A unique piece for Only Watch 2019, Frederique Constant presents a version of its Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar featuring a dial fashioned out of a meteorite found in Namibia. Standing out with its unique texture, the blue openwork dial echoes the colour of 8th edition of the biennial charity auction.
Jonathon did not buy this watch — a stylish Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Geographic — instead, he managed to convince his grandfather to relinquish it. It was the first watch Jonathon remembers seeing and noticing that it was a *nice* watch (and honestly, it’s easy to see why). Now, it’s one thing to notice your grandfather’s watch and admire it from afar, but it’s another thing entirely to fully migrate it from his wrist to your own. But as we discovered in the latest instalment of Every Watch Tells a Story, Jonathon’s approach was surprisingly direct. I said to him, “Hey, that’s a nice watch, I don’t see you wearing it that often — I’d be very happy to take it off you and wear it for you. And he was like … sure, if you’ll wear it more, it’s yours.” The coda to the story, though, is that the watch needed a service, and with that came a case polish, which meant that the dings and marks of a life well-lived disappeared, and while Jonathon was initially disheartened at this erasure of identity, in the end he came to the realisation that it’s now his watch, and one he can put…
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Editor’s note: Chanel has been making watches for a little while now, but in recent years they’ve been rocketing up the cool, and the credibility stakes. But this spirit of change and commitment doesn’t emerge from a vacuum, as Sandra discovers … It’s a paradox that a luxury house as conspicuously feminine as Chanel should always have had a gender-bending streak. So here comes a quick bit of fashion history – and before you watch geeks roll your eyes and change the channel, let me say that this will help explain everything about Chanel’s watches. Including why they are not to be dismissed as mere “fashion watches”. I’ll be brief. By the simple fact of launching herself into business (as a milliner) in 1910, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel flew in the face of expected gender roles. As she added clothes to her repertoire, she appropriated masculine elements: using jersey fabrics (previously reserved strictly for men’s underwear); putting chic women into trousers, and into the striped jumpers of Breton sailors; turning masculine tweeds into feminine jackets; and making suntans fashionable (previously, only outdoor labourers got tanned). The perfumes, too, always had an air of not-quite-conventional femininity; since the beginning (No.5 was launched…
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Editor’s note: Without doubt, the most popular dial colour for men’s watches is black. So, here’s the blackest, darkest dial we can think of — the H. Moser & Cie Endeavour Perpetual Moon Concept. To find out why this watch is so impossibly dark of dial, read on … Few colours have the symbolic weight of black. It’s meaningful in pretty much every culture. It’s associated — naturally enough — with darkness, mourning and solemnity, and with endings and beginnings. It’s also a colour of power and authority. All these associations and emotions are tied up in Moser’s latest conceptual piece, the Endeavour Perpetual Moon Concept Vantablack. Before we get to the greater meaning of this watch, let’s talk about the purely physical: steel case, 42mm wide, in the characteristically scalloped Endeavour case. A broad exhibition caseback shows off the HMC 801, manually wound, equipped with Moser’s interchangeable escapement and good for seven days of wind as shown on the indicator on the caseback. The strap is black alligator. All this has been seen before. What hasn’t been seen is the dial. Black, and stunning in its absence. Four hands sit upon a void of nothing. Hours, minutes and seconds…
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A direct comparison between the large and the medium-sized Santos de Cartier raises the question: what is actually large? Normally the term ‘mid-size’ is marketing slang for a ‘ladies’ model’, but that’s definitely not the case here. We put the Cartier Santos mid size and large size, side by side. With the reintroduction of the […]
Consumers, jewelers, and even some of his staff want Patek Philippe’s boss to produce more steel watches. He won’t. Here’s why.
A fully lumed modern skeleton matched with a stealth black case
Editor’s note: In 1994, A. Lange & Söhne released a watch that would go on to be one of their most recognisable designs to date. The Lange 1 is an expression of what the brand does best: manufacturing a dial layout that is less than traditional, but with a tension in its design that suggests it is the product of decades of refinement. A masterful balance of introducing new ideas while using a level of refinement that implies rich history. Let’s take another look at this example of poised asymmetry. The story in a second: Lange give their icon a serious update. When it was first unveiled in 1994, no one had seen a watch quite like the Lange 1, with its distinct, geometrically harmonious dial. In subsequent years, the Lange 1 came to define the German brand’s pure aesthetic and impeccable technical pedigree. A resolutely contemporary looking watch, it might be surprising to learn that its roots were far from modern. In fact, it dates back to 1841, when Ferdinand A. Lange completed an innovative digital five-minute clock for the Semper Opera House in Dresden. It was this historic clock that served as the inspiration for the Lange 1’s…
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Jaquet-Droz is supporting Only Watch, the biennial fundraiser for research on Duchenne muscular dystrophy, for the 8th consecutive time. The Jaquet Droz Grande Seconde Skelet-One is presented for the 2019 edition, and this is a unique version reinterpreted with striking red accents, in reference to love and Monaco. Only Watch is organized by Luc Pettavino and the Monégasque Association Against Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
The Naked Watchmaker is one of our favourite internet projects, and not just because of its punny name and the fact that the man behind it, Peter Speake-Marin, is one of the nicest people in the business. No, it’s fascinating because it offers a view of watches we don’t typically see. Deconstructed, and not in an “I dropped it onto a concrete floor and now it’s all deconstructed” sense. No, Speake-Marin offers a superbly qualified take on taking apart a watch. And this time around he’s turning his tools to one of the hottest watches of 2019, the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Chronograph GMT. You can read our take on it here, but we stick mostly to the surface level. Read it all here. You won’t want to miss this one.
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