The perpetual calendar is often the perfect way for watch manufactures to show off craftsmanship and ability, but how brands do this varies. Here Elizabeth Doerr highlights five very different perpetual calendars introduced in 2019, just in time for the leap year turn on February 29, 2020.
It would be relatively easy, and pretty interesting, for GaryG to tell you the story of his two days one summer with artist Alexa Meade and her team. And he’ll get to that, but there’s more: the flood of sensations and emotions that came from considering why time and space are so important to him and from inhabiting a work of art that melded GaryG’s vision of himself with the artist’s interpretation and self-expression. But what does any of this have to do with watches?
There was a time when viewers didn’t consciously pay that much attention to what kind of wristwatches movie characters wore. This often meant that actors wore their personal watches on set, sometimes even when it didn’t suit the movie. Today placing a wristwatch in a big film is big business, which also changes the types of timepieces characters now wear.
RJ Watches – formerly known as Romain Jérôme – has declared bankruptcy with immediate effect. Elizabeth Doerr takes a brief look at the 16-year run of this quirky boutique brand, its design-focused existence having formed an interesting tribute to the power (and limits) of marketing.
The news broke like a hurricane on the morning of February 27, 2020: Watches & Wonders (formerly SIHH) has been canceled for 2020. In the words of Hublot CEO Ricardo Guadalupe, “The future of the fairs is already [hanging] in the balance – to cancel them [this year] is really bad news for them, and for Baselworld in particular.” Read on for more of his opinion.
To celebrate its 65th anniversary, Corum invited a few people to its manufacture in La Chaux-de-Fonds to look at some lovely vintage pieces and talk about what the brand has meant to the history of watchmaking. Elizabeth Doerr shares her visit, and visuals, here.
Zacapa was one of the first rums ever to convince Ken Gargett that there was serious life in the category outside the ubiquitous “Bundy.” He doesn’t think that it will be long before people think of the best rums alongside other premium spirits, and Zacapa is one of the foremost proponents of this movement.
As a fan of the classic 1950s and 1960s Omega Constellations, Colin Smith had always dismissed Omega’s 1982 reworking of its flagship model, known as the Constellation Manhattan, as something of an aberration from the “true” Constellation concept. His “road to Damascus” moment occurred recently when he saw a 36 mm black-dial co-axial chronometer on display at an Omega dealer in Bordeaux.
Everything Greubel Forsey does is about nurturing incredible skill, craftsmanship, and a fundamental belief in patience. This rings doubly true for the Hand Made 1. It looks absolutely perfect from every angle, and the experience is magnified when you realize that not only is this watch completely hand finished (the norm for Greubel Forsey) but wrought from scratch by an individual’s hands.
It’s a leap year, and thanks to our friends at Gorilla Watches, that means it’s time to win a watch. On February 29, 2020 we will be drawing the winner of a Gorilla Fastback GT Bandit. Read on to enter and perhaps even win this easy scavenger hunt. But hurry, this doesn’t happen every day (or year)!