Welcome to the inaugural Quill & Pad Baselworld “awards,” in which we highlight a few of the watches and goings-on that caught our eyes at the world’s largest watch exhibition. Here’s what caught our eyes at Baselworld 2014 in no particular order.
Location. Location. Location. I work from a comfortable, but fairly non-descript office situated between Geneva and Lausanne. The region is visually stunning with the lake and Alps to the east and Jura mountains to the west, but one of the major things making the location so special to me is that I am only five minutes’ drive from the Speake-Marin atelier.
* Maurice Lacroix announces a three-year partnership with FC Barcelona as its official watch partner. Spanish soccer club FC Barcelona is considered one of the world’s most prestigious “footie” clubs and boasts an emotional global fan base of over 300 million admirers and 100 million social media followers.
Resilience, Triad, Serpent Calendar, Spirit Mark II and Dragon. Those were just a few of the new models that Speake-Marin exhibited at Baselworld last year and we have heard a whisper that the brand will be presenting an even bigger line up of exciting new models this year.
Richard Mille announces another new sporting ambassador following quickly on the heels of skier Alexis Pinturault, who won bronze at the Sochi Olympics in giant slalom. The luxury sporting brand now welcomes Romanin Grosjean to the fold. This announcement coincides with the first Formula 1 testing sessions of the E22 Lotus, which makes sense since Grosjean is a Lotus driver and Richard Mille also sponsors the entire Lotus team.
If you have been around the horological block a few times, you will certainly be aware of GaryG, a frequent poster on prevalent watch fora. His love of the art of luxury watchmaking is unmistakable, and his interest, intelligence and enthusiasm on the subject downright infectious. We are sure you will also love what he brings to the Quill & Pad table.