London is one of the world’s metropolises that can very easily stand its ground against the others by doing what it does best: being profoundly British. There are plenty of sensational timepieces in London if you know where to look, and in this article Martin Green shares a few of his favorite places.
Even when you are really good at your craft and universally recognized, you might unwittingly find yourself in the middle of a battle. This is what happened to Abraham-Louis Breguet in the early nineteenth century as the Napoleonic Wars were being waged throughout Europe. For many years these conflicts offered both opportunities and challenges to Breguet. Martin Green explains why.
When the retrograde date of the Bovet Récital 21 flies back to the start and the perpetual calendar jumps into the next month, you raise your glass in a smiling, silent toast to the magic of haute horlogerie, the skills of the craftspeople, and the joy that watches like the Bovet Récital 21 offer. Whether you’re a dandy or not.
As we might expect from F.P. Journe, the parfum d’ambiance created for use in its boutiques is a thing of beauty: a clever compilation of light floral notes on a woody, cedar base. It is the base that provides its longevity, while the floral notes tone it down. The result is a contemporary composition brightening up the room and working effectively in light doses as a great interior perfume should. But why should we care?
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.
It might seem an unlikely comparison as the age difference between the Piaget Altiplano and the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra Thin in this article spans more than four decades, yet as Martin Green explains these two ultra thins have a lot more in common than you might think.
Limited editions used to be a rarity, but they started to become more popular in late 1980s and early 1990s, almost like a snowball rolling down a hill that gets bigger and bigger. Martin Green wonders if we can still take LEs seriously.
The perpetual calendar is a great example of a complication that is outdated by at least a couple of decades. Yet perpetuals still know how to capture the attention of watch collectors and connoisseurs with a very complex movement, even if some components only jump into action once a year. The perpetual calendar is often the perfect way for a watch manufactures to show off craftsmanship and ability – but the way that brands do this varies. Here are three very different examples we found at the 2019 SIHH.
Roger Dubuis and Lamborghini have a special relationship: the watches that have so far come from this still relatively young collaboration have not only been impressive but also suck you into the world of Lamborghini without a car even being in sight. It is almost like the watchmakers at Roger Dubuis have infused this watch with motor oil and replaced the ticking of the escapement with the growl of an Italian high-performance engine. And the Excalibur Huracán Performante is all the evidence you need!
Trends rule a larger part of our lives than many of us wish to admit. Sometimes we follow trends consciously, but often we are subconsciously influenced in the choices we make. All brands perform a delicate tightrope walk, but they differ in how successful they are. Let’s take a look at how trends affect or don’t affect now-iconic timepieces.