Dish by Niki Nakayama from the Netflix series Chef's Table

How Contemporary Haute Horlogerie Stacks Up Against Contemporary Haute Cuisine: Netflix’s ‘Chef’s Table’ Offers Tasty Lessons

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Contemporary watchmaking has been making waves in the generally calm waters of traditional watchmaking for nearly two decades and has radically changed perceptions as to what haute horlogerie might be. But watching the superb Netflix series ‘Chef’s Table ‘ and contemporary haute cuisine, I can’t help but wonder if the pioneers and leaders of contemporary watchmaking are doing enough.

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Blackened Rolex Explorer II

Why I Pimped My Rolex

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The watch nerd that I am, I rarely immediately wear my new watches; I like to put them aside for a few days and let the anticipation grow. When the day finally came that it was time to wear my new Rolex, I took it out of the box and proudly put it on my wrist. And then horror struck. I didn’t feel anything, not a thing! Zilch, nada, niente! What to do?

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MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual on the author’s wrist at SIHH 2016

Collectors Speak: Picks And Pans Of SIHH Week 2016

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It’s already been six consecutive years that I’ve had the delightful experience of going through SIHH week with several of my closest friends. Our closing discussions centered around four questions, which were focused more tightly on SIHH itself this year due to the inclusion of nine independent watchmakers: what watch did you think was best of show at SIHH? What was the worst watch of the show? What watch displayed at the show would you buy if money were no object? What watch did you see on display that would you buy with your own money?

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The Urwerk UR-105 features bright color, but is that enough?

Here’s Why A Watch Strap Is More Than Just An Accessory

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In many machines, there is always one, or yes, maybe a few, components without which the machine becomes something fundamentally different. And so it goes in a wristwatch. You might have noticed that I do not say “watch” and instead say “wristwatch.” This is entirely deliberate as a pocket watch and a wristwatch are two different machines. They share a large amount of components and are definitely related, but one “function critical” component sets them apart. You can see where I am going with this: it’s the watch strap.

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Vianney Halter Antiqua perpetual calendar in white gold

Is Independent Creative Horology Dead?

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In the early 1990s, I was facing the same dilemma as today: should I buy modern or vintage? The problem was that the modern watches actually all looked vintage, right down to the sizes. There was something lacking, and watch shopping at times almost felt like perusing the yogurt section in a Soviet supermarket.

I’m obviously exaggerating here, but in general it seemed to me that creativity was more or less an afterthought.

Enter Vianney Halter in 1998 with the Antiqua Perpetual. And then what happened next: the birth of ICH (“independent creative horology”).

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Greubel Forsey Double Balancier

Why You Shouldn’t Get Your Better Half Interested In Watches

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“What, another watch?” she almost screamed in disbelief no sooner than I had opened the front door to our little love nest. Rewind to last week. I had been looking for a Roger Smith Series 1 for some time now, and Jones, my watch dealer, happened to finally locate one. I thought that I had played it pretty safe, so I really don’t know how she could have noticed. But then what happened next changed the rest of my life.

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Longines “Ambassador of Elegance” Kate Winslet

Celebrity Ambassadors: Good Marketing Or Terrible Waste?

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A few weeks ago, I had the very enjoyable experience of attending a day hosted by Audemars Piguet and the Watch Enthusiasts of New York (WENY) filled with watches, watchmaking, and lively conversation. In the evening, we were treated to something that for me was quite unusual but that in the world of luxury goods marketing is commonplace: an interaction with one of the brand’s ambassadors, in this case Sir Nick Faldo. Read on to learn what is it that leads watch brands to engage celebrities.

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Greubel Forsey Double Tourbillon Technique

Objects Of Desire: Greubel Forsey

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In the “Objects of Desire” series, I’ll be looking at pieces that fall into the latter two categories – a mix of unobtanium and timenotrightium, as my Quill & Pad colleague Joshua Munchow might say. And, where better to start on the topic of desire than with the watches of Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey?

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Why Accuracy Matters To Me, And Why It Should Matter To You Too

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To mark its 50th anniversary in 2009, the International Museum of Horology in Le Locle, Switzerland launched an international chronometry competition. This effectively broke a long drought of 37 years since the last timing trial, which was held by the Observatory of Neuchâtel back in 1972.

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