EDITOR’S PICK: The most overlooked element in watch design
Editor’s note: Someone I know is in the process of looking for a new watch – a Breitling Aerospace to be specific. Now, on first glance, this weird old ana-digi watch might not have much going for it, but, really, for a watch so light, this watch packs a big punch. And you know why? Well, I don’t want to give the game away, so read on … Case profile. There, I said it. It might not be as sexy as the movement or the dial, but in terms of real-world user-friendliness, it’s the kingmaker or deal-breaker. The problem is, watchmakers and fans are conditioned to a very top-down visual approach of watches. Look at any brand’s site, or most of the watches on Instagram, and what do you see? Dials. A whole lot of dials. And, honestly, it makes sense. The top-down dial shot encompasses most of what a watch is about. The dial is the visual star, and a typical wrist shot at least gives you some sense of what a watch looks like on the wrist, but it doesn’t really give you any sense of what it’s like to wear a watch on the wrist, because —…
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OK, here are the watches that put the HH into SIHH, the sort of timepieces that challenge and define exactly what it’s possible to do with a watch on your wrist. These sort of movements take years and years of development, so it’s unreasonable to expect a new one every year, but at this year’s instalment of SIHH, the top end of town was very well represented, with some genuine innovation, and true ingenuity on show. Vacheron Constantin Traditionnelle Twin Beat Perpetual Calendar One of the real standouts of the show was Vacheron Constantin’s innovative Twin Beat, which boasts twin balances beating at different rates. The real trick, though, is that the wearer can set which balance is in use, either an active or a passive mode. Something that, in effect, means you get up to 65 DAYS of power reserve. Handy if you don’t want to reset that perpetual calendar. Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Grande Tradition Gyrotourbillon Westminster Perpétuel While none of the grand complications in this JLC is new per se, they’re all exceptionally well executed, the Westminster Carillon in particular. The real feat, though, is combining this much complexity in an eminently wearable package. Ressence Type 2 And, finally,…
When Montblanc gave us a privileged preview of its new Heritage collection in Miami back in October, our gut told us that they had a winner in the salmon-dialled Heritage Pulsograph. Forward three months to SIHH: 36 exhibiting brands and I-don’t-know-how-many-hundreds of new watches later, our opinion is, if anything, stronger than ever. With the Heritage Pulsograph’s immaculately judged balance of good looks, technical content, quality of execution and price, Montblanc has hit the nail on the head. First, let’s talk aesthetics: vintage-inspired watches have been a thing for some years now – and thanks to its head of watches, Davide Cerrato, Montblanc is a shining example of how to do it right. (Cerrato has previous form, as you may know, having harnessed Tudor’s archives to transform it from also-ran to super-cool brand half a decade ago.) At Montblanc, he has the rich archives of Minerva to draw on – and the Heritage Pulsograph is very similar to a 1940s Minerva monopusher chrono. But it’s no slavish copy. We were able to line up both watches together and, on the new model, the lines of the case and lugs are cleaner, the surfaces flatter, giving the whole watch a more contemporary…
