My first real luxury sports watch was the TAG Heuer S/el that I purchased when I was working in Guam. I knew the TAG Heuer brand, there were some nice options in the store but I wasn’t ready to go with a brand I didn’t know much about.

Designed by Eddy Schöpfer, the S/el was a sports watch that could be worn to formal occasions too. For me, I was a diver and dive computers were in their infancy in the late 90s so my S/el was very much a diver’s timepiece as I was using tables for decompression dives. The S/el was the premium TAG Heuer timepiece until the 6000 series was released in the mid 1990s. The S/el was marketed on the six features of 200 metres water resistance, screw-in crown, double fold safety clasp, unidirectional bezel, sapphire crystal and luminous markings.

Eddy Schöpfer was well known as a designer in TAG Heuer with the 1500 and 2000 series as well as for Breitling. What distinguished the S/el was the double curved S-shaped ingot linked bracelet and matching rounded case, this was easily TAG Heuer’s best selling watch of the 1990s. The S/el was morphed into the Link series in 1999, the S-links were less rounded and arguably more bold. For me, this is a shame as the S/el was about as good as it gets even if it was a little small for my wrist – I certainly loved my S/el.