English brand’s oh-so-English new HQ July 19, 2012 It’s not just a beautiful shop, it’s a tipping point.” That was the verdict of one connoisseur I spoke to at the opening this week of the first ever boutique by the British watch company, Bremont. A decade on from the moment brothers Nick and Giles English had the barmy idea of founding a luxury [...]
An equestrian classic July 19, 2012 It’s now an ubiquitous smart watch, but Jaeger-LeCoultre’s famous Reverso is one of the earliest examples of watches made with sports in mind. First launched in 1931, its stroke of genius was the way it could be slid to the side and flipped over – ostensibly to protect the dial from flailing mallets during polo [...]
I’VE GOT July 19, 2012 IT’S one of the great golf shots in recent memory. Bubba Watson, on hole two of a sudden death play-off for the US Masters in April this year, finds himself lost in pine trees off the tee. He hits an almighty hook shot that loops out of the trees, turns right and lands 10 feet [...]
Other watches the world’s best wear on the greens July 19, 2012 Rolex In the bag: Luke Donald, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickleson, Paul Casey, Ricky Fowler, Martin Kaymer, “the Big Three” Tour highlights: Still the undisputed king of golf, Rolex recently announced a 10-year extension to its long-running association with The Open Championship and the R&A Spike bar: Rolex signed former TAG Heuer ambassador Tiger Woods last autumn, [...]
Diving deep into the void July 19, 2012 IT’S dark side of the moon stuff, it’s like exploration.” So says Sebastien Murat, the free-diver, of life at the bottom of an ultra-deep plunge into the void. “There’s no one down there with me, and the idea of actually having air is really completely foreign.” Murat, a 43-year-old Australian, now lives in a tiny [...]
Marcus’s timely exhibition July 19, 2012 TAKE a walk down New Bond Street and you’ll tend to see people gawping at the window displays at number 170. “Is that a watch?” they’ll be asking. “What the hell are these?” What they are are some of the rarest, most remarkable and most perfectly made watches on Earth, mostly from independent brands specialising [...]
Watches to take to the ocean floor July 19, 2012 Rolex Sea-Dweller Deepsea When it comes to water resistance and endurance, Rolex really has no peers. In 1960 an experimental watch, the Deep Sea Special, was strapped to the outside of the US Navy’s bathyscape Trieste as it descended 10,916m to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, then the deepest known point in the ocean. Filmmaker [...]
Formula One shows real experts should be driving our companies July 19, 2012 NEW research into the success of Formula One teams shows that a leader’s genuine expertise in a company’s core business really matters. Being a capable general manager alone is not sufficient. This is a hot topic – there is recent evidence that major firms have moved away from hiring chief executives with technical expertise, towards [...]
The Batman of business: Private equity has the guts to do the dirty work July 19, 2012 BATMAN and Barack Obama are conspiring to put private equity under a Bat Signal-shaped spotlight this week. The unlikely duo have come together thanks to the similarity between Bane – the name of the villain in The Dark Knight Rises (see our review on page 35) – and the Obama re-election campaign’s attack against Republican [...]
Next governor of the Bank must not be paid for failure July 19, 2012 IN 2008, an elderly lady asked a killer question about the credit crunch which left the so-called economic experts red-faced. During a briefing by academics at the London School of Economics on chaos in the international markets, the Queen asked: “Why did nobody notice it?” Another Old Lady – she of Threadneedle Street – had [...]
