The 24 Hours of Le Mans endurance race is legendary among motorsports enthusiasts, and I was overjoyed to have been Chopard’s guest during what is for many the most famous motorsport race in the world. At this year’s event I counted a great number of watch brands in attendance in some way including Rolex, Chopard, TAG Heuer, Rebellion, and Franck Muller.
Chopard co-president Karl-Friedrich Scheufele loves Porsche. “We are one of the rare watch brands with a genuine connection to cars,” Scheufele sums up the ultra-successful weekend of the 24 Hours of Le Mans during which Chopard’s partner Porsche added to its mythos by winning the race a seventeenth time. “Not every brand can say that.”
Glashütte Original’s goal for the chronograph movement inside the new Senator Chronograph Panorama Date was to have balanced functions with reliability, legibility, and a feeling of luxuriousness. To achieve this, the company’s experienced team took the best elements of its previous chronographs, added the company’s signature panorama date, and created the automatic flyback Caliber 37-01.
In honor of the manufacture’s 260th anniversary, Vacheron Constantin will present a new special order masterpiece on September 17, 2015 the company has called “one of the greatest man-made objects in the world.” Here we take an early look at a sampling of what is in store.
Every year since 2008, Longines has staged an exhibition match during Roland Garros featuring current and former professional tennis greats to play with the finalists of the Future Aces tournament. This year, the thirteen-year-old finalists, Xiaofei Wang and Jack Pinnington-Jones, had the pleasure of playing with French Davis Cup captain Arnaud Clément and 2007 Wimbledon doubles champion Michaël Llodra in an entertaining matchup of fake grunts and tricky hot dog shots.
Extraordinary engraver Kees Engelbarts loves his skeletonized watches as they do very much showcase his art form. “I wanted to make another kind of skeleton watch,” he says about his latest creation called Tourbillon Organic Skeleton. “Most skeleton watches are, as you know, very symmetric. My plan was to make a skeleton watch without a drawing or plan before starting, by just taking away material from the base plate and bridges that is not needed.”
Seiko’s story is much more complicated than most people might think. This is a manufacturer that doesn’t follow trends, but has created a few of its own, capitalizing on various types of expertise and knowledge that were the mother of necessity for a manufacturer located so far away from the established centers of watchmaking in Europe. Grand Seiko is the most appealing line to connoisseurs of fine watchmaking, and we look at it in some depth here.
The Girard-Perregaux Minute Repeater Tourbillon with Gold Bridges includes an extraordinary new version of the brand’s typical tourbillon and a chiming function – which is the star of the show here. The mechanical beauty of the watch’s skeletonized dial is dominated by three elements: the smaller bridge supporting the tourbillon, the larger bridge extending across the dial between 3 and 9 o’clock, and the repeater hammers at 12 o’clock. The shape of the hammers, which rest on jewels acting as ball bearings to reduce friction, was inspired by the first golden bridges registered in 1884.
On a recent visit to MB&F’s very interesting M.A.D. Gallery in Geneva, I found myself fascinated by the sight of some unusual critters. Even though they are not animated and don’t breathe, they seemed like nothing less than real creatures. Meet the insectile sculptures made by Paul Swan Topen, Gaby Wormann, and Christopher Conte. And, don’t worry, there’s no need to be scared of them. They’re not alive. But I’d leave the covers on . . . just in case.
The quintessential sports tourbillon, the Richard Mille RM 027 RN, officially debuted at the 2010 French Open on the wrist of that year’s champion, Rafael Nadal. It was specifically created to stand up to the punishment of the tennis court. Now Richard Mille introduces the RM 27-02, which is even more high-tech, mechanically resistant, and expensive than the first edition. Read on to find out why.