I?ll admit to feeling chuffed that on Ep. 51 of The Worn & Wound Podcast,  Zach, Ilya and I predicted that fauxtina would soon move beyond aged lume into illusions of poetically degraded paints, metals, leathers, and more. While I thought Jean-Claude Biver?arguably today?s master of materials manipulation?would continue to trail-blaze via Zenith, Longines unexpectedly leapt to the front of the fauxtina trend at Baselworld 2018 with the Military Watch.Skipping lume all together, Longines has scattered flecks of black paint across the cream-colored dial to imitate patina. I can?t think of a more direct and inexpensive way to give a modern watch the appearance of age, but that doesn?t mean it was easy to do well. There?s surprisingly high skill involved when trying to get splattered paint to look genuinely random, let alone appear as subtle patina on a tiny watch face. Each Military dial sports a unique pattern, and the proportions, color value, and distribution of the flecks makes for a highly convincing illusion.
Behind the antiqued dial is Longines? impressive L888 automatic movement, a genuine no-date machine with a 64-hour power reserve. Blue-steeled pear-shaped hands, a modest sans-serif numerical font, and a railroad track minute scale complete the dial?s vintage look. Meanwhile, the boxed sapphire crystal?arguably itself a faux-aged item as it mimics vintage acrylic crystals?is a perfect complement to the raised polished bezel and the brushed lugs and sid...