Tudor Black Bay 54 Review: The One I did not know I was looking for

This year, in the summer, I turned 40.

What better way to mark such a momentous achievement if not by buying a new watch? After all, my legs had been gracing the surface of the earth for 536 moon cycles, give or take.

The search begun early in the year. Actually, that’s not entirely true. The search never truly ended. Since that very first luxury watch, bought on a hot August day in 2020 – my Omega Seamaster 300 1957 Trilogy, in case you were wondering – I’ve been looking for the next timepiece to add to my collection. But the quality of the search shifted this year.

Instead of aimlessly perusing Bucherer’s online catalogue or randomly watching whatever youtube video caught my fancy, the prospect of actually having a perfectly appropriate reason to buy a watch – and not just lust after these, sometimes much too expensive and unreachable, shiny objects–gave substance to my search…a clear goal, if you will.

At the beginning of the year I had three watches. My first love, the Omega Seamster 300 1957 Trilogy, my “beater”, the Seiko SPB 143 and the MoonSwatch Saturn, a fun little toy I received as a gift and that I mostly wore in the summer.

I capped my prospective spend at € 5.000, but that still did not help clarify what I was after.

The watches that I actually liked were either too expensive or did not fully convince me. In my view, a watch bought for my 40th had the prospective, and arduous, task of sticking around until the very end. And, as such, it had to have charisma, to know how to carry itself and to know how to periodically shine under new guises in order to rekindle my, possibly vanished, fire.

At this time, I was also toying with the idea of buying a dress watch, as I didn’t have one in my collection yet. But I also didn’t want to mark such an important milestone by buying a watch that I would only wear occasionally.

I mean, what would be the point of buying a beautiful, hand-wound 37mm Grand Seiko with a 44GS case, if I’d only wear it a couple times per year?

I liked the idea of a dress watch, or that of a dressier watch, and had I chosen with my mind and not with my heart I might’ve very well ended up with one. But I knew it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do.

While lost in a vast ocean of unappealing choices, in March 2023 a beacon of light shone bright and showed me the way. Tudor released the Black Bay 54 at Watches and Wonders.

Upon seeing the first pictures and reactions online, I was intrigued. I did not know yet this was going to be the one. But I was hooked and I kept coming back to this little watch.

This is the moment I should probably mention I was not a Tudor fan, prior to purchasing the BB54. Because I gravitate towards simple three-handers and because I seem to still be immune to the more modern and toolish charm of the Pelagos line, the only Tudor watch I found kind of interesting was the BB58.

But the BB58 would’ve not made any sense in my collection, as I already possessed the Seamster 300, which plays in the same arena as, and to me, is much more distinct and quirky than the, excellent yet somewhat pious, Black Bay 58.

But the 54, while looking almost exactly the same as the 58, managed to somehow be completely different. This new, vintage-inspired, svelte diver was different enough from my 39mm Seamaster to justify its presence in my collection. The proportions of the BB54 were just excellent. A small watch, yet with presence and heft, that would fit almost any occasion, even the more formal ones I rarely attend, yet for which I’d want to appropriately dress for, watch included. They even managed to slim down the snowflake hand enough to make it stand out less and tapered the bottom tip of the minute hand to make it more slender and refined.

The more pictures and videos I saw of the watch online the louder and more insistent a voice emanating from the depth grew: “This is it! This is it, I say! This is what you were looking for! This is the one!”

It seemed like with the Black Bay 54 I had found the answer to my dress watch conundrum.

I was fortunate to buy the watch in May but waited, not without effort and pain, until my birthday in July before I started wearing it.

This watch has been a delight ever since. The way the gilt accents play with light, the subtle brown sheen of the sunburst dial and its slim profile are only some of this piece’s characteristics that spark joy every time I look down at my wrist.

However, because of it’s dressier nature and the gilt accents, I haven’t felt comfortable making this my daily wearer. I wear it often and it could legitimately be considered a go anywhere do anything watch by most people. But, for those days in which I know I’m going to be active and spend time outdoors or at the playground with my daughter, I’ve been reaching far more often for my Serica 4512.

À propos Serica 4512, that’s another watch I did not know I needed in my life. But that’s a story for another time.

To conclude, the BB54 is an excellent watch that will hopefully grace my wrist for a very long time, and that I will, inshallah, one day pass down to my daughter.