Pay It Forward
In the last five years or so, environmental concerns have multiplied exponentially in most industries. Watch brands are no different and alignment with sustainability and eco-friendly practises has become an important concern for many of them. There are three main avenues along which watch firms demonstrate their green credentials. First is the co-branding of a […]
On the dash
In August 1888, Bertha Benz took her husband’s newly invented motorwagen and drove her two sons from Mannheim to Pforzheim, a distance of around 100km. The age of the motor car had begun, and the pioneer model, the Benz, had only a rudimentary dashboard; it was intended to serve the same purpose as the one […]
Roger Dubuis Monovortex
Concepts capture the imagination; it’s that flight of fancy into the future of what might be that is so intuitively appealing. Every so often, in any form of manufacturing, a company produces what it thinks this near-time horizon should look like. This year, it was Roger Dubuis that surprised us all by presenting a concept […]
McLaren 750S Spider
In a way, this is all you really need to know about the new McLaren 750S: that it is available as a coupe or a convertible. Top of the class among this summer’s new supercars, the 750S is the result of tons of research, during which McLaren designers and engineers came up with advances in […]
Watches & Wonders 2023
“So, what have you seen?” was the stock-in-trade small talk, working the hallowed, beige-wash halls of Watches & Wonders (W&W). However, this year, it took less than a morning for, “I’ve only seen the massive queue” to become the stock-in-trade punchline. Unpractised, post-pandemic hiccups in people-processing aside – and with full awareness of how ‘first-world […]
Black and Blue
Things used to be simple when it came to dress attire – a dinner suit, traditionally in black and accessorised with a slim, precious metal three-hander just peeping from under a perfectly starched cuff. Not anymore. A cursory glance around the awards’ season red carpets quickly reveals that an old-school penguin suit just won’t cut […]
Time Is a Jewel
As one would expect, all kinds of creations, innovations and variations were revealed at Watches & Wonders 2023. New materials, new technologies, new designs… one could not stop taking notes and writing down article ideas while queuing to access Palexpo. At the risk of sounding superficial, I chose this year to focus on jewelled timepieces. […]
Standing ovation
Watches & Wonders 2023 has been a great show for the main maisons. Patek Philippe had new versions of the ref. 6300 Grandmaster Chime, Vacheron Constantin produced another wonder in their Cabinotiers series, and Roger Dubuis introduced a new idea into its hyper horology universe with some justification, re-thinking the tourbillon and micro-rotor winding system […]
Bovet 1822 Virtuoso XI
There is an art to producing a skeleton watch, and the new Bovet 1822 Virtuoso XI is a pure expression of that art. The trick is to remove sufficient material to enhance the aesthetics and completely show the inner workings, while still keeping the movement robust enough to function. Take away too much metal from […]
IWC Ingenieur 40
Launched in 1957, the IWC Ingenieur was always intended as a technical watch, named after engineers for engineers. But it was not until Gérald Genta designed the reference 1832 – released in 1976 – that it took on a modern form. The 1970s were a decade of change in many ways and in terms of […]
