Tabla de contenidos para Spring 2022 en REVOLUTION WATCH

I ain’t no Chicken Little walking around in existential angst, waiting for the Armageddon, listening to Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around,” decrying that the sky is falling. But I’ve always lived by the simple adage, “Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.” Ah, I see I got your attention… OK, let me preface this by saying, yes, like everyone else I am utterly thrilled and delighted that the luxury watch industry is experiencing a heretofore unknown level of success. As my friend the legendary Jean-Claude Biver said, “In my half century working in this industry, I have never seen a market like this. The opportunities in the watch industry are simply incredible.” And true to his word, a few weeks ago, he announced on Radio Télévision Suisse…

The very first Speedmaster, reference CK2915‑1, was released in 1957 and revolutionized the sports chronograph with professional race car drivers in mind. Omega moved the tachymeter scale to the bezel to make it easy and intuitive for capturing accurate track times. This highly collectible watch still fascinates collectors; in 2021, an original Speedmaster with its unique chocolate patina from sun exposure broke auction records as the watchmaker’s most expensive watch ever at over USD 3.4 million. To mark the 65th anniversary of their first Speedmaster, Omega welcomes 2022 with an homage to that groundbreaking timepiece — the Speedmaster caliber 321. The name is a reference to the movement that first made its appearance in the CK2915‑1 in 1957 and was there for all of the Apollo missions, including the six…

Red has always been a special color. It knows how to draw eyeballs and capture full attention. Chanel has embraced the boldness of red as one of their five signature colors, in addition to white, black, beige and gold. Gabrielle Chanel has said, “If you’re sad or heartbroken, make yourself up, dress up, add more lipstick and attack.” It’s almost impossible to see that lipstick in any other color. Red is for power, passion and for issuing a challenge as a matador to his bull. And this season, Chanel challenges us all with the Haute Horlogerie Red Edition with its bold style and rich red hues. First on the cards is the J12 X-Ray Red Edition. The J12 celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2020 with an open concept version they…

You know you’ve done something right when Max Büsser, the founder of MB&F and the man I consider the grand architect of independent watchmaking culture, wants to buy your watch. It happened as Max and I were on the escalator in Geneva’s Globus department store. We’d just had lunch, and Max was there to purchase a plant for his office. I was there to buy pillows, as the ones in my friend Eleonor Picciotto’s apartment where I was ensconced, were not adequately fluffy for Shanghainese princess-like sensitivity. I showed Max the design of my very first Grail Watch, a collaboration between Alain Silberstein and Ressence in a 36-piece limited edition. He scrutinized it for a moment, then turned to me and said, “Save piece number one for me.” Wait. Freeze…

As a freshly divorced middle-aged man who started dating again six months ago, I have an analogy for you. Basically, getting to know a watch is a lot like becoming familiar with the presence of another human being in your life. The reality is, no matter what has been ingrained in you by the incurable romanticism of Gabriel Garcia Márquez, you have no idea whether you and that other person will synchronize with each another’s rhythms or fail spectacularly at doing so. That first flush of attraction, that heady opiatic sensation of gravity slipping away and your stomach plummeting down a rollercoaster, can give way to ennui or irritation pretty damn fast. What you thought was a charmingly idiosyncratic interest in veganism can rapidly become the source of your volcanic…

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, CHASE FANCHER, FOUNDER OF OAK & OSCAR Since 2015, Chase Fancher has been the driving force behind Chicago-based Oak & Oscar, an accessibly priced brand making utilitarian, casual and well-made watches with a local touch. For Fancher, this means numerous trips to Switzerland, and a unique perspective on the global watch industry. “Working outside of Switzerland has been a fun challenge for me. Learning more about the culture and how they operate while also building a brand has been exciting. And while there is a lot of reverence for Swiss watchmaking (deservedly so), I’ve also learned that they can be somewhat stuck in their more traditional ways. While we rely on good, sound horological principles, Oak & Oscar is a young brand doing things our…

In a world where anybody with a watch and an Instagram account can call themselves a watch expert, there remain a number of old school dealers who have been there to witness all the trends, hypes, highs and lows of watch collecting. One such connoisseur is the collector and long-established dealer Daniel Bourn, who has been London-based since the mid-2000s and now, post-Brexit, will be primarily located in Monaco. Whether through his private, online or retail outlets, there is a pretty high chance that you’ve either seen or owned one of his watches over the years. Bourn’s speciality, though, is assisting clients in building investment-grade vintage watch collections. So, when a very private collector decided he wanted to focus his watch collecting on the special-order watches that were delivered to…

Ross Povey The founder of TudorCollector.com, Ross Povey is regarded as the world’s leading expert on vintage Tudor watches. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Revolution magazine in the UK. He has contributed to influential horological publications including The Telegraph, The Rake, Watchonista and Hodinkee, and is the co-author of the book Daytona Perpetual, a celebration of the automatic Rolex Daytona released through Pucci Papaleo Editore. Ross is also an international speaker and regularly hosts watch events in the UK and Europe. Barbara Palumbo A watch and jewelry writer, Barbara Palumbo is the mastermind behind the insightful and humorous web publications Adornmentality and What’s On Her Wrist. Barbara is also a speaker, podcaster, and regularly moderates panels within the trade. She’s vocal about watches, gems, politics, all of which come in…

The prominence of the number 1858 in Montblanc’s watch collections is no coincidence. It represents the year watchmaking came to the small Swiss town of Villeret, in the form of a movement-making company founded by Charles Robert and his (fabulously named) brother Hyppolite. Over the years, this company grew in scope and stature, registering the Minerva brand name in 1886. In 1902, they moved into a modern manufacturing building that would, for the next 100 years, continuously create mechanical calibers. In 1908, Minerva created their first chronograph movement, the caliber 19-9, and in the following decades, honed their expertise in precise, finely finished chronograph movements. While the foundations for that expertise were laid down over a century ago, Minerva is still regarded as one of the finest makers of high-end,…

I WC has a long history of creating technical tool watches for the military. The TOP GUN family of watches are inspired by and dedicated to the talented men and women who work and train at the US Navy’s legendary TOPGUN school. The watchmakers at IWC have turned to colored ceramics once again to realize their vision for these two new models for the TOP GUN line, a material that they’ve mastered since the early days of experimentation and innovation in the 1980s. This complex and demanding material requires a high level of expertise, but delivers a highly scratch-resistant finish that can withstand the rigors of a pilot’s daily work environment. The Pilot’s Watch Chronograph TOP GUN Edition “Lake Tahoe” has a white ceramic case with contrasting black dial. The…

Last year, TAG Heuer returned to the water in a big way with a revamped and refined Aquaracer 300, their dedicated dive watch with a distinctively shaped bezel. This year, the brand is releasing its second underwater act with a full suite of Aquaracer Professional 200 watches. And when we say full suite, we mean it. Right out of the gate, we’re treated to an array of sizes and dials, in quartz and automatic, making this a fully fledged collection with some neat details. Dive watches might not be the first model that comes to mind when you think about TAG Heuer’s chronograph heavy offering. Still, the brand’s first aquatic watch was 1978’s reference 844, a model followed up by a series of serious tool watches that set the tone…

The world as we know it is mapped to the last detail. Even before the ubiquity of satellites and global travel, the earth was a seemingly known quantity. Explored, charted and tamed over hundreds of years. And, more recently, even the skies above us have become much less mysterious thanks to massive and increasingly sophisticated telescopic arrays, which have evolved rapidly from the first-ever image captured of the moon — a daguerreotype taken in 1851, a few years before TAG Heuer was founded — into incredibly complex space telescopes finding earth-like planets hundreds of light-years away. It’s surprising then that over 80 percent of our world’s oceans are unexplored and largely unknown. This is largely because of the incredible challenges posed by deep sea exploration. In many ways, it’s easier…

“It is not a dream of motorcars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.” James Truslow Adams, The Epic of America, 1931 I’ve seen a lot of watches in my life. So, it’s rare for me to have a genuine moment of revelation. The whole “Archimedes in the bathtub, witnessing the water level rise and suddenly comprehending volumetric displacement, Eureka” thing. But the first time I actually held a Jacob & Co. Astronomia in my hands, I had to admit I was blown away. Sure, I had…

Danny Govberg is a genius. I know this because I vividly recall standing beside him a half decade ago as he showed me not 10, not 20, but the extensive collection of François-Paul Journe watches he had amassed for one simple reason: he loved the watches. He understood Journe’s incredible talent and the authenticity of his watchmaking. He was enamored with the visual identity of the watches that, as he put it, “could be recognized from across the room.” And he recognized the relative rarity of the watches, given Journe’s small annual production compared to the likes of industry giants like Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet. For Govberg, this was the future of the company named WatchBox that he had created with co-founders Justin Reis and Tay Liam Wee. Rather…

It was November 1, 2021, and the jury of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) had convened. As this was the first time since the onset of the COVID pandemic that we could gather physically in force, the significance of what we were participating in was not lost on us. None of us had discussed it. But each of us had come to our own conclusion that our role — more than ever — was to uplift, to edify and to celebrate the industry that has given each of us our livelihoods. When it came time to decide on awarding the optional Special Jury Prize, we all reached the inchoate, collective understanding that we needed to celebrate something worthy, something truly impactful, someone or something that had deeply enriched…

Whether you believe that Brexit was the best thing that ever happened to the UK, releasing the shackles of European betrothment, or you are adamant that it left the UK the poorer party in the Euro divorce, there can be no arguing that the British watchmaking industry is in anything but rude health. Over the past years, more and more independently run watch brands have blossomed to cater to the incredible surge in demand for watches both in Blighty and across the entire globe. We talk to the leaders of four very different UK-based brands about the companies that they run and take a look at a selection of the watches that they offer, both past and present. “When I look back at the past few years, this is perhaps…

STAINLESS STEEL ROLEX SEA-DWELLER REF. 1665 with red Khanjar insignia instead of the usual “Double Red” model designation and depth rating. The outer caseback is engraved “Asprey.” This is a full box set with matching numbers and was from a batch of approximately 100 watches with consecutive serial numbers delivered to Oman via Asprey London, circa 1974 STAINLESS STEEL ROLEX SEA-DWELLER REF. 1665 with gold Khanjar insignia instead of the usual “Double Red” model designation and depth rating. This is a set with matching numbers. It is one of five known examples delivered, circa 1978 STAINLESS STEEL ROLEX SEA-DWELLER REF. 1665 with red Qaboos signature instead of the usual “Double Red” model designation and depth rating. The outer caseback is engraved “Asprey.” This is a full box set with matching…

The point of a tourbillon is largely to act as a magnet for attention and, in this regard, Franck Muller has stayed true to ideal by placing a large tourbillon right in the center in its signature Cintrée Curvex case. In doing so, Franck Muller has actually earned for itself the distinction of creating the world’s first center tourbillon in a tonneau-shaped case. Moving the tourbillon to the center from its traditional six o’clock roost has required the moving of the hour and minute hands to around the central tourbillon cage. Just large enough to point the time, they do not steal attention from the star feature — the central tourbillon, which is suspended on a single bridge that is also shaped to indicate the seconds. Framing the tourbillon is…

Nomos is headquartered in Glashütte, Germany and has been an independent brand since its inception just after the fall of the Berlin Wall when Roland Schwertner turned his entrepreneurial spirit to watchmaking. The first collection was released in 1991 and included four models — the Orion, Tangente, Ludwig and Tetra. Each of the four was designed by Bauhaus designer Susanne Günther, who brought the design tenets of the movement into the watches. Each Tangente that followed through the years continued to play with its initial design concept of a modern, simple dress watch and introduced a variety of sizes, colors and complications. The Nomos Tangente neomatik 39 platinum gray brings its own signature updates to the classic icon. The dial is a creamy, rich white due to the electroplating layer…

Jaeger-LeCoultre’s watchmakers surprised the watch industry and the world with their first Atmos clock in 1928. The concept was revolutionary at the time and still fascinates us today. Sealed within an airtight capsule, a mix of gases react to temperature change. The expansion and contraction of these gases create a movement that winds the mechanism without human intervention. Since then, each new Atmos release has been carefully created with classic elements for a timelessness that resonates through the decades. Collectors love the Atmos clocks for their unique take on timekeeping. The Atmos is driven by a mainspring, which is wound by the expansion and contraction of liquid and gaseous ethyl chloride in an internal hermetically sealed capsule. A temperature fluctuation of a single degree is enough to provide the clock…

Bvlgari’s focus for LVMH Watch Week 2022 brings the limelight back to its identity as the preeminent Roman jeweler that has built the in-house watchmaking know-how to rival the best that Swiss watchmaking has to offer. OCTO ROMA EMERALD GRANDE SONNERIE Moving right along to its novelties this January, we start with the Octo Roma Emerald Grande Sonnerie. This is a pièce unique creation with the BVL 703 caliber beating at its heart, which enables its Grande and Petit Sonnerie functions. According to Bvlgari, “Not only does the Grande Sonnerie four-gong mechanism represent a pinnacle of horological prowess, but the dial and case are now set with shimmering baguette-cut emeralds and diamonds. This is Bvlgari at its very best, elegantly fusing haute horlogerie and haute joaillerie with its hallmark Roman…

The new 25-piece limited edition L.U.C QF – Revolution Edition in stainless steel, with a luminous “scientific” or sector dial, represents Revolution’s third collaboration with one of the greatest horological manufactures on the planet. That is, of course, Chopard L.U.C and the individual behind it is my friend, co-president of Chopard, Karl-Friedrich Scheufele, a man I have immense respect for. That’s because from the very first movement he created, the extraordinary caliber 1.96, the world’s first bi-directional winding micro-rotor movement as well as the first to beat at 4Hz, all the way to his GPHG Aiguille d’Or-winning Full Strike, the world’s first minute repeater featuring sapphire crystal gongs, Scheufele has constantly brought a new level of authentic horological performance to each and every watch he’s made. And he’s achieved all…

The 1970s was a chrysalis of upheaval and change. It was characterized on one side by the libidinous abandon of disco culture and, on the other, by a permanent shift in prevailing ethics with the rise of feminism and the demand for gender equality. But of the various things born into this era, it was a watch and a movie from 1972 that would forge the greatest legacies. So much so that one could say they remade their respective genres and the world around them in their own image. That watch was Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak. And that film was Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather. A full half century later, on the occasion of their shared golden jubilee, the Royal Oak and The Godfather have left an impression on human…

Anyone with a passing understanding of horological history will recognize the significance of American watchmaking. From the mid-19th century on, American watch brands echoed the spirit of innovation that spurred the great American industrial boom. From modern assembly lines and ensuring the trains ran on time to incredibly accurate, mass-produced marine chronometers, America has a long and proud past when it comes to watch manufacturing. Time and technological progress have seen great names like Bulova, Waltham and Elgin largely consigned to the history books, while the rise of a new generation of American watchmakers is looking to the future through a more artisanal lens. One of the top students in this class is Joshua Shapiro, of J.N. Shapiro watches. Deciding to build a watchmaking business in America is already an…

In the horological community, finding a man who is a serious watch collector is as simple as a watch-related hashtag search on any number of social media channels, but finding women who not only collect but also post about their collections has proven ever-soslightly more difficult. While in Dubai in November, I had a conversation about this very point with my friend Caroline Kallman Joffe who is the director of marketing at WatchBox, and she suggested that I take a peek at the Instagram page of a woman in Singapore by the name of Sumei Shum. “This woman is serious — I mean really serious — about her watches,” Caroline said to me, while pulling out her phone and going to Sumei’s IG account. “Holy. Shit.” It was the only…

Kate Lacey is a familiar name and face to many watch enthusiasts. Over a period of 15 years, she worked at and led watch departments at three of the most important auction houses. Looking for a new challenge, she established The Shrew in the summer of 2021. Says Lacey, “I’m having fun selling lots of things, including clothes, bags and accessories. I’ve always loved finding luxury items on a budget in my spare time, and I felt that whilst there are so many great companies out there that offer pre-owned luxury bags and other preloved goods, there aren’t many female-led companies offering high quality pre-owned and attainable watches directly to the female market.” With her extensive knowledge and experience, Lacey was certain she could fill the gap in the market…