We know that Michael Jordan, six-time NBA Champion with the Chicago Bulls, likes IWC timepieces as he was wearing a platinum Big Pilot when he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016. At the 2019 NBA All-Star press conference, Jordan sported another watch from the line: a limited edition red gold Big Pilot’s Watch Annual Calendar Antoine De Saint Exupéry.
Watches & Wonders 2019 took place at the Miami Design District over the long President’s Day weekend (February 15-17, 2019). Mainly a three-day weekend of luxurious watch browsing for consumers, this event is less geared toward industry and press and more toward connecting with prospective end clients. Here, Elizabeth Doerr highlights three complicated watches that were nonetheless launched during the Miami event.
Strong stories and captivating histories constantly seduce watchmakers to create various special editions, and ballooning is one of those adventurous feats that has captured some horological imaginations. Here Jan Lidmaňský highlights a few watch brands that have floated through the sky, both literally and figuratively.
The 2018 Walter Lange Watchmaking Excellence Award has come to a conclusion: the dust has settled, the tools have been put down, and the participants are on to other tasks. The winner of the 2018 Walter Lange Watchmaking Excellence award, Otto Peltola, was announced at SIHH 2019 at the annual Lange Friends Dinner. Here Joshua Munchow explains what made this creation stand out among the other seven entries.
Wouldn’t it be splendid to have everything your heart desired? Well, it’s a nice fantasy but it’s not going to happen for GaryG. And besides, he’s not so sure that the experience of “selling to buy” isn’t actually a significant part, albeit a bittersweet one, of the collecting experience. He shares what he has learned here.
Clockmakers rarely get the credit they deserve, and Elizabeth Doerr believes that Rick Hale is deserving of at least a few minutes of your attention because this young autodidact clockmaker is doing something unique: handmaking self-designed clocks out of wood according to some of John Harrison’s principles.
In the theme of Jeff Foxworthy and his “you might be a redneck if” routine, John Keil pokes a little fun at our WIS brothers and sisters as well as ourselves. So without further ado, you know you’re a watch guy if . . .
SIHH 2019 provided an instructive example to Tim Mosso of architecture’s low-key role in watch design relative to well-worn tropes. For him it was the third year in a row that parts of Geneva’s Palexpo felt like a Southern California cars-and-coffee event. But there are a few watch brands that do architecture well, and Tim takes a closer look at some of them here.
In this video, The Watches TV’s Marc André Deschoux goes through the Swiss brand’s new watches from SIHH 2019, which include the Virtuoso IX, Récital 21 perpetual calendar, Récital 23 for ladies, and the outstanding Récital 26 Brainstorm Chapter One – the first Bovet watch housed in a full sapphire crystal case. Enjoy!
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?