Radio star: The incredible story of the Panerai diving watch almost lost to the sea diving deep In the nineties, you didn’t have Patagonia gilets, quarter-zip sweaters or Logan Roy logo-less baseball caps – you had ‘oversize’ watches. They were status symbols you could drive right into the boardroom, unlike your 911, and style statements to mark you out in a sea of suits. The sea is an appropriate metaphor, as the ur [...]
What’s ticking: All the latest watch news, from Geneva and beyond watch news Aston Martin and Girard-Perregaux prove it ain’t easy being British-Racing green, Dr Rebecca Struthers makes a similarly convincing ‘case’ for British watchmaking, while George Bamford doubles down in W1K. A round-up of the coolest new watches. A brief biography of time Books on clocks and watches are usually authored by men of a certain age [...]
From a surprising new Rolex to a Muppet in the month window Cross the (tastefully appointed) maximum-security threshold of Watches and Wonders and the hierarchy is instantly apparent. There’s Patek Philippe with its parked-up spaceship, conveying its blue-blooded, dyed-in-the-metal pedigree. And then there are 30-something other Swiss watchmakers all clamouring to make a noise in the revitalised, post-Covid white noise of horological newness. This is an industry [...]
Working 9 to 17: Patek Philippe’s stunning Calatrava Travel Time April 24, 2023 A 24-hour-display dial takes a bit of adjustment to read as instantly as your usual 12-hour. But not as long as you’d think. Patek Philippe’s Calatrava Travel Time was the blue-eyed posterboy of the resurgent Watches and Wonders event, Geneva’s luxury watchmaking fair, which took place earlier this month. A consolidation of the now-defunct ‘Baselworld’ [...]
Christmas gift ideas: Watches to satisfy the horology nerds in your life December 10, 2021 Aston Martin x Girard-Perregaux Laureato Chronograph With seemingly hard-and-fast automotive hook-ups like Hublot x Ferrari and Breitling x Bentley suffering retirements from the race, you’d wonder who would venture gamely onto such a notoriously fickle scene. But the coming-together of Aston Martin and Girard-Perregaux feels like something that soars way clear of mere badge engineering [...]
The Lord Napier & Star is the best – and only – pub in Hackney Wick November 16, 2021 Twenty years ago The Lord Napier – the last, boarded-up pub of E9’s scrappy backyard, wedged between the River Lee Navigation and the A12’s spaghetti junction – was bought with an eye firmly on the area’s encroaching realty rush. “S**THOUSE TO PENTHOUSE” became the most iconic bit of its fully graffitied exterior, as planning disputes [...]
Westfield’s Tudor period September 28, 2020 Stepping well and truly from the shadow of big brother Rolex, Tudor has cut the ribbon on a spectacular debut European boutique, in partnership with Watches of Switzerland, right here in London Town. Alex Doak reports When Hans Wilsdorf patented the dial name ‘Tudor’ back in 1926, little could he have known what journey it [...]
Adventure time: Why every explorer wears a mechanical wrist watch March 2, 2020 There’s an old motoring adage that goes, “win on Sunday, sell on Monday.” In other words, as cripplingly expensive and vainglorious as motorsport can be, prove yourself successful on a race weekend (not to mention thrillingly glamorous) and you have no better billboard for the sporty road-goers populating your forecourt. It’s why Enzo Ferrari begrudgingly [...]
A mechanical wristwatch may be based on 19th-century principles – but that doesn’t mean it’s immune to innovation July 23, 2019 The idea of “new technology” in Swiss watchmaking seems rather oxymoronic – especially when you consider how much stock this rose-tinted industry places in heritage and hand craftsmanship. But as mechanical watches have reasserted themselves in recent decades, after near-decimation at the hands of quartz technology back in the 70s, the more forward-minded brands are [...]
The incredible story of how a Breitling Emergency watch saved a pilot after he crashed into treacherous waters January 24, 2018 Precisely 15 years ago, Quentin Smith and Steve Brooks had just spent three arduous months getting to the tip of South America in an attempt to fly by helicopter from the North to the South Pole. The previous six weeks had been spent in Chile, patiently seeking the relevant commissions to fly the Drake Passage [...]
