TVG – The Versatile Gent

Live The Dream By Joining The Versatile Gent Team

For those of you who haven’t heard, The Versatile Gent recently joined forces with Boss Hunting to create Luxity Media, an Australian men’s lifestyle network (you can read about it here) and our first point of call is increasing the amount of content published on TVG.

I have enjoyed an eventful last six years attending incredible events, driving amazing cars and travelling the world but now it’s time for me to step back and focus on growing our publications through engaging content, exciting partnerships and developing products via the BHApproved.com store. This means there are going to be plenty of opportunities to represent and chronicle the TVG lifestyle with Luxity Media.

Enroute to The Peninsula Tokyo in their Rolls-Royce Phantom.

Our goal in the new financial year is to create useful content for our TVG readers in the form of guides, tips and reviews and you will be the responsible for spearheading this direction. I will also be sharing more opinion pieces and will welcome anyone with interesting opinion pieces they may see fit for the audience.

For immediate start, we’re looking for someone to join the team at our Sydney office, part-time in an Editorial role. You’ll be working alongside myself and our Editorial head to help craft daily content pieces for The Versatile Gent.

The core of this paid role will be writing, so you will need to be a proficient wordsmith, however, it will also include Social Media Management and some simple SEO. Candidates with experience in these fields would be preferred, as would anyone who can shoot images and video.

To say this is a dream job is an understatement, you’ll be getting paid to do what I did, for free, for so many years. Attending and covering events, going on trips and writing and sharing content that tens of thousands of people read every month. You’ll work in a relaxed and immensely flexible environment with the Luxity team, with scope to join the team full time.

To get you excited about what’s on offer, here is a small list of things I’ve been invited to lately and haven’t been able to attend and would love to have someone cover for the website.

Bentley GT Continental launch in Austrian Alps
McLaren private track day
Harley-Davidson South Coast media ride
Club Med trip to Sicily
More than 10 whisky tastings
Countless dinners
Drive days galore

If you’re passionate about TVG and think you’re the right person for the role please email me personally at james (@) luxity.com.au with a cover letter explaining why, plus any additional information you think might help you secure the role (creative outlets, writing examples etc).

Also, if you’re interested in contributing anything at all, please touch base! And if you have any ideas, opinions or feedback I’d love to hear them. Thanks for supporting TVG thus far!

Regards,

James Want

One Watch, Sixteen Masters

On July 5th, Christies released the timepieces that will make up their “Only Watch” charity auction for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) research. Amongst the 49 horological masterpieces on offer, there is a watch that truly is a piece of history. Owning it usually comes a very high price, and I’m not talking about money. The watch I’d be buying from the 2017 lot would be the The WOSTEP Watch Reference 100.

The Watchmakers of Switzerland Training and Educational Program is located in Neuchâtel, Switzerland and is one of, if not the most, prestigious international watchmaking schools. If you’re one of the lucky few students who gets through the rigorous selection process, the 3,200-hour course, which spans 2 years, then they will train you from zero to master. Should you pass all your exams, you’ll be bestowed with a gift, the watch you created with your own blood, sweat, and tears. If you spot a WOSTEP school watch, running their base calibre W-01, you can be sure its owner is an alum of the prestigious school.

Well, you can be sure of that only up until November 11th when this WOSTEP Watch goes under the hammer. Not only will this be the first ever WOSTEP watch available for purchase by the public, it has an added bonus – it is signed by 16 elite watchmakers from around the world. To help highlight just how significant these signatures are, here are some of the more notable of the group: Greubel Forsey’s co-founder Stephen Forsey, Grönefeld Timepieces’ founders Bart and Tim Grönefeld, TAG Heuer’s complications specialist Marko Makinen, WOSTEP’s Director Maarten Pieters, Speake-Marin’s founder Peter Speake-Marin, and Voutilainen’s founder Kari Voutilainen. If these names don’t mean anything to you, google away and dive into the rabbit hole that is haute horology. In fact, you can find most of these masters’ watches in the Only Watch auction itself! If you’re thinking about what to bid for this watch, just keep in mind that only other way to get it is by paying just shy of $60,000 in tuition and board, and two years of extreme hard work!

Standard Unitas 6498 movement (left) and hand-finished WOSTEP Only Watch movement (right).

On a final note, if you’re wondering why such esteemed watchmakers would give away their prized possessions for free, please take a moment to read about DMD and the 1 in 3500 people whose muscles irreversibly deteriorate and breakdown. If, like these watchmakers, you’re moved by the impact it has on the lives of those have DMD, you can donate locally to Muscular Dystrophy Australia (as the Only Watch auction profits only go towards funding research in Monaco).

You can follow Adam’s horological hypothesis’ on Instagram @watchrally.

Image sources: Only Watch, WOSTEP and Quill & Pad.

SEIKO Prospex World Time Giveaway Winners Announced

TVG teamed up with SEIKO Watches Australia to give our readers the chance to take home one of three Seiko Prospex World Time watches valued at $950. All entrants had to do was tell us ‘What adventure the Seiko Prospex World Time would accompany you on?’

We had a great response to the competition overall with a variety of entries. Unfortunately, only three of you could take home the handsome Seiko watch. Check out the three lucky winners below as chosen by Seiko.

Bill Pieri

I own three Seiko 5’s, two vintage and a recent Sports 40mm military with a NATO strap. All are treasured in my collection as I am a Seiko fan. This watch would be the perfect accompaniment for my trip to the Greek Islands in August. In addition to the time zone function, staring at its precision and aesthetics would be the perfect meditation, as I’m sure to be nagged by my wife at some stage.

Bryan McManus

They say you can judge a man’s character on 2 things, one, how he treats a waiter, and two, his shoes. I’ve always believed there was a third, his watch. A watch should be a reflection of the person, the subtlety and precision melded painstakingly to appear effortless and classic. It should complement the person as much as their personality compliments the watch.

The Seiko Prospex World Time was never built to live in your top drawer, and it would never reside long in mine. A watch for every day, every adventure, and one that would be for every generation. From the lazy Sundays spent barbequing with family, to the weeks spent exploring the Ceynotes in Mexico, to the hours spent on the wards or in theatre at work, the Seiko Prospex is the watch I’d want on my wrist to accompany me on my journey of a lifetime.

Max Power

Adventure is my middle name, but there’s one adventure I really need help on… (VIDEO LINK)

A final thanks to Seiko Australia and everyone who entered. Will the winners please contact us via our Facebook page to arrange delivery of their prizes!

The Versatile Gent: 10 Most Popular Articles of All Time

Yesterday I was showing an SEO specialist TVG’s analytics and we pulled up our Content drill down since the website began. We were both amazed at the amount of traffic some of our articles have had. Interestingly, it was also great to find out that a handful of our most useful articles have been some of the best performing. I know not all 21,000 of you have been with us from the start and there’s great articles you may have missed, so I thought I’d compile a list of The Versatile Gent: 10 most popular articles of all time (organic content only!)

10. 5 Worthy Watches Under $500: Our first of three watch articles to feature on this list. Sub $500 is a popular price point. Check out our favourites.

9. Entourage Movie Release Date Confirmed: I knew this was going to get a lot of clicks but it did over 2000 in the first hour on the Facebook page and has over 4,000 shares on the article. It’s clear people are frothing to Vinnie and boys in this film.

8. Bond and Knight Wallet for The Versatile Gent: Once upon a time we collaborated with our friends at Bond and Knight selling a TVG stamped and personally monogrammed wallet.

7. Subaru BRZ STI: The Subaru BRZ and Toyota 86 caused quite a stir when they arrived. This article went up within the first month of our website being live. It’s crazy to think it’s still drawing so much traffic.

6. Superb Watch Choices for $1500: We asked our friend Felix to produce a piece outlining three of his favourite watches around the $1500 mark. Readers have been enjoying it for years.

5. The Ring House – Karuizawa Japan: One day we were having a look through analytics and discovered an immense spike in traffic. Turns out this article had been dropped into Reddit and was upvoted thousands of times.

4. Ferrari F12 Berlinetta: I fell in love with this car the moment I saw it, incidentally I was also very quick to get my article up about it. Now TVG ranks superbly for the word ‘Ferrari’, mostly due to this article.

3. 11 Quality Shoe Brands You Need to Know: Some time ago I got an email from a representative at Crockett & Jones telling me about a significant amount of traffic coming to them via our website. Then just the other day Christian Kimber said to me ‘Your website has driven so much traffic to my site, I can’t believe it’. When I logged into our analytics and saw that this article had been visited over 31,000 times since July last year I understood why. It’s so good to see that these types of posts which I spent hours and hours compiling are still valued by readers around the world.

2. Jay-Z and Beyonce Eyeing $85 Million Mansion in Beverly Hills: I’ve got to hand this one to KR who sent me the link from New York. I never could have imagined just how popular this was going to be. It’s been on the website for about 7 weeks and has had 4,400 shares on site and over 50,000 page views.

1. Great Men’s Watches Under $1000: A lot of men don’t want to spend $5,000 plus on a watch and I completely understand that. There’s tonnes of garbage on the market under $1000 but there’s also plenty of great buys – granted this list features online prices only (webshops and forums, not boutique) and a number have risen so please forgive me. This article has loaded over 70,000 times, and I hope, has pointed pointed readers in the right direction when looking to buy a watch.

The Images above do not belong to TVG. If you have any qualms with their use please contact me and I’ll credit them or remove them. Feature Image Source

TVG’s ‘Best of Tumblr’ – Edition 1

We’re kicking of a new series of content this year with TVG’s ‘Best of Tumblr’ series, a weekly post of our favourite pictures and inspirations from our very own Tumblr dashboard. Here’s the first instalment! Happy 2014 gents.

*These images were sourced from Tumblr and are copyright to their respective owners.

TVG Summer Internship

Gents we need your help!

The Versatile Gent is growing at a pace Tom and I cannot keep up with and we need a hand. We’re looking for an intern to assist us with a range of tasks including:

–       Researching
–       Writing
–       Publishing
–       Social Media
–       Client Relations
–       Public Relations

Basically we’re looking for a solid all rounder to help us across all aspects of our business. This person will need to be organized, resourceful, entrepreneurial and most importantly passionate – about TVG and the digital space. Skills that will get you across the line include:

–       WordPress/Web Development
–       Photography
–       Adobe Suite
–       Writing

Drop us a line at [email protected] if you think you’re the right person for the job and tell us what you’d bring to the table in ONE paragraph. (Supported with a one-page resume). The successful applicant will be welcomed with a TVG tie, email address, whisky, digital wisdom and ongoing benefits including but not limited to dinners, event invitations, copious menswear and watch chat as well as a couple of gentlemanly friends.

**The awesome feature image is by a chap named Dave Farem and is most certainly not an indication of what your workspace will look like or what ours looks like for that matter!

TVG in Canada: On the streets of Montreal

As you may have gathered TVG has spent the last four days in Montreal as guests of Canadian Tourism. For Australian’s Canada has always been a destination for skiing but we were promised quite a different experience in two of the country’s most vibrant cities, Montreal and Quebec City.

It came as quite a surprise, that between the two of us we didn’t have a single friend who had visited Montreal, especially when it’s a 45-minute flight from New York City. So why hasn’t anyone visited the ‘European’ city of Canada that is cheaper, friendlier, more vibrant, as aesthetically pleasing and more rewarding than the majority of Europe? Well we hope we can fix that because the city of Montreal is nothing short of excellent.

Montreal is quite a trip from Australia, 14 hours to Vancouver with a further 6 hours after the stop. Luckily we arrived at 5pm so after a few quick drinks and a boogie at some of the cities hippest nightspots jet lag was almost non-existent. We stayed at an interesting boutique hotel named Chez Swann, spacious, friendly, comfortable and situated in the centre of the city.

We spent the four days eating our way around the city and were amazed at the value and quality of the restaurants on offer. Food is outrageously good value with most restaurants offering lunch specials consisting of a bread, entrée and main for around $20. Last night we ate a phenomenal rack of lamb that cost $17, a similar meal in Australia would have been $40-50.

Restaurants source their ingredients from the fresh produce markets spotted around the city transferred daily from farms on the outskirts of the city centre; some no more than a 20min drive. Chefs and citizens deal with the farmer himself and know where over 90% of the food they consume comes from, crazy when you consider how little we know about the food we eat in Australia.

The government plays a huge role in facilitating the cities fresh food delivery, the arts and culture scene as well as regulating the booze prices. They subsidize the rent at the market stands so farmers can keep prices low, they ensure all festivities on public property are free of charge and they own the bottle shops so prices are the same throughout the city. Every suburb has its own sense of community (and lamp posts!) with a mix of commercial and residential dwellings to keep the area vibrant.

To say we were impressed with Montreal is an understatement – we didn’t want to leave. We’ll be covering some of the places we ate and drank over the course of this week. Stay tuned for more while we cruise the beautiful streets of Quebec City before heading to NYC.

Photos captured on Canon 6D

Pugnacious George and TVG Watch Comp.

Gents you may have seen us sharing numerous photos of a lovely vintage Omega from Pugnacious George in the last week or so. I thought it might be fitting to provide some more shots and information about this beauty that will adorn the wrist of one lucky reader in the coming weeks.

We’re big fans of vintage Omegas and this isn’t the first time we’ve featured (or sold) one via TVG. This particular timepiece was picked out by our friend Felix Scholz the man behind The Tailored Watch and this great post we featured some time ago.

This 1940’s Omega is one of the most stylish examples I’ve ever laid eyes on, in fact it’s one of the most classic vintage timepieces I’ve seen in the last 12 months. The watch features a gorgeous white dial with lovely patina and a contrasting chapter ring and arabic numerals. The manual wind 30T1SC movement is ticking strong and keeping excellent time for a watch of its age. This is the sort of watch our grandfathers wore, and it possesses a quality and a self assured aesthetic confidence that is so often lacking in contemporary watches. Bravo to Felix and the gents from Pugnacious for picking out such a stunning example from the iconic brand.

For your chance to win this watch head to the competition page on Pugnacious George’s Facebook page here.

TVG Christmas wishlist – Tom

There’s a plethora of items that I’ve had my eyes on for the past months and any one of them could creep onto a Christmas wishlist, however for my 5 items I’ve tried to keep it as diverse as possible, so here they are:

Bang & Olufsen – BeoPlay A9 – $2,600

I used think B&O had slipped off the pace a bit with their over-priced and impractical approach to home stereo. However, their new BeoPlay series has revived my appreciation for their intelligent design aesthetics and superb functionality. In a time when home audio is becoming an artform, B&O have produced one of their most beautiful speakers to date, the BeoPlay A9. It’s a complete stereo system in one very neat package, no extra amp, speakers or cables needed, just plug and play wirelessly over your phone or tablet. If you are more of a cable guy, of course you’ll find both mini jack and phono connector in the rear.

Brioni Bengal Stripe Cotton Shirt – $380

Brioni make some of (if not the) best shirts in the world, and this brown and white piece caught my eye just this week. Not everyones go-to colour combination, but paired with the right suit this shirt will look fantastic. Fine Italian cotton hand crafted for that soft feel makes this an excellent Christmas present for any discerning gentleman.

GoPro Hero 3 – Black Edition – $399

I used to think the only people who needed a GoPro were those participating in extreme sports, however it’s occurred to me that these tiny and truly incredible cameras are so versatile that there should be space in everyones stocking for at least one. Whether you’re skiing in japan, surfing in Bali or simply running after your dog in the park, a GoPro will capture every moment in absolute clarity and perfection.

Keil James Patrick – Tom Cypher’s Phantom Anchor Wrap – $58

We’ve featured KJP a few times on TVG over the last 6 months. This Rhode Island brand producers simple, elegant and sophisticated wrist wear and belts. This particular piece is from The “Quartermaster Collection” – carefully hand-knotted in Rhode Island from locally twisted nautical cord and high quality leather cord. Perfect for any occasion.

Dolce & Gabbana – The One – $80

Cologne is a difficult wishlist item because ideally you’d pick your own, and only you know what you like the smell of. However, my old man picked this one off the shelf for me and it’s been my go to for the last 6 months. If you’re scouring round for yourself, or even that distant cousin you’ve pulled in the family secret santa – you can’t go too wrong with The One by Dolce & Gabbana.

King & Grove Hotel – Williamsburg

Everyone knows someone who is about to, or has been to New York City so it’s always nice to be able to offer some fresh new advice to the soon to be traveler. The fashion hub of the States is definately one of TVGs favourite cities to immerse oneself in and there’s always some too and fro about where’s the best place to stay. Apparently it’s the city that never sleeps, but if it was to sleep, it would have to consider staying at the recently opened King & Grove Hotel in Brooklyn.

As what can only be described as a boutique hotel, it boasts a modest 64 rooms with appealing modern flair, pool views and excellent Malin + Goetz products. The attention grabbing, classically design pool compliments the style of the hotel perfectly, while those looking to have a more intimate experience can venture to the roof level bar and lounge. Offering 4 types of rooms including a plush looking penthouse, the hotel caters for a range of patrons and is very competitively priced (starting at $400 a night).

There has been a distinctive resurgence of travelers to the area of Brooklyn, a place which once lacked any significant hotel accommodation. The area is a hub of cultural attractions and pulls giant crowds to its famous markets selling antiques, jewellery and vintage clothes. King & Grove Williamsburg is the first full-service lifestyle hotel in this thriving neighbourhood and the perfect place to rest your head in between thrift store visits on the search for a vintage tweed jacket or sports coat.