Table of contents for Vol 25 in REVOLUTION WATCH

ALRIGHT, BEFORE I GET TO THE WATCHES and the overall mood of the 2018 Geneva Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH), I need to get something off my chest. Baselworld – the temporary second home of those plying our trade in that glorious merger of science and magic, craft and art known as haute horlogerie – you need to pull your head out of your ass. Because, like a multitude of others, I have been shamelessly bamboozled, swindled, and financially gutted by you, as you laughed condescendingly like Zeus, haughtily ensconced on his Olympian throne, because you felt that I, like all my ilk, had to prostrate tremulously before your might. But I’ve got news for you. Like Bob Dylan says, “the times they are a-changing,” and with the…

This January Panerai opened its first stand-alone UK boutique on London’s New Bond Street. An oasis of marble and golden hues, the new store’s styling is the brainchild of Spanish architect/designer Patricia Urquiola and covers over 150m2 and two floors of prime West End retail space. To celebrate the opening of the London boutique, a piéce unique brown-dial Luminor Submersible 1950 3 Days Automatic Bronzo was made and auctioned through Sotheby’s. Reaching £75,000, all proceeds from the sale were donated to the Royal Yachting Association’s OnBoard programme. In other Panerai-related news, January also saw Fellows sell a historically important Second World War, Kampfschwimmer Radiomir liberated from its original owner (a German frogman) in 1944 by British soldier George H. Rowson. Offered by Rowson’s son, the watch came with incredible provenance…

This January’s SIHH saw the presentation of two exciting collaborations from independent Finnish watchmaker Stepan Sarpaneva. First teaming up in 2012 for the HM3 MoonMachine, MB&F and Sarpaneva have got the band back together for 2018 and produced the MoonMachine 2. Using MB&F’s HM8 as a base, MoonMachine 2 now includes a moonphase complication with Sarpaneva’s signature moon face discs and a winding rotor with the “openworked radial web” design found on many of Sarpaneva’s watches. Sarapaneva has also worked with renowned tattoo artist, designer and friend of Revolution Mo Coppoletta on a new version of the S.U.F Vetehinen dive watch. Produced in a limited edition of 26 pieces, Coppoletta’s version of the Vetehinen features a bezel engraved with a design he created for the project, a striking purple dial…

EDWARD SEXTON BESPOKE TAILOR “After beginning my apprenticeship in London’s East End, I started on Savile Row at Kilgour & French. A few years later, I joined a company in Burlington Arcade called Donaldson, Williams & Ward and it was here that I met a young chap called Tommy Nutter, one of my co-workers. One evening Tommy and I went for a beer. He told me some people that wanted to invest in a new tailoring company had approached him. Tommy had good ideas on style himself and we were able to combine our respective tastes to make a great look, something that really worked. On 14 February 1969, we started Nutters of Savile Row. We were the first new company on the Row for over 100 years and, even…

CHOPARD HAPPY SPORT MANUFACTURE MOVEMENT In-house, self-winding Chopard 09.01-C CASE 30mm in either steel, stone-set steel, rose gold, or stone-set rose gold STRAP Alligator leather One of the watch world’s most joyous collections, Chopard’s Happy Diamonds, with its beloved free-floating stones, has taken on many different guises over the years – from watches to jewellery, from pens to dice. Said to have been inspired by the shimmering droplets of a waterfall in the Black Forest, the first Happy Diamonds creation was a men’s white-gold, cushion-case watch from 1976 conceived by designer Ronald Kurowski with free-floating, unset diamonds in a recess around the dial. This floating presentation of loose diamonds amplified their radiance to full potential, refracting light from all angles as they moved around. Upon seeing the first piece, Chopard’s…

JAEGER-LECOULTRE POLARIS MEMOVOX MOVEMENT Automatic in-house Calibre 956; hours, minutes, seconds; date; alarm; 44-hour power reserve; 4 Hz (28,800vph) CASE 42mm stainless steel; water resistant to 200m STRAP lack rubber strap with Clous de Paris pattern and steel folding buckle When it comes to watch collectors, there are several different camps. There are those that love the technically innovative, those that go for the painstakingly hand-made and decorated, others who are intrigued by the plain weird. Then there are the horophiles that are enraptured by the models of the past – either those actually from years gone by, or new models built to contemporary standards but using the design codes of the past. This year, Jaeger-LeCoultre has decided to launch something for the latter group, celebrating the half-century of its…

SEIKO PROSPEX “BLACK SERIES” AUTOMATIC LIMITED EDITION MOVEMENT Automatic Calibre 4R36; 41-hour power reserve CASE 45mm blackened stainless steel; uni-directional rotating bezel; Hardlex crystal; screw caseback; screw-down crown; water-resistant to 200m STRAP Silicon band Here at Revolution, there are two things that we really love: a watch that lives up to its hype, and a timepiece where value is not just implied – by a venerable name or the use of weird and wonderful materials – but is so obvious that the question becomes, “Who wouldn’t buy one?” We have long championed the purity, beauty and exceptional quality of Grand Seiko but often this means missing out on the virtues of the Big Daddy behind GS: the affordable, reliable and, all-too-often neglected Seiko. No newbie to the world of tool…

For many people, Bella Hadid needs no introduction. But if you’re like me and, I suspect, many Revolution readers who are not millennials or Gen Z-ers (and are decades away from being one), some backstory is likely needed for this 21-year-old “It Girl” who has 16.8 million Instagram followers and has been called one of our generation’s most iconic models. Firstly, the It Girl… although, “It Family” may be more apt. Bella is the younger sister of Gigi, who some may recognise as an even bigger name in fashion thanks to her 45 million social media fans, and who has fronted campaigns from Reebok and Tommy Hilfiger to Max Mara and Moschino (the latter of which Bella also co-starred in). The girls’ parents are Los Angeles millionaire property developer Mohamed…

The idea of comparing old and new watches always seems to be a game of contrasts: short lugs versus long ones, enamel versus lacquer dials, thick versus ultra-thin cases, and the list goes on. So, when is a homage piece a true homage without being a mere replica of an ancient muse? SIHH 2018 set the tone with milestone celebrations, namely IWC, which celebrated its 150th anniversary with a Jubilee collection in palettes of white and space-cadet blue. In addition to a re-edition of the first 1884 Pallweber pocket watch, IWC recreated the new design in a wristwatch version. The IWC Tribute to Pallweber Edition “150 Years” retains the original layout, albeit with a refined design for its 45mm dial. The plain canvas splayed across the wrist may be a…

According to estimates by the United Nations, for every 100 women there are 101.8 men, and yet when it comes to luxury watchmaking the gender split is hugely male-dominated. Unfortunately, this year’s SIHH didn’t re-address the equality issue, with many brands not presenting a single women’s model, making my task for this year’s women’s selection harder than ever. There are no statistics on the gender split. Some brands say it is impossible to cater specifically to the female market because so many women like to wear men’s watches. But I wonder if they ever stopped to consider the fact that women may wear men’s watches because they can’t find anything they like! Brand after brand shared their plans to reach the next generation of millennials with their social media strategies,…

For someone who’s in her mid-thirties, I have an embarrassing number of crushes on inanimate objects. Stick me in the middle of an SIHH situation and my oxytocin levels rocket off the charts. It’s a strong year for slim watches, as both Audemars Piguet and Piaget have released record-crushing examples of ultra-thin timepieces. I have a particular thing for ultra-thin watches (see also, dead seconds, chronographs, form movements, unusual calendars), so you can imagine that my 2018 SIHH passed in a hormone-suffused haze. The thing I love about ultra-thin watchmaking is how it is so deeply anchored within the concept of purity and simplicity. To make a watch or a movement as thin as possible is to strip down all extraneous matter, to eliminate all superfluity and room for error…

Bell & Ross has always been an uncompromising avant-garde brand, but lately vintage seems to be becoming increasingly important. Each year we have to introduce novelties… this is a big, big part of our business. Everybody wants novelties – journalists, customers, retailers. After 10 years working on the vintage line, we thought it was a good time to redesign it, to evolve and fine tune. So, for the third generation of the collection we changed the size of the watches, making them 1mm smaller. It’s not much, but it’s important because, after many years of supersized ones, there’s a demand for “normal” watches. That millimetre makes a big difference. I agree, it doesn’t fit small. So that’s why we have two sizes in this new collection: 41mm and 38.5mm. For…

Star-spotters love SIHH, Baselworld and other high-profile watch events because that’s when the brands get to flaunt their A-list – or in some cases, Z-list – ambassadors. And yeah, it is kinda cool bumping into Pierce or Bryan. From actors to tennis court champions, football players to rock bands, every type of racing driver, any supermodel with name recognition: watches are the ultimate form of real-life product placement because they’re small and can be found on the celeb’s wrist. For the brands that pursue the famous, nothing beats getting those stars to attend meet-and-greet sessions with easily-flattered clients or even allegedly-jaded hacks. The latter quickly lose their composure in the presence of sport or pop culture gods. Over the years, my sleeve has been tugged countless times by fellow scribes,…

Since the beginning of time, since the dawn of Homo erectus, and seen in evidence from the Serengeti plains reaching back 500,000 years, mankind and his forebears have left their decorative mark on the talismans, armour, weapons and tools that populated their personal universes. And it is perhaps in the regressive purity of marking a surface using a sharp tool known as a burin as a way to express the inchoate, to unearth the expressive vision buried beneath the subconscious, to honour one’s gods and express one’s Freudian id that engraving resonates most powerfully. Since the onset of the Swiss watch industry, engraving has been inextricably linked with the craft of watchmaking. Engraving techniques can be as simple as personalisation with initials, or as elaborate as chased and filigree techniques…

From Tudor’s illustrious back catalogue, the three-register chrono has, until recently, been viewed as the unsung hero, but I would argue that it is one of the brand’s most innovative and exciting watches. The Big Blocks were Tudor’s third series of chronographs, first launched in 1976 and with a number of obvious aesthetic differences to previous chronographs. Most striking was the arrival of a third register on the dial, indicating the hours. This was made possible by the adoption of the new Valjoux 7750 movement, modified by Tudor to ensure it met with the brand’s high expectations. The Valjoux 7750 also had a quick-set date function, which saved time when setting the watch up after a period of not wearing it. The biggest development, however, was the aforementioned introduction of…

This year’s SIHH provided Girard-Perregaux with the perfect opportunity to introduce American singer-songwriter Laura Pergolizzi – better known by her stage name LP – as the newest member of its “Talents Team”. In Girard-Perregaux’s words, “a true friendship developed” between the musician and the manufacture after LP chose to wear a stainless-steel Laureato in the music video for her 2016 track Tightrope. Formally welcomed by CEO Antonio Calce at a press conference in the brand’s SIHH booth, LP treated attendees to an off-the-cuff performance with just her and a ukulele. Calce told the gathered crowd: “This is much more than ‘product placement’. We are looking forward to cultivating this authentic relationship with LP.” LP has so far released four albums and has written songs for the likes of Rihanna, Cher,…

Continuing the success of last year’s inaugural Bremont Townhouse concept, this February saw the brand again introduce its new collection on home turf at the second edition of its London pop-up. Taking a new address at One Horse Guards, the week-long event played host to Bremont’s partners, ambassadors, friends of the brand, journalists and watch-keen members of the public. In terms of product, the most notable launch was arguably the limited-edition Bremont Endurance – produced in partnership with polar explorer Ben Saunders and worn during his 2017 solo, unsupported Antarctic expedition. The Endurance builds on the success of 2014’s Terra Nova, also made for Saunders, and features date and GMT complications alongside a bi-directional bezel with cardinal direction markers. This year also saw Bremont take its Townhouse concept on the…

Those who delighted in 2011’s The Mastery of Time by Dominique Fléchon, a lavish study of timekeeping over the centuries, will be happy to know of its companion. Flammarion, in partnership with the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie (FHH), has published the second of the FHH’s reference works, The Beauty of Time by Cartier authority Fléchon and historian François Chaille, again with an introduction by Franco Cologni, the Chairman of the Cultural Council of the FHH (Flammarion, £65). Its 288 pages contain 300 colour illustrations covering a selection of the most beautiful timepieces from the Middle Ages to the present, ranging from mechanical and pendulum clocks to wristwatches from today’s most radical makers. Every timepiece is accompanied by text that places the items in historical, cultural and artistic contexts, relevant…

Halfway up Mont Blanc in Courmayeur’s impressive 360°-turning SkyWay cable car, we suddenly leave the sun in the valley as we enter a layer of clouds that are spitting out snow in a fury. Our small group of adventurers had been hoping for sunshine, but once at the top, the glacial wind and relentless snow seemed somehow more appropriate for mountaineering on Mont Blanc’s famous glaciers. Our guide, Alberto, starts to rope us together and give us a safety briefing. The glacier has been changing rapidly over the summer and there has been an increasing number of crevasses appearing, so we need to be vigilant. We venture out, following in single file, stepping over deep fissures in the ice that seem to descend to the centre of the earth. We…

CORUM HERITAGE ARTISANS COIN WATCH MOVEMENT Calibre CO 082 Automatic showing hours and minutes CASE 43mm diameter, made from a US silver dollar coin STRAP Blue denim Skulls and coins are nothing new in horology. Clocks dating back to the earliest days of mechanical timekeeping came in the form of “Memento Mori” skulls or skeletons. Javelot, Thomas White, James Harmar, William Bowyer and countless other watchmakers whose names were not appended to their works provided skull clocks for myriad clients – not least members of the medical profession. Coins, by virtue of both their shape and their value, all but begged to be hollowed out either to hold a smaller, complete and removable pocket watch, or used to act as the case itself, accepting a movement and dial fitted into…

NOMOS GLASHÜTTE AUTOBAHN MOVEMENT In-house, self-winding DUW 6101 Neomatik calibre; small seconds; date CASE 41mm stainless steel; water-resistant to 100m STRAP Black nylon strap Baselworld 2018 saw Nomos Glashütte introduce its first motor-inspired watch: the Autobahn. Taking cues from vintage cars, the watch has been created in collaboration with product designer Werner Aisslinger. A graduate of the Berlin University of Arts, Aisslinger founded his Berlinand Singapore-based Studio Aisslinger in 1993 and has gone on to win a host of design awards – including several Red Dots, the Compasso d’Oro, the Designpreis Deutschland, the FX Award and the Icon Award. His work can also be found in the permanent collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, Paris’s Fonds national d’art contemporain, and both Germany’s Neue…

Last year’s movie Spider-Man: Homecoming was a huge hit at the box office and acclaimed by the critics. How was the experience of working on the film and has life changed for you since its release? The entire journey from beginning to end still feels surreal. I remember the first day I arrived on set. I was so nervous but at the same time so curious about the process of making the film. Each day brought something new – it was like the first day of school except a bit more intimidating. I grew up reading the Spider-Man comic book with my brother and my dad is an artist so he would draw us our own Spider-Man stories. He would personalise the storyline to include me and my brother. It’s…

Patek Philippe’s Geneva Salon on the Rue du Rhône is one of the great landmarks of the horological world. When I first visited it over 25 years ago, you could still refer to it as the headquarters: above the shop were offices, workshops, and a few items from the museum collection displayed in cabinets in a room that had not made up its mind whether to be a waiting area or a conference space. This historic site still has the famous Cordoba leather-lined room facing the lake, along with the safe that Patek carried away from the wreckage of Tiffany’s failed attempt to establish a watch factory in Geneva in the 19th century. Otherwise, much has changed in the intervening quarter century: workshops and offices are in Planles-Ouates, the museum…

WEI KOH Co-founder and Group Creative & Editorial Director I’ve always been interested in watches, but there are two ones that really got me started. There was my grandfather’s Rolex Datejust, which was given to my uncle, who then gave it to me when I was 16 years old. But that watch has unfortunately been stolen. “My first Panerai was a PAM 61. It embodied all of the mystique and heroism and sense of adventure that those watches instilled.” The second watch was much later in life, in my late-20s, and what really got me back into watches was Panerai. My first Panerai was a PAM 61, a titanium, manual-wind watch with a tobacco dial. It embodied all of the mystique and heroism and sense of adventure that those watches…

They are famous and cool as liquid nitrogen, reachable only by a select few though everyone admires them – rockstars are like that, and in the watchmaking world, these three pieces represent different degrees of cool, from Mick Jagger to Eric Clapton. Richard Mille enjoys making watches for his close friends. Most of them, residents in the sports Valhalla, are bestowed pieces that transcend all conventions and redefine all concepts of high-tech watchmaking. Argentinian Pablo Mac Donough, arguably the best polo player ever, is no exception. The science behind the new Richard Mille Pablo Mac Donough is well anchored in some previous timekeepers that revolutionised the idea of high-impact sports. The second chapter in this Mille-Mac Donough saga takes from the best of Mille’s recent performances, such as the Nadal…

Don’t be alarmed. Salon Secrets isn’t a list of watches at SIHH that were sneakily hidden from the public. You must understand that with 35 exhibitors on full throttle for five days straight means that not everything new that’s been brought to the fair can be given equal attention. As a result, here’s our pick of three watches that could’ve done with a lot more talking up. Between the Minute Repeater Tri-Axial Tourbillon and the Neo-Tourbillon Skeleton with Three Bridges that Girard-Perregaux brought to SIHH 2018, it’s not hard to understand why a new addition to the Laureato collection would slide under the radar. There was that Laureato 38mm White Ceramic, but the one that would’ve turned a few more heads, had it received the due attention, is the Laureato…

German driver Nico Hülkenberg has followed a pretty formulaic route into F1. Starting with go-karting as a child, he has driven in the GP2 series, the 3 Euro Series and the A1 Grand Prix as well as competing in the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship and winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the same year at his first attempt. Having previously been with F1 teams Williams (2010), Force India (2011-2012, 2014) and Sauber (2013), Hülkenberg moved to Renault in 2017 and looks set to continue with the team for the foreseeable future. And, thanks to Bell & Ross’s determination to appeal to a wider audience and its subsequent partnership with Renault Sport in February 2016 when it became the official watch partner of the Renault F1 team, Hülkenberg…

When we started Revolution 13 years ago, we did so with one mission: to place the mechanical watch in the spotlight on the centre stage of contemporary culture. We wanted to make all the aesthetic poetry, technical might and artisanal value represented by this tiny object domiciled on the human wrist, and living in inextricable symbiosis with the human heart, more relevant than ever by connecting it with the worlds of cinema, music, art, literature, sports, the culinary arts and beauty – in other words, everything that makes life worth living. In so doing, we created a crucible where the mechanical watch entered into a dialogue with the modern world and its inhabitants. In the process Revolution proliferated and now exists in 12 print editions, as well as web and…

The coolest watches with the most enduring designs, those that conjure up feats of heroism and courage in the face of innumerable odds, are invariably born as pragmatic tools. The fact that every aspect of their design was optimised for performance is what endows them with such evocative purposefulness. Case in point, the lever-locking mechanism of the Panerai Luminor Marina, used to prevent the intrusion of water as Italian frogmen piloted massive, unwieldy, human-guided torpedoes. In the days before GPS, that was not just a distinguishing design element, but a hard-used and tested innovation. The lyre-lugged, two-pusher iconography of the Omega Speedmaster, distinguished in particular by its tachymetric scale emblazoned boldly and audaciously on the bezel (a world’s first) not only renders it the world’s most famous chronograph, but conjures…

Rolex is, without doubt, one of the biggest and most recognised brands on the planet. The stories behind the company are as fascinating as they are numerous, with Rolex’s involvement in exploration, scientific advancement and the arts. From setting new land-speed records to exploring the deepest marine trenches on earth, Rolex has always engaged with projects in a philanthropic way and also to test the limits of its timepieces. Like many classic designs over the past decades, the Rolex Oyster has gently evolved but primarily remains true to its roots. Within the Rolex line-up of sports watches there is a watch that has been a constant since 1953 – 65 years – that is showing no signs of going quiet any time soon: the Explorer. The story begins in 1952.…

With the unexpected transformation of Tudor over the past decade, from cult status to a shoo-in for successive “Brand of the Year” titles, its collectability has skyrocketed. Gone are the days when Tudors could be found languishing in the back of jewellery store cabinets – the most rare examples now command six-figure sums. So, the time is right to remind enthusiasts of what a rich vein has been tapped. Tudor watches, now so in-demand, were conceived by Rolex supremo Hans Wilsdorf in 1926 as a way to own a Rolex-quality timepiece at a more affordable price. The watches were effectively Rolexes in many ways except for the movements and dials – many vintage Rolex and Tudor watches share the same cases, bezels, crowns and crystals. So where did it all…

In the past two decades, the proliferation of watch culture through the world can be attributed to a handful of retailers who moved beyond their simple transactional role and became ambassadors dedicated to transmitting the extraordinary craft, breathtaking talent and sheer technical wizardry of Swiss high watchmaking. One of the retailers I admire most is Tay Liam Wee. He is the former owner of Sincere Watch and during his time at the helm, he transformed it from an already buoyant retail operation into one of Asia’s most significant disseminators and incubators of modern horological culture. He was instrumental in the thrilling ascendance of brands such as Franck Muller, A. Lange & Söhne, F. P. Journe, Chopard L.U.C and many more. He also invested significantly in initiatives to bring the best…

Never a brand to shout about its philanthropic work, we at Revolution believe that Rolex deserves to be applauded for its ongoing work in the arts, environment and science. For the current edition of The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, four of the world’s most distinguished artists – British architect Sir David Adjaye, Indian musician Zakir Hussain, Canadian choreographer Crystal Pite and New York-based Irish writer Colm Toíbín − have each chosen an outstanding young talent for a period of creative exchange and personal inspiration, made possible through the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative – a biennial programme established in 2002. Sir David has chosen to work with Mariam Kamara, 38 from Niger; Hussain with Marcus Gilmore, 31 from the United States; Pite with Khoudia Touré, 31 from…

Imagine the cataclysmic tremor throughout Formula One when Lewis Hamilton departed McLaren. The weeping and wailing when Angelina split from Brad, when Jeff Beck left the Yardbirds, when George Clooney quit ER. Yes, that’s the scale of the shock that rattled the watch industry when Georges Kern walked away from IWC, the brand he made so cool that it’s frosty. And where did he end up? With its mortal foe, Breitling. In his first year, Kern has wasted no time in grabbing Breitling by the scruff of its neck – which it sorely needed – to work the same magic. Already announced are partnerships with the much-loved British motorcycle firm, Norton, and, along with private banking group Julius Baer, the Concours d’Elégance Suisse, thus securing prime visibility in the world…

BREGUET CLASSIQUE TOURBILLON EXTRA-PLAT AUTOMATIQUE 5367 MOVEMENT Self-winding, extra-thin (3mm) Calibre 581 with tourbillon CASE 42mm rose gold or platinum with fluted caseband; sapphire caseback STRAP Brown or blue alligator-leather with gold folding clasp Breguet must surely be on a high, thanks to its presence in Darkest Hour, the award-winning film about Churchill. Talk about product placement! In the spirit of Churchill and the Breguets he owned, the company has released a new version of its Classique. Its simplest variant, the Classique 7147, is a round-cased three-hander with its small seconds slightly offset, positioned at 5 o’clock rather than 6, and which is recessed into the enamel face. This location produces a slight asymmetry which adds a touch of insouciance to what would otherwise be the 18thcentury’s idea of minimalism.…

MEISTERSINGER URBAN MOVEMENT Automatic Miyota Calibre 8245; 42-hour power reserve CASE 40mm stainless steel; sapphire crystal caseback; water-resistant to 50m STRAP Calfskin leather No vagueness about this watch’s mission statement: MeisterSinger states that the new Urban is: “Our City Kid – Casual, Smart, And Ahead of Its Time.” No, it doesn’t mean that it runs fast. Rather, it’s aimed at the young and the urban – the very customers which the watch industry doesn’t want to lose to smart watches. This is, then, an open attack on a market that has been eluding the traditional brands. Priced at £795 in the UK, the Urban offers all the cool of its dearer, mono-handed siblings, and, as is the brand’s wont, it’s also available with a choice of four dial colours: white…

SCHOFIELD TELEMARK MOVEMENT Self-winding ETA 2824-2; hours, minutes, seconds; date CASE 44mm vapour-blasted stainless steel STRAP Customer’s choice from a vast selection If any watch brand marches to the sound of its own drum, it has to be the English house, Schofield. I don’t mean in a technical sense, because their watches are mechanically conventional. In fact, the new Telemark happens to use one of the most popular, near-ubiquitous movements in history: the ETA 2824-2. That, I hasten to add, is a good thing, because this reliable workhorse means ease-of-servicing decades hence, as well as day-to-day dependability. Instead, Schofield – more than any watch producer I can think of – is about attitude. Here is a company that’s offered torches, cigar tubes, pocket knives and ground coffee alongside its watches.…

Bvlgari was founded in 1884, and the name has been synonymous with Italian style and elegance ever since. Steeped in tradition, most of the brand’s products have a link to the history of the maison. At the same time that the Roman brand has been focused on the historical and the traditional, Bvlgari has been aiming to be as disruptive as possible. Seems like a paradox, doesn’t it? That’s exactly why Bvlgari CEO Jean-Christophe Babin is smiling. He wants you to question, to refuse to accept the status quo, to ask why and to ask why not, to revel in the confusion, then realise that it all makes sense. While Bvlgari is playing with traditional codes and styles, it is moving watchmaking and watch design forward into the future. Disruptive…

The Oris Baselworld preview doesn’t kick off, surprisingly, with watches, but with a morning of intensive skiing on the slopes of the Swiss ski resort of Zermatt. There is nothing like the sting of winter air on your cheeks, the light from the sun sparkling off the snow and the sensation of speeding down the ski slopes in the excellent company of the Oris team to get the day off to a great start. We are among the first ones on the slopes on this chilly morning. It is early December and most Swiss people haven’t even started thinking about waxing their skis for the upcoming season. It feels like we have the resort to ourselves as we set off exploring this snowy paradise. The Zermatt ski domain goes from…

Watch brands collaborating with industries and disciplines outside of horology is something that has been increasingly explored in recent years. From aeroplane manufactures to car designers and boat builders; from artists, musicians and photographers to shoemakers, corsetieres and tailors, the marriages have ranged from the obvious to the bizarre. This year’s SIHH was no different and, although fewer partnerships may have been unveiled, those that were ranged from the interesting to the fantastical to some of the most technical we have seen. Increasingly, wristwatches are taking starring roles in movies — from Bond’s Rolex/Seiko/Omega to Agent J’s Hamilton Ventura in Men in Black and Lorraine Broughton’s Carl F. Bucherer in Atomic Blonde. Less common, however, is a production watch designed specifically for, and in collaboration with, the makers of a…

The word “complication” has a specific meaning in watchmaking: it’s a function that affects the time display, and not just how the watch works. The tourbillon, for example, is not a complication per se, but brands have used the term so loosely that it’s generally accepted as one now. For today’s purposes, though, allow me to use the word in its more widely understood definition, not the one that watch nerds will latch on to, as something that’s, well, complicated. No one can argue that A. Lange & Söhne’s Triple Split is extremely complicated, by any definition of the word. The split seconds chronograph, or rattrapante, is arguably pne of the most underappreciated complications; watchmakers have nightmares about them, for they are particularly delicate to assemble and adjust – and…

A price tag surprise is not about the price, really. It’s about value. Even if something is priced at one million dollars, it could still be a price tag surprise if you think it’s worth more than that one million dollars. While roaming the halls and booths of SIHH, I was looking for watches with an incredible price-value ratio. Often, when I’m in meetings with brands, I play a little game where I write down how much I think a watch is going to cost at retail, given the brand, the materials, the craftsmanship and the complications. I’m usually within a couple of hundred dollars of the retail price. I have been WAY under a handful of times (once resulting in being immediately ushered out of the brand-in-question’s booth), and…

Roger Dubuis is a brand for connoisseurs. How did you discover it? I first saw the watches five years ago and, at the time, it was a completely new brand to me. I had the opportunity to meet the people who worked there and to see what they do. I felt so lucky when they said they wanted to partner with me. I had just moved to England and at the same time, Roger Dubuis was reinventing itself. I was 23 when we came together and we’ve done a few different things in the past five years – I’ve been to the manufacture and to SIHH and had the opportunity to wear the watches and meet the people behind the brand. At the manufacture, I was let loose on a…

Congratulations on your new job. How long have you been with Audemars Piguet and what has been your progression through the company? I have been working with Audemars Piguet for almost five years. I started in a commercial role, looking after sales in the UK and late last year I became the Country General Manager. It has been an incredible journey so far. I have been in the luxury goods industry for my entire working life and have always had a passion for watches, so working for a manufacture such as Audemars Piguet is, of course, a fantastic opportunity for me. It feels very special to evolve within a family-owned business as opposed to a traditional corporate structure. The bond among the team is close, as are the ties between…

Engraving is a fairly niche profession. How did you start on this path? I’ve always been artistic, but my first loves were drawing, painting and fashion and I studied Art and English at A level in order to get into Central Saint Martins. But just before going to university, I changed paths when my uncle – who worked for British gunmakers James Purdey & Sons – showed me a Purdey catalogue. I was immediately drawn to the intricate engraving showcased in the catalogue and, noticing my interest, my uncle said that the company might be looking for an apprentice engraver. The rest is history. I am honoured to say that I am the only Purdey-trained engraver of the past 15 years. What did the apprenticeship involve? A lot of people…

For enquires, email shop@revolutionmagazines.com For both you and BWD, 2017 was a year of major change. Tell us about that. I think I would say it has been the pivotal moment in my career. Yes, I’ve kind of become official with the customisation side of things, but more than that, I am now being embraced by the industry and that feels cool. People are starting to realise that personalisation will eventually go hand-in-hand with luxury brands – it has already happened in the car business, with everyone from Rolls-Royce and Ferrari to Land Rover doing it. And, as history shows, the automotive industry leads the rest of luxury. A few years ago, people were saying that luxury was dead and it was all about bespoke, but they have to go…

“Ciao come stai? Tutto Bene. Fammi un martini secco per favore! Grazie!” If you’re bellowing this through a loudspeaker to the staff at the Capri Palace as they watch in slack-jawed awe as you — still resplendent in your silk shantung dinner jacket and soft-collared tropical-weight Marcella evening shirt – enact a perfect 10-point swan dive from the skid of your helicopter hovering above the pool, in homage to Gianni Agnelli’s famous entrance to the legendary Hotel du Cap, then this watch is for you. If, this summer, you plan to live libidinously to an internal soundtrack of Renato Carosone’s Tu Vuò Fa L’Americano and on a steady diet of Aperol Spritzes, Cohiba Talismans, vitamin B12 injections and the open-mindedness of dewy-eyed haut monde demoiselles, then this watch is for…

The Tudor Oyster is the genetic heart of the brand’s watches. They first started to appear in 1946 and feature robust, Tudor-modified Fleurier calibres housed in 34mm steel Oyster cases. From a collector’s viewpoint, one of the most exciting elements of these watches is the vast array of dial variations that were produced. From the very outset, Hans Wilsdorf was clear that these watches would be of the same impeccable quality and reliability as Rolex. He had two innovations that he’d pioneered with Rolex – the Oyster case and the improved auto-wind movement – and his decision to bestow these elements on the Tudor watches was key to making them live up to his high expectations and promise. They would also benefit from being granted the full Rolex guarantee –…

Tudor unveiled their second series of chronographs in 1971, known as the 7100 series. Following the chronos, known as the “Homeplate,” Tudor continued to embrace a flamboyant use of colour – an emerging hallmark of the brand. Alongside the vibrant colour schemes the watches were housed in big cases for the time at 40mm. The Rolex Daytona was 36mm at the time and so the Tudor was the big bruiser brother. This series became known by collectors as the original “Monte Carlo” watches. Often, the Homeplate watches are also referred to as Monte Carlos, but this isn’t technically correct: the latter nickname should only really be used when referring to the 7100 series. Tudor introduced a third bezel type for the Monte Carlos. Having experimented with the 12-hour, bi-directional rotating…

Think about Wei, a symbol of style, travelling with rare cigars, cashmere gloves handmade in Naples, and a floor-length fur coat barely covering his bespoke calfskin boots and under which could be found a Ralph Lauren teddy bear sweater. Now, imagine our sartorial dandy stuck in 30 inches of snow in a village called Saint-Martin de Belleville hidden away in Les 3 Vallées, one of the best ski domains Europe has to offer. That trip – which incidentally is the first of a series – almost cost me Wei’s famous and everlasting good mood and our friendship. My idea of what a horological winter photoshoot must be was not precisely his. “You said we were going to walk on the snow, not in the snow,” he told me, looking deeply…