You’ve got to love it, that furry strap and skull at the centre are just so way out! Not even Roberto Cavalli would do something so extreme. Cvstos is a young and exuberant watchmaking brand, founded in 2005, and this piece is a good example of their approach to watch design. The name Cvstos comes…
1. Omega was chosen by NASA after a gruelling series of tests. The Omega Speedmaster is the only watch approved by NASA for manned space flights. In the early 1960s, the Omega had already been in space, worn by Wally Schirra on his Mercury flight in October 1962, and NASA were considering a watch for…
Watch brands are already looking forward to 2015, and Ralph Lauren has presented the Automotive Chronograph, inspired by the dashboard of Ralph Lauren’s Bugatti Type 57SC Atlantic Coupe, shown below, image courtesy of http://www.conceptcarz.com/ It is a large piece at 45 mm diameter, 12.2 mm thickness, but the actual dial with the indications is on…
‘Skeleton watches’ seem perfect for Halloween, and so here is a small selection of watches on the skull theme. The motif has been around for a long time, more in art than in watches. Damien Hirst’s diamond-encrusted skull ‘For the Love of God’ is probably the best-known work on this theme, in platinum with 8,501…
The BR-X1 chronograph by Bell & Ross looks exciting, with its dark interior workings providing the backdrop for glimmering steel hands and subdials, in the brand’s classic square-shaped case inspired by cockpit instruments. While the BR-01 launched about ten years ago, and the more recent BR-03, were very close to the classic pilot’s watch design,…
Pilot’s watches, with their inherent simplicity, are a perfect introduction into the world of mechanical timepieces, and a fair number of brands make pilot’s watches costing under a thousand euro. Here are my top 10 pilot’s watches for under €1,300, in descending order of price. 1. The Longines Heritage Military 1938 The Longines Heritage Military…
Jeanrichard was relaunched in early 2013 with two ranges, Terrascope and 1681, and these were soon followed by Aquascope and Aeroscope. Each is linked to a certain attitude to life, with Terrascope expressing travel, the 1681 the brand’s tradition, and Aquascope and Aeroscope being self-explanatory. The Aeroscope by Jeanrichard is a reinterpretation of pilot’s watches,…
Snyper is a Geneva-based company founded in 2008 by a group of people whose enthusiasm for watches is combined with a military background. This is the origin of their ultra-military name and the rugged character of their timepieces, presented on a website that has recently been renewed. “Targets are met when time is under control” is…
Patek Philippe’s collection of watches made to celebrate their 175th anniversary this year includes a very complicated watch, which includes some world firsts. It is the the Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime, reference 5175R-001, in rose gold, Patek Philippe’s most complicated wristwatch with 1,366 components, and one of the most complex in the world, in a…
I leave it on in the rain and while I’m washing the dishes, I take it off for a shower, five-a-side football, and when I’m painting the walls of the house. Gully, a street artist and friend of the brand Jeanrichard, keeps his watch on while he’s working, and so one day “he found that…
The Chopard L.U.C. 1963 Chronograph (reference 161964-5001) is one of the entries in the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, and this limited-edition piece was presented at Baselworld 2014. It’s an attractive watch, with a 42-mm-diameter case, 11.5 mm in thickness, in pink gold with silver dial, and chunky Roman numerals. A sporty touch is added…
You have the chance of winning a Girard-Perregaux Vintage 1945 XXL Petite Seconde worth CHF 10,450. Just vote for your favourite watch amongst the 72 watches pre-selected for the 2014 GPHG competition. The winner will be drawn and announced on 31 October during the GPHG prize-giving ceremony held at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. Remember…
What happens in a thousandth of a second? Usain Bolt runs 1.2 centimetres, a cheetah runs 3 centimetres, an Airbus 380 flies 33 centimetres, the earth moves about 30 metres on its course around the sun. Light travels 300 kilometres in a thousandth of a second, and that is the very top end of the…
This post follows yesterday’s piece on hundredth-second watches: I remembered that in 2012 Breguet presented its Classique Chronométrie 7727 which is visually unusual because it has a very small subdial with a silicon hand that rotates once a second, and so in theory could display fractions of a second, at least tenths or twentieths. In…
TAG Heuer Mikrograph 1/100th of a second chronograph Not many mechanical watches are capable of meausuring time to the nearest hundredth of a second. The brand with the longest history in this area is TAG Heuer, who presented their TAG Heuer Mikrograph 1/100th of a second chronograph, reference CAR5041.FC8178, in January 2011. This piece separates…
In this ingenious watch named Surya, by Frédéric Jouvenot, the time is indicated not by hands, but by petals. At noon, all the petals are green; every hour, a petal changes to a dark grey, until midnight when they are all grey, and the cycle begins again. Minutes are shown by an indicator rotating on…
This article on the best fashion watches looks at what could be considered as a form of brand extension: as a fashion brand grows, the name spreads from garments to kidswear, accessories, perfumes, cosmetics, and watches. Often the watches are more about style than content, and most have quartz movements. But there is an interesting…
Aerowatch is a Swiss brand founded in 1910, presently making models with mechanical and quartz movements. Their latest product is a very good-looking moon phase watch that has something of the classic Breguet-type looks, with blued hands, silver-finish dial with guilloché work in the central part, and Roman numerals. This vintage look is intentional, as…
The Bugatti Veyron costs about $1.9 million, and so the co-branded watch made by Parmigiani Fleurier has to have an adequate price. The Bugatti Super Sport by Parmigiani Fleurier is priced at 285,000 Swiss francs before tax, and it is now available in a limited-edition red gold version. Just 30 pieces, available from now up…
There are trends in the watch business, rather like in fashion, except that in watches the season is yearly while in fashion there are two major seasons each year. In a way this is quite surprising, considering the long development time for watches, but one of the features that emerged at the two big shows…