Running Around in Circles
For lovers of fashion, the advent of online shopping, social media and the relentless pace of new collections and exclusive collaborations has found us bombarded with novelty and temptations we can find difficult to resist. But there is a big and depressing downside to this: a shocking 64 percent of the 32 billion garments produced […]
Aladdin Sane: 50 years
As I was crossing the bridge on my way to the press preview of Aladdin Sane: 50 years, I was finding it hard to accept that it has been five decades since the young ambitious musician David Bowie, with the support of his manager Tony Defries and the genius of photographer Brian Duffy, created one […]
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. 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 the bridges, for example, and they could deform and damage the performance of the […]
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 […]
Michael Johnson
There is no question that Michael Johnson is one of the greatest athletes of all time. Four times an Olympic champion and eight times a world champion, over his career he won 12 Olympic and World Championship gold medals and established several Olympic and world records. Our Editor, Julia Pasarón, interviewed him while he was […]
Disruptive Success
Towards the end of 2022, Edouard Meylan was awarded the Esprit d’entreprise Prix Gaïa; a prize presented annually – when candidate(s) of sufficient standing are deemed to be available – by the Musée international d’horlogerie. When presenting the award, which is recognised as one of the industry’s highest honours, Jean Claude Biver, horology’s venerated entrepreneur, […]
