3 minute read
In the world of limited-edition watches, few collaborations generate the instant electricity that TAG Heuer and Hiroshi Fujiwara’s fragment have managed since 2018. The first two drops sold out in minutes and now change hands for multiples of their original price. Today, the partnership returns to where it all began: the TAG Heuer Carrera.
The new TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph x fragment Limited Edition is the third act in this ongoing conversation, and it may be the most refined yet.
Less, but Better
Hiroshi Fujiwara has never been about adding noise. His genius lies in subtraction – stripping an object to its essence while somehow making it feel louder. When he first reimagined the Carrera in 2018, he turned a colorful racing chronograph into a stealthy monochrome statement. The 2020 Formula 1 follow-up went bolder and more graphic. Now, with the glassbox-era Carrera as his canvas, Fujiwara has delivered what might be the cleanest, most disciplined execution of the trio.
The 39 mm steel case wears the now-iconic glassbox dome – that beautifully curved sapphire that wraps over the dial like a 1960s bubble shield brought into the 21st century. Beneath it sits a deep black opalin dial that drinks light, contrasted by a crisp white curved flange. All markings, indices, and hands are executed in silver and rhodium for perfect cohesion. There is no color here except black, white, and shades of grey. Yet the watch feels anything but quiet.
Look closer and the fragment signatures appear exactly where they should: the fragment lightning bolt subtly replaces the “1” and “11” on the personalized date disc, and the fragment logo is printed in miniature on the inside of the sapphire crystal – visible only when the light hits just right.
The fixed tachymeter bezel receives a lighter grey scale (another Fujiwara directive), and the newly reintroduced seven-row “beads-of-rice” bracelet gets black PVD on the center links, extending the monochrome contrast all the way to the clasp.
Inside: The Modern Heuer Heart
Power comes from TAG Heuer’s in-house TH20-00 automatic chronograph movement – 80-hour power reserve, column wheel, vertical clutch, and bidirectional winding. The oscillating weight has been completely redesigned as a black shield that reinterprets the TAG Heuer coat of arms in fragment’s stark graphic language. Flip the watch over and you’ll also spot the engraved Victory Wreath along the caseback edge – a nod to Jack Heuer’s tradition of gifting gold Carreras to winning F1 drivers as lucky charms.
Only 500 Exist
Like its predecessors, this Carrera is strictly limited – 500 individually numbered pieces worldwide. Each comes in a black-and-white box that mirrors the watch’s aesthetic, accompanied by an embossed black travel pouch.
Antoine Pin, CEO of TAG Heuer, sums it up best:
“This collaboration speaks to the essence of design that lasts… true identity does not need to be reinvented, only revealed.”Fujiwara himself puts it even more simply:
“Every detail has to earn its place. Nothing is added unless it has a reason to exist.”
In an era of loud, over-designed “collab” watches, the new TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph x fragment Limited Edition is a masterclass in restraint – and proof that sometimes the most powerful statement is the quiet confidence rendered in perfect black and white.If the first two collaborations taught us anything, it’s that these 500 pieces won’t stay available for long.
