Innehållsförteckning för Vol 20 från REVOLUTION WATCH

I’M NOT ENTIRELY SURE HOW I ENDED UP on stage facing every communications and PR executive in the Richemont Group – owner of Cartier, Vacheron Constantin, A Lange & Söhne, Panerai, IWC and Jaeger-LeCoultre, among others. I was there to give my thoughts on how watch brands could reach new demographics and, at some point, I had to stop and ask a question of the audience. Clearing my throat, I said: “In 2010 Richemont acquired Net-a-Porter, an engine of change in luxury retail that has demonstrated how consumers are willing to buy well-curated, high-dollar goods in an editorially rich, online environment. Yet there is not a single Richemont Group watch offered on either Net-a-Porter or Mr Porter. “This is the perfect opportunity to position the luxury wristwatch as a lifestyle…

Ask any English motorcycling enthusiast above the age of 30 (well, maybe 40) what springs to mind on hearing the word “scrambling” and the chances are they'll picture a group of mud-spattered men wearing goggles, rugby shirts and cork-lined crash helmets – jumping, sliding and wheelie-ing a motley selection of bikes around a dirt track littered with hills, bumps and ruts. Nowadays, this branch of motorcycle sport is universally known as motocross and is competed in by athletes who are as highly tuned as the fire-breathing machines that they ride (or sometimes fly) in what is now an “extreme sport” of the type beloved of the Red Bull generation. Scrambling, however, was the very English, 1960s forerunner of motocross as we know it today. Back then, it was distinctly amateurish…

BAUME & MERCIER CLIFTON PERPETUAL CALENDAR MOVEMENT Automatic Vaucher 5401 movement with Dubois Depraz 5100 perpetual calendar plate CASE 42mm red gold STRAP Black alligator-leather with red-gold pin buckle Not only will it tell you the time, you will also get the day of the week, the month and even the phases of the moon – all in a stunning red-gold case. The Baume & Mercier Clifton Perpetual Calendar showcases one of the most successful and fascinating complications in watchmaking and, to top it all off, for a very reasonable price (approximately £19,000). The Clifton collection is my personal favourite from the brand, known for its affordability and elegance. I am always keen to stress to friends navigating the watch world that having a well-built, well-finished, Swiss watch doesn’t have…

CHRISTOPHER WARD C8 POWER RESERVE CHRONOMETER MOVEMENT Hand-wound Calibre SH21; date at 3 o'clock; small seconds at 6 o’clock; power reserve at 9 o'clock; twin barrels with 120-hour power reserve; COSC-certified CASE 44mm steel coated in marine-grade black DLC; water resistant to 50m STRAP Brown leather When the C8 Power Reserve Chronometer was announced, it did not take long for my pulse to start racing. What we have here is a 44mm black-DLC cased manual-winding pilot’s style watch, with a five-day power reserve and date, powered by a variant of the brand’s in-house calibre, the SH21. The best thing about this watch, however, is the almost unbelievable price of £1,550. Reasonable prices have, of course, been the stock-in-trade of Christopher Ward since the brand launched in 2004. Offering watches powered…

MONTBLANC 1858 AUTOMATIC DUAL TIME MOVEMENT Automatic Calibre MB 29.19; hours, minutes and small seconds; second time zone; day/night indication; 42-hour power reserve CASE 44mm satinated stainless steel with bronze bezel and crown; water-resistant to 30m STRAP Cognac-coloured aged calf-leather strap with vintage beige stitching and satinated stainless-steel buckle Aaah, bronze. What watch collection is complete today without at least one model made from the copper alloy that gently patinates over time to create a timepiece unique to its wearer? This year has seen an array of new bronze cases appear in stores and one of the first to make an appearance in 2017 will be the Montblanc 1958 Automatic Dual Time (along with its siblings the 1858 Automatic and 1858 Tachymeter Limited Edition 100). By now the story of…

It was almost too easy: I was anticipating the typical brand ambassador, for whom watches are merely another means of promotion, but Katheryn Winnick opens our interview with: “I got my first watch at seven years old. It was a Timex, digital, and it was white. I had a small wrist and my brother had to get it resized – it was one of my favourite things because it also had a stopwatch function.” Raymond Weil chose wisely, for Winnick doesn’t simply “get” watches: she understands time itself. “That Timex allowed me to appreciate the minutes. It allowed me to stop and realise, wow, the whole day went by, a whole minute went by – how do I feel differently than I did a minute ago? Or: Do I feel…

The irony of covering a tourbillon-equipped exemplar of watchmaking excellence with enough ice to raise the price to a high six- or even seven-figures has not been lost on us at Revolution. Diamond pavé cases, dials and (in extreme cases) bracelets represent the pinnacle of a watch hybrid aimed at two disparate types of jewellery lover. For the first, the traditionalist, a completely encrusted surface is nothing new, and fully pavéd pocket watches have been around for centuries. Imagine the cost of encrusting a case that presents the gem setter with four or more times the surface area of a relatively tiny wristwatch. For the second, the new wave of deep-pocketed watch lovers, especially members of the hip-hop community and “kept” women, the addition of a layer of gems is…

When Leslie Mark Kendall, chief curator of the Petersen Automobile Museum, gets behind the wheel of the jet-black 1938 Delahaye with orange pinstripe details, a feeling of calm comes over him. He starts up the car, listens to its rumble, then turns to me and smiles. “There’s artistry in everything about this car,” he says. “Artistry in how it looks, artistry in the mechanism and artistry in driving it. These cars transcended transportation.” We pull out behind a handful of incredible cars, with more than a hundred following us in the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance and Kendall explains to me that this is exactly how it is supposed to be. “Cars can only be fully understood and appreciated when they are driven, to see them do what they were meant…

Of all the challenges — self-inflicted or otherwise — that a watch company has to deal with, manufacturing repeaters is said to trump even tourbillons and perpetual calendars for sheer difficulty. The reason is simple: activating the chiming of the hours, quarters and/or minutes is straightforward in pure horological terms, but the acoustic aspect is an entirely different discipline. Not only does the watchmaker have to incorporate hammers and gongs into the case, adding to the hostility of the microscopic environment by adding a violent action, the repeater has to “sound good”. Mere ringing like an alarm watch, designed to agitate the listener, won’t do; it has to sound simply gorgeous. While sound quality is entirely subjective, a matter of taste, how loud something will go is unequivocally measurable. Our…

In straitened times, one nagging variable that has become an increasingly important part of value is price. And indeed, there appears to be a rising tide of affordable horological creations this year. Not only does the Tudor Heritage Black Bay 36 demonstrate that forensic attention to detail in design can be achieved and appreciated at an entry-level price point, but it also happens to be one of the most well-executed three-handers we’ve seen in a long while. Tudor’s move to present its Heritage Black Bay in 36mm is a bold one. While 36mm certainly isn’t a foreign size to the company, since some of the greatest watches from Rolex share the same dimensions, what Tudor has done here is propose a perfectly proportioned sports watch for the slender wrist, or…

When Leslie Mark Kendall, chief curator of the Petersen Automobile Museum, gets behind the wheel of the jet-black 1938 Delahaye with orange pinstripe details, a feeling of calm comes over him. He starts up the car, listens to its rumble, then turns to me and smiles. “There’s artistry in everything about this car,” he says. “Artistry in how it looks, artistry in the mechanism and artistry in driving it. These cars transcended transportation.” We pull out behind a handful of incredible cars, with more than a hundred following us in the Pebble Beach Tour d’Elegance and Kendall explains to me that this is exactly how it is supposed to be. “Cars can only be fully understood and appreciated when they are driven, to see them do what they were meant…

Unitas probably deserves more credit for “upsizing” modern wristwatches than any other movement. How so? Depending on whether you credit the global adoption of larger timepieces to IWC’s Portugieser, reintroduced in 1993, or the Panerais reborn at the same time, you will either disagree violently with this assessment or accept that the return of Panerai’s Marina and the Luminor injected the very steroids that influence us to this day. As both brands are now owned by the Richemont Group, it matters not which you choose as the instigator: it’s a win-win situation for that mighty conglomerate, but my money is on the Panerai. Simply put, and with all due respect to IWC, there are far more Panerais out there than there are Portugiesers, and the Florentine watches are certainly better-known…

What was the brief for the Overseas Tour project? SM: The premise of the project was to photograph iconic works of architecture as a celebration of beauty, human ingenuity, creativity and invention. We wanted the Overseas Tour to focus on locations that man had touched and influenced. To be honest, that was what really excited me about the collaboration – it gave me the opportunity to visit, and shoot, some very inspiring architecture. JCT: Vacheron Constantin’s expansion and history is built around the notion of travel. The Overseas collection embodies this openness to the world that has driven our manufacture and its creations for over 260 years. The collaboration with Steve McCurry gave us the opportunity to truly capture time and mirror Steve’s spirit of travel by offering a new…

How long have you been the CEO of HYT? I’ve been the CEO of HYT since April 2016. I’ve been working for HYT for years. Initially, I was doing consultation work and then later, I became the CEO of Preciflex, the sister company of HYT. I’m reading it this way — you’ve been appointed the CEO of HYT because you have very strong management abilities. Would you say that’s accurate? I would say, yes. With our DNA of challenging everything, we have found a way to maximise the strengths of both Vincent Perriard’s expertise in communication and my strengths. This new way of organisation is possible because Vincent and I have been friends for almost 20 years and we know each other well. We have the same vision of the…

“When you come to see a picture of mine, I want you to know that I’m not going to do anything that will make you uncomfortable. I want you to know that you won’t be disappointed in me.” So said John “Duke” Wayne (1907-1979), star of 142 patriotic 20th-century “War and Western” Hollywood movies. Only Clark Gable beat Wayne at the box office. His languid, low, testosterone-fuelled drawl, rolling gait and weather-beaten face as chiselled as Mount Rushmore made Wayne America’s most iconic hero of the Wild West. Born Marion Morrison, he earned he nickname "Duke" as a child. The family had a dog called Big Duke, and when local firefighters saw a young Wayne running after the dog, they named them Big Duke and Little Duke. Wayne won a…

“Just remember, you’re blocking the sharks’ only way out of the cave,” warned Gérald Rambert as we suited up on the small boat. “So, if they swim towards you, duck down.” This advice was given as we were anchored 90 feet above a dive site named “Cathédrale” off the west coast of Mauritius and Rambert would know what he was talking about. The Franco-Mauritian literally wrote, and photographed, the book on sea life surrounding his island. He and his wife, Estelle, run Sun Divers, a small shop based out of one of the resorts in the small coastal town of Flic-en-Flac. Together, they make a photogenic couple, fit and tanned in their wetsuits, like a modern day Hans and Lotte Hass. Even though we were parked almost directly on the…

In the legendary Gleason’s Gym boxing club in Brooklyn where Muhammad Ali was trained, TAG Heuer held an honorary charity event to unveil and auction the show-stopping Carrera Calibre 5 gold watch. All proceeds benefitted the Muhammad Ali Center, a museum dedicated to the boxer in his hometown of Louisville in Kentucky, USA. While the gold model was produced as a one-off, the good news is that the brand has also released a 43mm stainless-steel model, which will run in a limited edition of 750 pieces. The TAG Heuer Carrera Calibre 5 “Ring Master” Special Edition Tribute to Muhammad Ali is modelled on a 1950s Heuer stopwatch, which was equipped with seven interchangeable rings on the edge of the dial to time different sporting events. To commemorate the achievements of…

BELL & ROSS BR 01 INSTRUMENT DE MARINE MOVEMENT Manual-wind BR-CAL.203; 56-hour power reserve CASE 46mm rosewood, titanium and bronze STRAP Brown alligator-leather with bronze pin buckle After a spate of nautical disasters in the late-17th and early-18th centuries – such as the Scilly Naval Disaster of 1707, which resulted in the loss of four Royal Navy ships and approximately 2,000 sailors – Britain passed the Longitude Act in July of 1714. This established the Board of Longitude and offered financial aid, as well as a cash reward, for whoever could devise the most accurate and efficient way of determining a vessel’s longitude. Carpenter and self-taught clockmaker John Harrison ultimately solved the issue with his marine chronometers, helping ensure Britain’s dominance over the high seas for the next few centuries,…

FABERGÉ VISIONNAIRE DTZ MOVEMENT Automatic AGH Calibre 6924; jumping hours and dual time zones; 50-hour power reserve CASE 43mm titanium and rose gold or titanium and white gold; water-resistant to 30m STRAP Brown alligator-leather with rose-gold case; black alligator-leather with white-gold case Fabergé 2.0, for lack of a better qualifier, describes the revived brand that arrived five or so years ago with nice, but hardly heart-stopping watches. To resuscitate a dormant house, one needs adventure and excitement. Now the company is certainly rising to the occasion by using the services of watch genius Jean-Marc Wiederrecht and his company Agenhor to come up with “Holy cow!” inventiveness. When the Fabergé Visionnaire I flying tourbillon appeared last year, there was – at least in the group with which I was shown the…

JAEGER-LECOULTRE MASTER MEMOVOX BOUTIQUE EDITION MOVEMENT Automatic Jaeger-LeCoultre Calibre 956 alarm movement CASE 40mm steel; water-resistant to 50m STRAP Trieste braided cotton with calfskin lining As a concept, the mechanical alarm has been around for centuries, though in wristwatch form the complication first came to fruition in 1947 with the release of the first Vulcain Cricket. It was then perfected in 1951 as Jaeger-LeCoultre joined the race with the first, now-legendary Memovox. Five years later the original calibre was replaced with the Calibre 815, the first fully-automatic alarm watch in the world. Now the maison is paying tribute to that original in the Master Memovox Boutique Edition. Rather than a faithful reproduction of the original, this is a watch that pays tribute to the evolution of the Memovox as a…

PARMIGIANI FLEURIERTONDA MÉTROGRAPHE MOVEMENT Self-winding PF315 calibre; hours, minutes and small seconds; date; chronograph CASE 40mm stainless steel; water-resistant to 30m; sapphire caseback STRAP Black calfskin with black dial, brown calfskin with white dial, or bracelet When you examine the forms that most current chronographs take, the majority could have been produced at any time between 1935 and 1975. But it would appear that Parmigiani Fleurier has had a re-think – constructive rather than radical – about the way a modern chronograph should look. Working with the cleanly styled, unabashedly urbane Tonda Métrographe, the company has subtly revised the dimensions of each counter, imposing a pecking order of usefulness. Its double circumferential chapter ring provides ¼-second markings for the outermost, while the inner is a tachymeter, minutely printed yet extremely…

It is that time-honoured gesture we are all familiar with, when, during a formal dinner, the host picks up a piece of cutlery, and proceeds to strike a glass repeatedly to gain the attention of his guests. The clinking that we hear, in tones sonorous and full, is high pitched enough to travel the distance, making us stop what we’re doing so we can listen to the speech. Now imagine that sound emanating from that most noble of horological complications, the minute repeater, and you will have an idea of what the new L.U.C Full Strike from Chopard sounds like at full clip. For what we have here, for the brand’s 20th anniversary, is not just its first minute repeater, but one that uses sapphire crystal as the material for…

It is a yearly tradition that we enjoy when in a darkened room in a cabin out in the forest somewhere, the global editors of Revolution lay out their choices for the best of the watch industry. Arguments ensue on who is right, but while opinions are strong and passion fuels each charge, we never come to blows because it is logic that prevails in the end. With the dust settled and all present having had their say, it is through the following pages that we, with pleasure, present the winners of the Revolution Awards for 2016.…

When a number of watch company CEOs were asked by a Swiss trade magazine to name the watch they would want to own, if they were to choose one not from their own brands, a surprising majority said, “Breguet Tradition.” Who knew? If a cult is, by definition, below the radar, then Breguet’s most deliberately retro watch of them all is cult par excellence. Having already enjoyed a few variations, it has just been released in a form that’ll double its appeal: a ladies’ version. The Tradition is an open-architecture design that pays homage to the watches Abraham-Louis Breguet was making in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In the Breguet Tradition Dame 7038, the design contains a small dial of engine-turned Tahitian mother-of-pearl, showing the hours and minutes…

One of the most interesting evolutions in vintage watch collecting has been the desire to move away from watches that have been restored and polished to look “like new” in favour of watches in original condition with honest “patina” showing nicks, scratches, and fading that may have developed over the course of decades of wear. Like for many trends, it is hard to track the exact origin of this desire, but certainly one of the places it originated was in Japan where the “wabi-sabi” aesthetic approach values imperfection developed over time. In Japan, this has affected their watch collecting for many years, particularly in regard to vintage Rolex sports watches. Japanese collectors have long liked seeing original cases with the beauty of scratches and fading on original parts such as…

If you ask any seasoned Rolex or Tudor collector which area of this crazy hobby is the most secretive and shrouded in mystery, they will inevitably reply with the murky world of military watches and in particular Submariners – known as MilSubs. The four most knowledgeable and influential Rolex MilSub collectors in the world are good personal friends of mine and I have literally seen dozens of their watches over the years… and I still am a little baffled by the details. I am, however, very familiar with Tudor MilSubs, which are in many ways a broader subject than their Rolex cousins as they were much more widely issued to a range of military forces around the world. So where do we start with the Tudor MilSubs? Well, the most…

Giulio Papi is a legend in the watch world. With Dominique Renaud, he founded one of horology’s greatest laboratories for outside-the-box, larger-than-life thinking — the incomparable dreamland for high complications that is today known as Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi (APRP). In the ’90s, he began working with a man named Richard Mille, who was then head of the high-jewellery company Mauboussin. Together, they created innovative works of high-complication magic, such as tourbillon watches with baseplates crafted from semi-precious stones like aventurine, for eminent clients such as the Sultan of Brunei. Shortly after departing from Mauboussin, Mille returned to Papi with a vision for watchmaking that Papi recalls was, “The single most provocative concept for new-world watchmaking I’d ever heard — Richard wanted to create a rupture from the past…

“We are cautiously confident, although it’s always difficult to predict what the future will bring. We examine our business with a long-term outlook. In the past we prepared for these difficult times by choosing to limit our production, so when the slowdown started, we had low inventories while demand was significant. For the future, remaining relevant to the younger generations is key. You don't speak to a 20-year-old client in the same way you speak to a 50-year-old client.” “The biggest challenge is that more than ever, brands have to be innovative and rely on substance. For the next decade, I feel very positive – for example, I see connected watches as a boost, not competition. The 20 million watches sold by Apple and Samsung means that there is more…

Ryan Schmidt, author of The Wristwatch Handbook shares with us his journey into the world of watches, the inspiration behind his latest tome and the timepieces that have most impressed him. What was it that inspired you to write this book? I reached a point in my own personal journey where I had become a walking repository of watch information! I was able to spot most watches from across the room, and rapidly decipher new complications or novelty displays. Although I also became aware of the smoke and mirrors, the shallower marketing ploys, and the hubris that exists in the industry, my enthusiasm for watches kept growing stronger. There was also a unique opening in the market because some books had exceptional images but were thin on technical content, while…

CHANEL J12-XS MOVEMENT 19mm quartz calibre CASE Black high-tech ceramic and steel; flange set with diamonds STRAP Black patent calfskin strap on matte-black calfskin cuff with silver calfskin piping, steel ardillon buckle and loops (can be worn on or off cuff) When adding something completely new to a signature collection, a horology house does so with necessary caution. But when that maison is Chanel, and when the new look timepiece is aimed at the LBD brigade, then there is little need to worry. When it was first launched in 1999, the J12 was seen as revolutionary in terms of material and colour but, over the past 18 years, it has become something of a classic. According to Chanel’s International Director of Watches Nicolas Beau, within the spirit of Chanel’s now…

GRAND SEIKO HI-BEAT 36000 GMT LIMITED EDITION MOVEMENT Grand Seiko Hi-Beat 36000 GMT calibre CASE 40mm stainless steel; water-resistant to 100m; magnetic resistance of 4,800 A/m STRAP Stainless-steel bracelet with three-fold clasp and push button release Launched in 1968, Grand Seiko’s original Hi-Beat model, the GS61, was Japan’s first automatic 10-beat calibre, achieving incredible accuracy and offering superior shock resistance. Forty years later, in 2009, calibre 9S85 opened a new chapter in Grand Seiko’s high-beat watches, incorporating a new Spron alloy mainspring, which provided 50 per cent more torque, allowing 36,000 vph and a 55-hour power reserve. Then in 2014, Grand Seiko introduced its first Hi-Beat GMT, combining one of the most genuinely useful complications – a second time zone – with an accurate high frequency movement to create one…

MB&F HOROLOGICAL MACHINE N°8 CAN-AM MOVEMENT Girard-Perregaux base automatic calibre with bi-directional jumping hours and trailing minutes; 42-hour power reserve CASE 49x51.5x19mm white or red gold; water-resistant to 30m STRAP Marine-blue alligator strap with white-gold case; dark brown alligator strap with red-gold case Car enthusiasts of a certain age and temperament will always go misty-eyed when they hear the term “Can-Am”. This contraction of “Canadian” and “American” refers to a short-lived but memorable series of road races that lasted only two decades, but which came to embody no-limits, wheel-to-wheel, high-speed competition. Running from only 1966-1987, The Canadian-American Challenge Cup would have been 50 this year, and Max Büsser and his crew, along with like-minded friends, have decided to celebrate it with HM8, evoking that most automotive of timepieces, the wedge-shaped…

“It was in about 1990 or 1991 when I first started to notice watches,” says Adam Clayton, the bass player with supergroup U2. “They’re not something you notice particularly as a young man, but while recording the album Achtung Baby in Berlin, there wasn’t much to do during the day – lots to do at night, but not much in the day – and I was foraging around the shops when I found this little second-hand store that had some watches that looked interesting.” “I didn’t know very much about them, but I found a really nice Rolex from the 1950s, really round and soft, and I thought: ‘Yeah, that’s a peach!’ I also found an Omega, again from the 1950s. My instinct was that these were the kind of…

Blue has always been a signature colour for De Bethune, but with the Kind of Blue Tourbillon (DB28T), the brand has taken it to another level entirely. This new tourbillon, which is blue to the extreme, is according to De Bethune, designed to evoke the unfathomable infinity of the universe. It’s true — one look into this amazing timepiece, with its stunning blue lustre and its spinning tourbillon, and you could be lost forever. This unique blue is the result of no ordinary paint or galvanic treatment; it is rendered by the traditional method of heat-treating. Hand-bluing is not easy, however, especially when the colour has to match the rest of the watch. Too much exposure to the fire and the colour turns black. Not enough and the colour is…

True story. I was sitting in a six-seat sushi bar in Tokyo. The chef was a practitioner of Edo-style sushi — a mystical art form where fish is aged using various liquefied substances to evoke its true essential character. His work was tran-substantiative, with each perfectly formed piece of fish glistening like a jewel on his intricately seasoned gari, a holy Eucharist of umami. As I got up to visit what the French refer to as le petit coin, I felt a hand on my wrist — which was particularly shocking, considering the typical Japanese respect for personal space. I looked down saw that the owner of the hand was smiling at me. “I like your watch!” he exclaimed. I looked from my own Richard Mille RM 021 Tourbillon Aerodyne…

There is no other clock in the world as singular as the Atmos by Jaeger-LeCoultre. Most of the time when we encounter one, it sits there giving us the time; betraying no clue as to the groundbreaking idea that it holds — so that when we examine the clock more closely and are told the concept behind how it works, we consider what we have just heard scarcely believable. It is an idea that is so simple and profound at the same time that it is mind-blowing, yet we are compelled to believe that it is true, for the object exists, and works quietly, in front of you. It is the intersection of invisible elements in the Atmos that so beguiles us; that easily understood concepts like temperature and pressure…

One of the long-held rubrics of jewellery, and indeed watches, is that it needs to be worn. Only when freed from the safe and on the body do these works truly come to life, infused with the spirit of both wearer and maker. Such an inspired awakening is something the House of Cartier knows intimately well: its creations have been worn by some of the most rakish, era-defining women of their day: take for example Wallis Simpson who, after King Edward VIII abdicated his throne to wed her, became Time Magazine’s first female “Man” of the Year in 1936. Such über-modern muses – feminine, fiercely independent but also mysterious – have inspired Cartier’s boldest pieces, both past and into the present. From the beginning, Cartier has been there to supply…