The year 2015 represents the 200th anniversary of the birth of Ferdinand Adolph Lange, founder of the illustrious watch manufacture A. Lange & Söhne in Glashütte. To celebrate, A. Lange & Söhne book-ended the year with special watches, including the 1815 Tourbillon Handwerkskunst, which has been exquisitely and painstakingly engraved using the ‘tremblage’ method.
The La Montre Hermès’ factory has something that no other watch brand can boast: its own in-house strap production. The leather strap workshop was added to the purpose-built factory resembling the headquarters in Paris in October 2009. And though it is located in a “factory,” the strap-making process can hardly be called industrial; I would describe this craft needing a great deal of artistic grace as artisanal.
During the launch of the bombastic Reference 57260 on September 17, 2015, Vacheron Constantin launched a second rhapsodic item: the truly encyclopedic oeuvre ‘Artists Of Time.’ This beautifully photographed 456-page tome takes an extensive look at both the inner workings of Vacheron Constantin’s craftsmanship and its grandiose history, telling the whole story of the only Swiss watchmaker to have been in continuous operation for 260 years.
The pounding of the drum backbeat and tick-tick-ticking of the mechanical watch form the background of my life, day in and day out. But what do these two fields concretely have in common?
Right at this moment in time they have two seemingly disparate Swiss made references welding them together: Paiste cymbals and Corum. Add Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice to the mix, and the whole thing looks, and sounds, amazing!
“It is a very childish book . . . you have been warned!” my friend Kristian Haagen said to me when I inquired about ‘Hashtags and Watches.’ Haagen is one of the more colorful figures among the writers who follow the world of watches. Which means that he rarely does anything the way that anyone else would. ‘Hashtags and Watches’ is a perfect example.
Historian Dominique Fléchon has worked for the Richemont Group since 1994 and the FHH since 2006. He is a quiet achiever, therefore you may not be very aware of him. Fléchon has authored a comprehensive book on the history of watchmaking called ‘The Mastery of Time.’ This 456-page oeuvre makes the perfect gift for the horophile in your life.
Urban Jürgensen & Sønner has had quite an exciting twelve months: perhaps the most exciting of its 240-year history. In 2014 the brand’s Central Second took home the prize for Best Men’s Watch at the GPHG. Then we were astounded to already see the first results of new ownership: in just eleven weeks the new team managed to revamp the existing collection to present five “new” models at Baselworld 2015.
On November 25, 1915 Albert Einstein introduced his general theory of relativity to the scientific community in Berlin.
Now, on the 100th anniversary of this scientific milestone, the Federation de la Haute Horlogerie (FHH) poses the question through its seventh forum, entitled “The Future in Progress,” as to whether this theory is still relevant as a metaphor for out-of-the-box thinking in watchmaking.
Montblanc has announced the creation of the Montblanc Watch Division, headed by Davide Cerrato, the man who chiefly steered Tudor to its current renaissance as its vice-president of marketing, design, and product development. Cerrato joins Montblanc as its new managing director for the fresh “watch division” and will be based at the Montblanc Manufacture in Le Locle, Switzerland.
On September 17, 2015 Vacheron Constantin presented a milestone in the history of timekeeping: Reference 57260, the world’s most complicated portable timepiece to date with an incredible 57 functions and indications. And to commemorate it, Vacheron Constantin released a very special film called “The Witnesses.”