Found: My Grandfather’s Gold Wristwatch, A Vestige Of 20th Century Swiss Watchmaking
About a year ago, my father surprised me with a wristwatch that I never knew existed, even though it had been in our family for generations. Now you may be thinking it’s a little odd that it took this long for me to find out about this watch, given my very pronounced interest in wristwatches (not to mention my career choice). And it was. But I’m guessing my father, who inherited it when he was a young boy, wanted to find the right time to share it, and I’m very glad he did. Suffice it to say, even if this isn’t a watch that would seem precious to most, it’s exactly that to me.
The buzzword is ‘pivot’. And at this year’s first major watch fair, SIHH in Geneva in January, IWC ‘pivoted’ in a big way with just about everything they did. The booth was fitted out to emulate a vast Florentine dome, the watches were Engineered for Women and, rather than safe sport-watch territory, the controls were very much set to ‘dress’. And in this single, boldly different territory, they did impress. These are the four watches that Felix and I couldn’t get out of our heads, now with extra-smoking fire effects and dance moves. Prepare yourself for Da Vinci (and some dramatic Felix voiceover effects)…
A little while ago, I was in Sydney attending a conference for my day job. The opening speaker was Ron Garan Jr, a former NASA astronaut, who’s travelled 71 million miles for work, spent 178 days in space, orbited earth 2842 times and enjoyed a grand total of 27 hours and three minutes taking part in EVAs (extravehicular activity) over four spacewalks. As Ron took the stage to share his experiences on the International Space Station (ISS), giving the sort of perspective that only an astronaut can have, I found myself a little distracted. You see, in the world of semi-pro watchspotting, nothing is as cool as an astronaut’s watch, so all I could do was stare at his wrist with laser-like focus. From several rows back it was obviously an Omega bracelet, but I was thrown by the chunkier case and unusual dial configuration. I couldn’t pick the model. Driven by a need to find out more, I hustled to introduce myself to Ron as he walked offstage, and finally caught a proper look at his watch, which turned out to be a second-generation Omega Speedmaster X-33 (reference 3291.50.00 for those playing at home) that had clearly seen a lot of action.…