You like it big…? We give you massive! Kerbedanz unveils Maximus, an oversized central flying tourbillon with no less than a 27mm-diameter cage! Kerbedanz claims it is the largest tourbillon ever to be fit into a wristwatch. Reason enough for us to take a close look at this superlative tourbillon!
A three course, thoroughly French menu paired with Premier Cru Burgundy? Tick. A white-gloved waiter per guest? Tick. And a venue that Zelda Fitzgerald would have felt at ease in? Tick. Van Cleef & Arpels’ inaugural High Jewellery lunch in Sydney last week, at the private home Barford House, was a lesson in femininity and Place Vendôme heritage. The celebratory cavalry was out for the arrival of more than 80 high jewellery pieces. It’s the first such visit since the legendary Paris maison established its Australian presence, opening its Melbourne boutique last October and its Sydney flagship in February. This notable occasion drew Nicolas Bos, CEO of Van Cleef & Arpels, along with Nicolas Luchsinger, International Retail Director/Director of Heritage Collection, and Catherine Renier, President of Asia-Pacific. A Parisian delegation in force. Set on the 5527-square metre estate, the mansion’s ground level salon housed a sparkling display including six women’s watches – canny distractions from the Bellevue Hill property that was valued at $60 million a few years ago, and has hosted Bono and Beyoncé. While the Lady Nuit des Papillons bracelet watch with sapphires and white diamonds was a dazzling competitor, the stand-out, unsurprisingly, was 2013’s Cadenas Pavée pink sapphire bracelet watch in rose gold.…
The post EVENT: The poetry of time is all in the details at Van Cleef & Arpels’ first Australian high jewellery exhibition appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.
One of the keys to success for any watch brand is to have something instantly recognisable – a watch that can be spotted from the other side of a crowded room. Hublot’s Big Bang is one such design. With its large size and uncommon case shape the Big Bang stands out, and the Sang Bleu is no exception. In fact, as this new version is made from a sizeable lump of King Gold, it’s guaranteed to be noticed. But once you get a bit closer you might start to notice things starting to look a little different. The normally rounded bezel has been clipped into a hexagonal shape, and the hands have been replaced with discs, resplendent with geometric motifs. Sure, it’s still clearly a Hublot, but the tattoo-inspired Big Bang Unico Sang Bleu is quite unlike any we’ve seen before.
The post VIDEO: The Big Bang, but not as you know it – Hublot’s Sang Bleu in King Gold appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.
What an unexpected but refreshing surprise… Clearly, dress watches are not Omega’s specialty – chronographs and dive watches are, but in terms of elegant and dress timepieces, their offer is short. However, Omega has decided to prove us wrong, with an extremely elegant, perfectly proportioned and true-to-the-past watch, the new Seamaster Edizione Venezia, to be sold exclusively in Venice, Italy – a perfect excuse to bring your “bella ragazza” around the floating city.
Editor’s Note: Few brands can match the scope and scale of Cartier. The Parisian jewellery house offers everything from the popular and modern Juste un Clou collection through to some of the finest bespoke jewellery made. The same is true for their watch collections. Tanks and Ballon Bleus might be the order of the day, but Cartier is also capable of creating some truly exceptional technical and artistic pieces. It’s the latter category we’re going to explore today – the watches made in Cartier’s Maison des Métiers d’Arts. It is impossible to overstate the importance of tradition to the Swiss watch industry. It’s a business, after all, built on skills and techniques that by all rights have no place in the 21st century. Watchmakers in general are a rare and special breed. Fewer still are experts in the more specialised artistic crafts such as marquetry and enamelling, which places these talents in high demand. Collectively these artisanal disciplines are referred to as Métiers d’Arts, and Cartier is leading the way in preserving and fostering these nearly forgotten skills through the Maison des Métiers d’Arts. Based in an 18th century Bernese-style farmhouse a short walk away from their main fine watchmaking facility, the…
The post LIST: 5 incredible skills mastered in Cartier’s Maison des Métiers d’Arts appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.
You may or may not be planning a deep dive over the summer. It does not really matter. You do not need to be a diver to love these high-performing, utilitarian dive watches. They make great daily wearers too and as summer is fast approaching, we have picked 10 new dive watches of 2017, with choices to suit every pocket and every taste. In short, the best watches to look cool on the beach, on a boat and with your favorite summer cocktail.
Real nerd @KingNerd might not be a real monarch, but he is royalty in the world of fine engraving. Definitely worth a follow if you’re into acanthus leaves and long guns. Oh, and watches. NAME: Johnny King OCCUPATION: Engraver HANDLE: @KingNerd FOLLOWERS: 3.5k LOCATION: London, UK Tell me about yourself: My name is actually John, after my father and his father and so on, but friends started calling me Johnny and it’s kind of stuck! I’m a James Purdey & Sons (a very famous London gunmaker) trained engraver and was born and raised in West London. How do you unwind? Unwinding can consist of a few things for me – kicking my feet up and reading comics, listening to hip hop, going to a museum, looking at art or spending time with my family. My little boy, Hudson, decides whether I’m actually allowed to chill and do nothing, haha. What’s your daily watch and why? My daily watch at the moment is the Linde Werdelin Hard Black II, but I also collect Seikos. As for other watches in my collection, that would be telling. But I don’t just love the big brands, I love buying a watch that catches my eye. I recently bought…
The post WHO TO FOLLOW: @KingNerd appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.
Editor’s Note: A few years back I got on my high horse about my arms. Specifically the fact that because of their impressive (some would say excessive) follicular nature, there is a genre of watch that I can never truly enjoy, that of the fully skeletonised timepiece. To say that my original post was widely read by the industry is perhaps a bit of an overstatement, but it’s certainly true that some brands, like Arnold & Son, are offering prettily scalloped solid casebacks or smoky sapphire alternatives to reduce the impact of unsightly hirsuite-ness. I like to think I’ve played a part in that progress. Dear Swiss watch industry, We need to talk about skeletonised watches. There’s a problem. I get why you’re making them, honestly. They’re a great way to show off your skills, your impressive in-house capacity and clever movement architecture. And there’s no better way to house a tourbillon cage than by encasing it in nothing but sapphire. This all makes sense to me. But the naked truth, at least for a good proportion of men out there, is that these watches look ridiculous. No, I don’t mean the timepieces on their own. I mean, they…
The post EDITOR’S PICK: Why I’ll never buy a skeletonised watch appeared first on Time and Tide Watches.
We look at this year’s GPHG jury, talk HODINKEE website redesign, and take your questions.
For its fifth anniversary, the experimental gallery offers a new take on an unusual clock.