Ralph Lauren Sporting watches

The Ralph Lauren Sporting is the casual member of the three collections with which Ralph Lauren entered watchmaking at the SIHH in Geneva in 2009, alongside the Stirrup and the Slim Classique. The project grew out of a meeting between Ralph Lauren and Richemont's Johann Rupert, and the movements came from Richemont houses: Jaeger-LeCoultre, IWC and Piaget.

Where the Stirrup and Slim Classique are dress watches, the Sporting borrows from the outdoor and travelling side of the Ralph Lauren world. In 2011 the line added a wood-dial model whose elm burl dial echoes the dashboard of Ralph Lauren's 1938 Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic coupe, on a hand-wound movement IWC made for the brand, and a 45 mm black ceramic chronograph on a Jaeger-LeCoultre calibre.

The Sporting Chronometer is the plainer watch: steel, a black dial and a sapphire crystal, in a 39 mm case (RLR0250700) or a 45 mm case (RLR0220706), both about 11 mm thick. The Sporting World Time is the complicated one. The steel version has a bezel held by six functional screws, a deep blue varnished dial with Roman numerals, Breguet-style hands, a red seconds hand and a railroad minute track. Inside is calibre RL939, made for Ralph Lauren by Jaeger-LeCoultre, which beats at 4 Hz and shows its 40-hour power reserve on the dial. A crown at 10 o'clock selects a zone on an engraved disc covering all 24 time zones, so the watch shows local time and a second zone, with a day/night indicator and a calendar alongside.

The World Time comes in a 45 mm case in rose gold with a silver dial (RLR0211700) and in steel with the blue dial. The steel model is made on a blue alligator strap (RLR0210700) or on a steel bracelet (RLR0210000); case and dial are otherwise the same.