For this edition of Behind the Lens, GaryG shares a series of photographs of one of the great watches of our time, the Philippe Dufour Duality. The Duality, with its linked twin escapements, was originally planned for production in a series of 25 watches. In a turn of events that seems almost unbelievable today, a lack of initial demand eventually led Dufour to limit production to just nine pieces.
You can like everything, but you can’t buy – or keep – everything! Inevitably, the choices involved lead at times to regrets; for GaryG, along with many of his pals, the sadness is much more often about pieces sold too soon or failed to buy rather than pieces they were sorry about buying in the first place (although surely everyone has a few “what was I thinking?” buying moments).
The Mutua Madrid Open is a young tournament; it crowned just its thirteenth winner on May 11, 2014. This winner happens to be world number one Rafael Nadal. And Nadal was wearing an evolution of the groundbreaking ultra-light RM 027. In lightness as in its $690,000 price tag, this watch breaks all kinds of records.
When it comes to pilot’s watches, IWC pretty much coined the term. However, as Martin Green reports, where the former IWC Top Gun watches were generally well received, the Top Gun Miramar changed things up a bit, and the result was far more polarizing. Find out much more about the histories of Top Gun, Miramar, and IWC pilot’s watches in this story.
In 1995, Piaget was part of the Vendôme group that would later become Richemont. Piaget entered the highest end of the watch market by releasing a grande sonnerie wristwatch, which was developed by François-Paul Journe. At the time, Journe was a freelance movement designer and hadn’t officially founded F.P. Journe yet.
Since opening to the public ten years ago, the German Watch Museum Glashütte has attracted approximately 365,000 visitors from a total of 114 countries. In this article Elizabeth Doerr takes us through a brief history of this iconic building situated in the heart of Glashütte and explains why it is well worth a visit.
The real excitement for wine lovers comes when they find something that sings; that drinks well above its pay grade. And so it is with the latest rosé champagne from Louis Roederer, the 2012 vintage. Ken Gargett has a glass (or two) to see if this champagne from the house that makes Cristal lives up to the hype.
What happens when you take eight watchmaking students, a photographer, a plucky PR manager, and yours truly and send them on an international mission of espionage and intrigue? Joshua has no idea, but he does know that that same cast of characters came together to participate in quite possibly the most prestigious watchmaking competition in the world: the Walter Lange Watchmaking Excellence Award presented by A. Lange & Söhne.
If you’re just beginning to collect the works of independent watchmakers, GaryG suggest that you give careful consideration to watches from Habring2, the small independent watchmaking company headed up by Austrian couple Maria Kristina and Richard Habring.
With its idiosyncratic rounded octagonal bezel and bold horizontal stripes accentuating its dial, Patek Philippe’s Nautilus has represented the epitome of sporty casual in horological design for 42 years. Sabine explains why the Nautilus Perpetual Calendar Ref 57401G was one of the most talked-about watches at Baselworld 2018.