently, Abercrombie has reinvented itself by toning down its sexuality and catering to a slightly older and more pragmatic customer, becoming something of a more budget-minded J.Crew. But this isn’t the first time Abercrombie has reinvented itself.

A century ago, A&F was a leading outfitter of high-end outdoor goods, catering to globetrotting adventurers, hunters and fishermen. The brand sold everything from tents to rifles, but perhaps its most relevant product category, at least to collectors today, was its watches.

vintage abercrombie watch on a mans wrist — The first watch with a tide indicator, the Solunar, was commissioned from Heuer by Abercrombie & Fitch.

Thanks to a partnership forged by then-Abercrombie president Walter Haynes and the Heuer family, Heuer began producing watches for A&F beginning in the 1940s. These watches were made by Heuer in Switzerland but were branded as Abercrombie & Fitch watches and were sold exclusively by the New York retailer.

A few years into the relationship, Haynes tasked Heuer with creating a watch capable of tracking the tides — an important consideration for outdoor sportsmen of the day. In 1949, Heuer produced the Solunar for Abercrombie & Fitch as the world’s first watch with a permanent tide indicator.

The watch wasn’t a strong seller, but in the 1950s, the complication made its way into a watch that would become A&F’s most iconic model. That watch was the Seafarer. It combined a tide indicator with a chronograph — including a regatta timer — in a colorful and complicated package that was undeniably good-looking.

vintage abercrombie and fitch watch on wrist — The Abercrombie & Fitch Seafarer ref. 2446C, seen here, provided the template for the modern reboot.

Abercrombie & Fitch sold various versions of the Seafarer until the 1970s, and in recent years, the watches have become a hot commodity among vintage collectors thanks to their unique story, rare complications and colorful dials. Vintage expert Eric Wind has had several examples pop up for sale at his popular Wind Vintage store over the years, helping to raise the model’s profile immensely.

The New Seafarer

For their modern reboot, TAG Heuer and Hodinkee used a 1968 Abercrombie Seafarer reference, ref. 2446C, recreating the vintage watch’s black, white, dark blue and sky blue color scheme and general aesthetic.

Hodinkee was able to convince TAG to bring back the tide indicator for the watch, a feat that required the development of a new in-house movement, the Heuer Cal. TH20-13, which is effectively a modified Heuer 02 Calibre.

tag heuer watch movement seen through a display caseback — TAG Heuer had to develop a brand-new tide indicator complication for the watch’s movement.

The tide indicator is actuated via a pusher on the lefthand side of the case, like on the original, with the tides being indicated by the colorful subdial at 9 o’clock that looks nearly identical to the one on the vintage reference.

The colorful 3 o’clock subdial is a 30-minute chronograph register split into yacht timer segments and, again, is a near-copy of the original. The six o’clock register switches things up, however, as it’s now a running seconds display instead of a 12-hour chronograph counter.

The case has also been updated. Hodinkee wanted the watch to have one foot in Heuer’s past and another in TAG Heuer’s future, so the brand’s modern 42mm Carrera “Glassbox” case was selected.

tag heuer watch on a pile of ropes — The new watch does a great job of capturing the colorful vibe of vintage Seafarers.

This meant eschewing the rotating external bezel of the ref. 2446C, but the result is a cleaner look in line with TAG’s other recent vintage-inspired Carreras, which I have to say, are among the best-looking watches produced by anyone at this moment.

The branding was also kept modern for this new release. TAG Heuer appears on the dial instead of Heuer (this is consistent with the brand’s new direction of leaving the Heuer branding in the past), and the word “Seafarer” was moved from 12 o’clock to inside the six o’clock register. The dial also receives “Carrera” branding, and there also isn’t any Abercrombie & Fitch branding anywhere on the watch, as the apparel brand was not involved in the collaboration.

tag heuer watch worn by a man on a boat — Like its ancestor, the new Seafarer is perfectly at home on the water.

Rounding out the specs of this vintage-inspired stunner, we’ve got 100m of water resistance, an 80-hour power reserve, a thickness of 14.4mm, a lug-to-lug measurement of 48.6mm, and a black rubber strap with a textile pattern.

Although it’s not officially confirmed, I suspect we’ll see a Hodinkee-less, non-limited TAG Heuer Seafarer somewhere down the line, mimicking the release pattern we saw with the Skipper and Dato. TAG’s heritage director, Nicholas Biebuyck, seemed to hint as much in a statement.

“Given that it was a US retailer (Abercrombie & Fitch) who launched the Seafarer originally, it made perfect sense to debut this piece with our great friends at Hodinkee for our limited edition together,” Biebuyck said.

968 examples of the new Seafarer will be produced, a nod to the 1968 release year of the ref. 2446C. 125 of those will be sold at the Hodinkee Shop, with TAG Heuer’s boutiques and authorized dealers handling the rest. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to pick one up at your local Abercrombie & Fitch store.