Nยบ4 SHOULD BRANDS BE MORE IN TOUCH WITH THEIR PUBLIC?
UNVEILING THE MYSTERY ABOUT HOW A TOURBILLON TRULY WORKS
A REVIEW ABOUT AUDEMARS PIGUET ROYAL OAK BLACK CERAMIC
DAILY.DC
THE WRITTER
DAILY.DIOGOCOSTA
Hey guys ! Im daily.diogocosta, you may know me from Instagram where i'm usually more active, i'm a designer/marketeer with a huge love for photography but the love of my life is haute horlogerie. So, in this month's issue I took the liberty to use images as background to incorporate emotions of this “almost spring� time. It will be a very colorful and cosy issue transmitting some emotions and feelings we all experience in our daily life. As some of you may know this month I took a huge step forward by starting to write for IFLWATCHES.COM, a website and haute horlogerie blog. I dedicate this Issue to all my Portuguese friends out there working to put Portugal in the map and that do so much for the portuguese haute horlogerie community. I still feel that, in Portugal, watch brands and retailers pay few or even none attention to the portuguese watch community, where they should learn more about them and try to grow value within this community. Nowadays haute horlogerie lacks of good marketing strategies or even advertise, and that's a question that as a marketeer I can't just ignore. Not wanting to say too much, this topic will be featured on this month issue so all you have to do is swipe the page and enjoy! Good reads!
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DIOGO COSTA
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MY SEIKO DATEJUST HOMAGE
DIOGO COSTA
ARTICLE PRESENT ON: WWW.IFLWATCHES.COM
UNVEILING THE MYSTERY ABOUT HOW A TOURBILLON TRULY WORKS
PHOTO: ZENITH MODEL: EL PRIMERO TOURBILLON
Tourbillons are today's holy grail when it comes to watch complications, but why's that ? A lot of times i find myself thinking about how a Tourbillon actually works, due to such popularization in the last years it has always been a mysterious complication, “How can a balance wheel and a spring affect the accuracy of a watch and in how gravity affects such small pieces?”. So, what in the world is a tourbillon and firstly what does the name mean? Tourbillon it's a french word that means whirlwind. The tourbillon improves the precision of a watch by counteracting the gravity-induced disturbances affecting the regularity of the balance. Only a small number of watch manufacturers are capable of developing and producing this complex mechanism in-house. A Tourbillon usually has a rate of one revolution per minute. Due to the mastery required to make this complication (in mather in fact is one of my favorite complications after the moon phase complication) it's an expensive addition to a watch, so you could say that's an expensive “add-on” when its hand made and hand assembled. When it comes to prices, nowadays, you can already find more “affordable” watches with this complication, TAG HEUER for example has created the Heuer-02T that goes around 15.000$. This said let's learn a little bit about the history of the Tourbillon.
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PHOTO CREDIT: ABLOGTOWATCH
ARTICLE PRESENT ON: WWW.IFLWATCHES.COM
The history of the Tourbillon Complication The Tourbillon was developed around 1795 but it was only patented by the well known Swiss-French Watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet in 1801. It was created with the objective of making the measuring of time even more precise, which could maintain the same power and rate every single time, with no losses of power or decreases of speed, making the watch “lose� time. There were quite a few obstacles to the creation of the Tourbillon, since its a complication that it's influenced by gravity, force, shocks , temperature , positions of the watch. But, the Tourbillon itself isn't enough, there are parts that are essential for the good use of this complication. The Remontoire is one of those parts, this part allows the delivery of constant power to the rotors and allows power to be kept near the escapement. Two other essential parts are the escapement and pallet fork, this two parts make sure the watch has that signature ticking of a mechanic watch we all like, this sound is made by the pallet fork rotating the escapement wheel. I could spend hours talking about the functionalities of all the parts that integrate a mechanic watch, but that's not why you're here. Right...Tourbillons! (It's easy to get lost in so many interesting things to talk about when it comes to how watches work).
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PHOTO BY: ZENITH
So, how many different types of Tourbillon do exist nowadays? Due to a necessity of perfection in time measuring in mechanical watches, we humans constantly try to find out and create more ways to better measure time, one of this ways is to constantly study and improve the functions of the tourbillon. Since, like i said, it's one of the parts that has more gravity influence, it's a mandatory objective to try to neutralize this forces. Tourbillons can only guarantee the most precise rates at horizontal positions, in vertical positions the spring will be more influenced in the side that's more close to the center of the earth. The objective was to create a Tourbillon that could rotate to counterbalance the effects of gravity, this way every angle would be perfect a certain point making it an almost perfect measurer of time. But before humans could create the SphĂŠrotourbillon and Gyrotourbillon we created a few other tourbillons. Double-Axis Tourbillon The Double-Axis Tourbillon was created and patented in 1977 but it was only in 2004 at BaselWorld that a Double-Axis Tourbillon was presented in a wrist watch. This Tourbillon has two axes that rotate one time per minute. Its powered by a Remontoire that deploys a constant force as explained earlier. This constant-force mechanism was created to equalize the effects of a wound and unwound mainspring, friction, and gravitation. Triple-Axis Tourbillon In the three axis tourbillon movement, the 3rd (external) cage has a unique form which provides the possibility of using jewel bearings everywhere, instead of ball-bearings. This is a unique solution at this size and level of complication. There are a few wrist and pocket watches that include the Triple Axis or Tri-Axial Tourbillon escapements. Examples of companies & watchmakers that include this mechanism are Vianney Halter in his "Deep Space" watch, Thomas Prescher, Aaron Becsei, Girard-Perregaux with the "Tri-Axial Tourbillon" and Jaeger Le-Coultre with the "Gyrotourbillon". So you may think SphĂŠrotourbillon and a Gyrotourbillon are different types of tourbillons but in reality they're Triple-Axis Tourbillons.
GALERIES ROYALES SAINT-HUBERT | BRUSSELS
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PHOTO TAKEN BY ME DEAR FRIEND ALEXANDRE LOPES
SPECIAL THANKS TO BOUTIQUE DOS RELÓGIOS
SHOULD BRANDS BE MORE IN TOUCH WITH THEIR PUBLIC?
Let's start this article with an intriguing question. Have you ever seen haute horlogerie brands regularly present on social media or in advertising spaces you constantly pass by in your daily life? No, because they don't want to do so. They have their own fixed niche and target. As Rolex has Golf for example, or Longines with their Equestrian events. You can see advertising by this brands in several watch magazines, airports and watch retailers/boutiques. But the right feeling to have facing this topic is- They throw a pile of publicity against us (possible clients) and they wait for us to create interest by our own. Their main interest is to sell to their already loyal client list, sometimes they don't even have the necessity to gain more clients for the simple reason of not having the capability of producing more watches per year. My opinion is that they could get even more profits if they managed to get those amateur watch enthusiasts in the beginning of their journey thru the watch world. For example: Imagine a baby, in their early life most people tell them “oh your football club is Barcelona FC!� and probably that baby will be Barcelona FC backer for most of its life. You know why? Because they feel safe supporting that club, because they don't have the need to change because they feel comfortable and don't want to have the work and risk to change. A major influencer on the Rolex watches it's not only the popularity and status that the brand has, but it's too a brand that most of us know since our young years. A brand that grants us value, status and quality. I think this approach is plausible within the watch lovers. In my case I always saw my father with his Breitling Chronomat on a black leather strap, and I think this is why my love for Breitling is so strong. Because I trust the brand in terms of quality and because it was always there, most times present on my subconcious.
BRUGES | BELGIUM
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28.800 BPH / 25 JEWELS / 42H POWER RESERVE LIMITED TO 199 PIECES
THE NEW DWISS M2
PART 2
SHOULD BRANDS BE MORE IN TOUCH WITH THEIR PUBLIC? In the past the image that most brands transmitted to us was an impersonal one, in the end it was a brand, a professional organization with no emotions or connection to their client history or personality. Nowadays a client needs to feel a connection to the brand history, a client has much more probabilities to buy a product when they have a connection to the brand or even when they feel the brand is a supporter of something they like. For example, lets imagine. You are a watch enthusiast and you're a member of a watch forum or a blog. This forum/blog has a future get-together and guess what.. Longines is this event sponsor. You arrive at the event you see a roll-up designed by Longines exclusively for this event “Welcome to this Event Officially sponsored by Longines” ( We are talking about normal people that buy 2-3 watches per year, not those private customers that enjoy private dinners invited by the brands itself) When you enter the event, you are welcomed by some of the members and later you will have a presentation by the brand of their new models and exclusive deals for those members. You would have one or more representants of the brands talking to you as a person, not as a brand exclusively. The members would grow a connection to the brand thru the personality of their representants, instead of having a medium-low connection and trust in/with the brand. People need to be loved and people need attention. If you put a product in front of a person they will not buy it,a product its not bought by itself. There's some much space to grow and so much profit to be made, but I guess brands are “playing” in the safe area. Most of them lack of marketing strategies in terms of gaining new customers/clients out of their niche. I'm not saying that they need to use Lateral Marketing strategies. But they need to take advantage of their monetary power to grow their market.
SACRE-COEUR | FRANCE
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ORIS BIG CROWN PROPILOT ALTIMETER
PERFECT TIMEPIECES FOR PERFECT MOMENTS. AVAILABLE AT: http://watchgarage.tictail.com
A REVIEW ABOUT AUDEMARS PIGUET ROYAL OAK BLACK CERAMIC
As some of you may know, January is always an important month to haute horlogerie, SIHH took over an entire week as usual at Geneva Palexpo. Arriving at Palexpo Center (that was just outside the Airport) you could right away see a big SIHH outdoor with huge flags of the main brands/watch manufacturers through the hole sidewalk that leads to the entrance of the event. The entrance and check-in of the event was very calm and with a welcoming/cosy decoration, already inside you could find an incredible feeling of being in your natural habitat, surrounded by people that make the watch markets their lives, that have the same enthusiasm in discovering the newest timepieces as you. I went there to grab some shots and info about the outstanding novelties that will be released throughout this year, and I couldn't be happier about what i saw. People who know me know that i'm kinda of an Gerald Genta designs addict, so, the first brand stand i visited on SIHH was the Audemars Piguet stand/lounge area. And what a delightful view i had, just in front of me was the new Audemars Piguet Royal Oak in full ceramic ( case and bracelet ). An outstanding timepiece that needs more than 30 hours just to finish the ceramic case, instead of the regular 6 hours of the stainless steel models. Is it worth it? Totally! As some of you may know Audemars Piguet is one of the few brands that actually grown in 2016 in terms of stability and sales, not only because of their quality of manufacture but because they know how to innovate and mostly when to innovate. At SIHH i had the chance to try it and feel the material and even its mechanism/calibre. The Ceramic itself it's a lot lighter and has a textured look and brushed feel. and i want to remind you that ceramic is almost a perfect material, its ultra tough, unscratchable, resistant to age and thermal variations and thermal shocks. For me was love at first sight, many people may prefer standard and more “normal� materials or even more discreet colors, but for me it's just perfect, the black ceramic gives it an even more futuristic and modern look but at the same time it maintains that Gerald Genta classy look and lightness of shapes.
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The dial is a slate gray “Grande Tapisserie� pattern, and has white gold applied hour markers, that give it a much more unique and smooth look. This RO has too a moonphase perpetual calendar with a extremely well looking moons and stars that are laser microstructured . But since the visual part of it is told now it's time for we to speak about the heart of the watch. The *RO FBC has the same 5134 calibre with a total of 29 mm of diameter, 38 jewels, 40h power reserve, and it's made of a total of 374 parts, that are manually finished. The 22-carat gold oscillating weight can even be customized at your own taste! Amazing! For such a complete mechanism it's amazing that it just has 9,,5 mm of case thickness. Its final price will be about 85.000$ and it may got you think this one would be a limited edition but no, instead will a be a tough watch to grab, since it need so much time to finish.
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DIOGO COSTA GERÊS | PORTUGAL