1010 Issue 9 Rolex by Port

10 10 ROLEX Restless reinvention, to the ends of the earth

AUDA EU MD A ERM S APRI G S UPEI G T UBEOTU B TO I QUUTEI Q S ULEOSN L DO ON N D:OSNL O : A SN LO E ASNTER E S ET TR E· EHTA ·R H RA OR DR S OFDI N S EF IWNAET W CH AE TC SHES A P HAOPUH SO E ULSOEN L DO ON N D:ONNE :WNBE O WN B D OSNTDR E S ET TR E E T

S ESEEKE KB EBYEOYN ODN D

C O DC E O1D1 E .51 91. 5 9 B Y ABUYD A EU MD A ERM S APRI G S UPEI G T UET S E L FSW E LI NF D WI INNGD I N G

“ N O M AT T E R H OW M U C H I C A N ACCO M P L I S H I N T H I S S P O R T, I W I L L A LWAYS B E H U N G RY F O R M O R E .” G E O R G E R U S S E L L , D R I V E R , M E R C E D E S - A M G P E T R O N A S F O R M U L A O N E TM T E A M

IW3716 THE REFERENCE.

P O R TU G I E S E R CH RO N OG R AP H This Portugieser Chronograph builds on the legacy of IWC’s instrument watches for navigation. It is powered by the IWC-manufactured 69355 caliber, engineered for performance, robustness and durability. The vertical arrangement of the subdials enhances readability and has resulted in a chronograph celebrated for its iconic design.

I W C B O U T I Q U E · 13 8 N E W B O N D S T R E E T · L O N D O N

Club Sport neomatik 39 tabac. A powerful automatic watch in the rich, radiant colors of an Indian summer: tabac, ember, and smoke. With its new diameter of 39.5 millimeters and on a comfortable metal bracelet, Club Sport neomatik 39 makes a statement—and is perfectly proportioned. Featuring sunburst

polishing on the dial, powered by the DUW 3001 caliber with the NOMOS swing system, water resistant to 20 atm, and a sapphire crystal case back—yet still only 8.5 millimeters in height. Precision mechanics, made in Glashütte, Germany. Available at the best retailers as well as online: nomos-glashuette.com

10 Editor’s Letter 10:10 Magazine

Editorʼs Letter

Editor-In-Chief Dan Crowe Creative Director Matt Curtis Uncommon Creative Studio Art Director Daniel Shannon Editor Alex Doak Project Manager Ethan Butler Words Alex Doak Laura McCreddie-Doak Photography Director Naoise O'Keeffe Photography Editor Jodie Michaelides Senior Editor Kerry Crowe Sub-Editor Sarah Kathryn Cleaver Photography Eliza Bourner Rosie Harriet Ellis Tonje Thilesen Lydia Whitmore Cover Photography Audemars Pig uet by Eliza Bourner Rolex by Tonje Thilesen Creative Director Juan Felipe Rendon Vacheron Constantin by Rosie Harriet Ellis Lighting Director Garth McKee Production Artworld Editor's Letter Illustration Kieran Gee-Finch | Found Publishers Dan Crowe Matt Willey

Issue 9

Associate Publisher Andrew Chidgey-Nakazono Advertising Director Andrew Chidgey-Nakazono andrew@port-magazine.com Typefaces A2 Record Gothic by A2-Type (A2/SW/HK) Quadraat Pro by Type By Pitch by Klim Type Foundry Contact Port Magazine Somerset House London, WC2R 1LA +44 (0)20 3119 3077 port-magazine.com

Welcome to Port’s ninth 10:10 supplement, devoted to the mercurial world of watches. We kicked off by asking ourselves: How do you reinvent an object while deliberately sticking to 200-year-old principles? The short answer is that you cannot, and should not. The more complicated answer is that this object, by virtue of its sheer anachronism, might already be a reinvention. Ever since people hankered for something less disposable and more soulful than a placky digital watch back in the ’90s, ye olde Swiss watchmakers were back in business. Only – just like vinyl’s revival – reinvented as a precious keepsake, appreciated for its art and craft as well as utility. Both far more expensive today, it seems, but only by comparison to the fast-food format we’re eschewing; we’re seeking tangibility over an iPhone’s ‘clock’, or Spotify. Adopting fashion vernacular, the ‘cost per wear’ of a decent watch is unparalleled. With such inherent, not to mention utterly zeitgeisty anti-obsolescence, more and more of Europe’s finest brains are now being tasked with reinventing things in another way, without tinkering with the tick-ticking core itself. Namely, smoothing its mechanics’ running, upping resistance to shocks, scratches and magnetism – in the process lengthening service intervals, plus warranties, up from two to five, sometimes to eight years. It’s all down to exciting new adventures in high-tech materials (and not-so-exciting procedural tweaks to quality control – but we promise not to go there). From the case and even the strap, to the movement whirring away inside, a periodic table of anything but steel and brass is honing the once-humble wound-up wristwatch into a truly future-proof prized possession. The famous slogan, “You never actually own a Patek Philippe, you merely look after it for the next generation,” might soon need to pluralise its final word.

Alex Doak Editor

Editor’s Letter

Illustration: Kieran Gee-Finch | Found

12 Contents 10:10 Magazine Issue 9

CONTENTS

SILICON TICK 4.9 REASONS BRITAIN'S BACK SOUND SYSTEM PLASTIC FANTASTIC SEALED WITH A RISK PIN TWEAKS EDGY METAL RE-WOUND UP PEAK TWINS EXT. FANTASTIC BEAST SOUND, VISION SQUARE PEG WAYSTAR ROY NO

p.13

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p.16

p.19

p.20

p.22

p.28

p.34

p.44

p.48

p.54

p.58

p.62

p.72

Silicon Tick Words: Alex Doak

The flexing heart of Girard-Perregaux's Constant Escapement – a single, diaphanous component

Like so many strokes of genius, the idea for the Neo Constant Escapement didn’t spring from a drawing board – it was a moment of incongruous tedium. In Girard-Perregaux’s watchmaker’s case, his eureka moment happened on the daily train commute. Switzerland’s famously punctual rail network still dispenses card tickets. Flicking his idly between forefinger and thumb, he noticed that in buckling from ‘C’ to reverse ‘C’, lateral pressure caused the card to accumulate a uniform amount of energy before snapping back. And it’s this dynamic that lies at the heart of Girard-Perregaux’s most daring innovation, made possible by a waferthin silicon technology pioneered by stablemate brand Ulysse Nardin and its Sigatec skunkworks buried in the Alps. A skeletal silicon butterfly (or razorblade, if you like) six times thinner than a human hair, twitches at the ticking heart of things, three times a second. Its central ‘S’ spoke also buckles three times a second, impulsing every oscillation of the pendulum (or balance wheel), which ekes out the flow of energy from winding barrel to geartrain (and thus the steady course of the hours, minutes and seconds hands). The symmetrical shape of the blade and uniform force of its ‘flick’ means the energy flow is constant, regardless of how unwound the barrel might be. The fact the historic Swiss marque was founded in 1852 by a certain Constant Girard was a naming opportunity too apt for the modern watchmaker to resist; but given his obsession over the escapement’s precision, M. Girard would undoubtedly have approved of this leapfrog of horology, regardless of punning nomenclature.

SILICON TICK

The words ‘buckling’ and ‘train track’ were never a good combination… until Girard-Perregaux reinvented the beating heart of the mechanical watch

14 4.9 Reasons Britain's Back

At just 22, a lad from Bolton doorstepped the greatest watchmaker of the 20th century with his first handmade pocket watch, hoping to secure an apprenticeship. “Not up to scratch”, was the verdict. Dr George Daniels (1926–2011) of the Isle of Man advised the precocious youngster to go away and start again as, in his words, a watch must look “begotten, and not made”. Daniels’ singlehanded output of 27 unique masterpieces, plus his inventing the oil-free co-axial escapement adopted wholesale by Omega (nothing short of the greatest horological advancement in 200 years) shows Smith was aiming true, if falling short. But undeterred, over the next five years he rose to the challenge. His gold Pocket Watch No. 2 was made, re-made, and re-made again between 1992 and 1997 in his parents’ garage, with Daniels’ definitive tome Watchmaking his sole reference. Sold in 2004 to a US collector to fund Roger Smith’s commercial venture on the Isle of Man, No. 2 was sold this June in New York by Phillips in association with Bacs & Russo for a cool $4.9 million, smashing its (admittedly coy) “in excess of $1 million” estimate. Especially coy since the auction house was billing No.2 as nothing short of “the cornerstone of the

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4.9 REASONS BRITAIN'S BACK

Roger Smith gets the verdict from his uncompromising former mentor, Dr George Daniels

Roger Smith’s secondever watch fetched multi-millions this year, breaking records and proving there’s still hope for the home nation of the marine chronometer

21st-century English watchmaking renaissance”. They weren’t wrong, though. Securing the aforementioned apprenticeship, needless to say, not to mention financing Smith’s own highly regarded Manx enterprise, No. 2 features a perpetual calendar and tourbillon with spring-detent escapement – horolo-speak for ‘finer than fine’. An achievement, given it’s realised purely by the ‘Daniels Method’, whose legacy Smith perpetuates: all 30-odd crafts mastered at the fingertips of just two hands and fundamentally impossible to industrialise. Near-$5 million is more than anyone’s ever paid for a British watch, so regardless of a scaling-up, No. 2 shows there’s residual respect and hope for these shores. The same shores from which Britannia’s navies launched in the 18th century, commanding maritime might, and demanding the development of the super-precise chronometer by which to navigate. Roger Smith’s tiny team only makes 12-or-so exquisite wristwatches a year, but that ‘start again’ pocket watch will certainly be encouraging for fellow countrymen Bremont, Garrick, Fears, Christopher Ward and others to come, setting sights on distant horizons once again.

Words: Alex Doak

SOUND SYSTEM

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Sound System

LCD was acceptable in the ’80s… and now again, thanks to Tissot

The PRX Digital is a flux capacitor for the wrist – not only taking you back to the future of the back of the classroom but embracing all that was exciting about quartz-powered liquid-crystal-display watches when they were tumbling out of cereal boxes as a sophisticated threat to traditional watchmaking. The advent of this cheap horological high-tech from Japan wasn’t all bad for Switzerland’s grandmasters – at least in terms of provoking an explosion in design creativity. It was 1976 when Tissot started toying with LCD, in the form of a miniaturised Lancia Stratos drafted by Italy’s Bertone coachbuilder, in shiny black. Tissot’s DeLorean-esque design language from the time – revived recently, and brilliantly as a sub-collection dubbed PRX – commutes the usual analogue hands display to LCD digits effortlessly. This phoenix is powered by DGT-2040 electronics, still Swiss-made by Tissot stablemate ETA. The arrival of a screen in place of hands not only chimed with Tron-obsessed schoolkids, it opened up a veritable SwissArmy knife of functionality. Sure enough, within the PRX Digital’s otherwise luxuryspec gold-coated case you’ll find dual time zones, day-date calendar, chronograph timer, backlight… Plus, naturally, an alarm to annoy teacher. Tissot PRX Digital is available now at £310 (black or silver) or £395 (gold-PVD coated) at tissot.com

Sound System

Words: Alex Doak

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Plastic Fantastic

First Omega’s Speedmaster and now Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms get the phenomenally cultish Swatch treatment

electronics cousin pioneered 40 years back, by mounting everything on the inside of the caseback. The five ocean-themed models of Swatch’s PlackyFathoms [our name] call on more of an #iykyk watch nerd than does the MoonSwatch. But if you want to focus on the most positive aspect of a £400 plastic watch whose 200m water resistance has actually been reduced to 91m in accordance with the ’53 original’s titular rating, well then, at least more people now know of Blancpain and its legendary waterbaby.

PLASTIC FANTASTIC

Plastic Fantastic

In watertight secrecy, Swatch’s polymer boffins colluded with Swatch Group stablemate Omega to reimagine its Speedmaster last year; the classic chronograph that Buzz Aldrin strapped around his spacesuit before bounding about the moon in 1969. In the process, birthing a whole new cult capable of packing-out Carnaby Street and 109 other global Swatch boutique-adjacent streets. At just over £200, and by no means limited (at least in terms of how many Swatch can actually make) even top brass were caught off-guard by the instant success of the MoonSwatch quartz chronograph, cased in Swatch’s slick bioceramic polymer derived from castoroil plants. But of course the mythology surrounding the original Moonwatch would always fan the flames of demand, in a zeitgeist already fired up by luxurywatchmaking’s ongoing hype (just Google “Patek Philippe Nautilus Tiffany”). Throwing in a NASA-spec Velcro strap was just the cherry on top. And now the buzz is being leveraged around another of Swatch’s more venerable cousins: a bioceramic take on Blancpain’s seminal Fifty Fathoms of 1953, which introduced a unidirectional divetiming bezel around the dial. In keeping with its mantra of “there never will be a quartz Blancpain” adopted during the brand’s ’80s revival, the mash-up comes in mechanical mode: Swatch’s robotmade Sistem51 movement, which really does manage to keep components down to 51 parts, just like its quartz/battery/

Words: Alex Doak

The Antarctic Ocean (left) and Indian Ocean (right) editions of Swatch's robot-assembled Sistem51 mechanical watch come in their Scuba diving cases, reimagined as luxury label Blancpain's wavebreaking Fifty Fathoms of 1953

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Sealed with a Risk

SEALED WITH A RISK

For £53,200, you don't just get a hardcore diver's chronograph, you get a day and a half's 'Tactical Training' with actual hardcore divers, the US Navy's SEALs – weapons training at the OK Corral Gun Club in Florida's otherwise beatific Okeechobee coastal town

Wearing a Panerai is a visceral connection to plucky endeavours beneath enemy waves – more so than ever with Italy’s legendary orologiaio-Navy SEALs alliance

War has always supercharged technological advancement – civvystreet trickle-down being a rare ‘benefit’, to choose words very carefully. Aircraft, computing, optics, whatever, they all fall into this category, as does a more esoteric but by-no-means less ubiquitous example: the diver’s wristwatch. Especially since the hobbyist craze for SCUBA diving (war-accelerated in parallel) emerged immediately after WWII, ‘benefitting’ from strides in otherwise anodyne bits of engineering such as rubber gaskets, screw threads and luminescent paint. Rolex’s Oyster case may have coined all the above in the ’20s, but it took a Florentine naval kit supplier to tee things up for combat in the late ’30s. Adopting and adapting cushion-shaped Oyster pocket watches, mounted on wrist straps, Officine Panerai equipped Italian naval frogmen with the means of co-ordinating their limpet mine-laying missions in enemy shallows. Aiding timekeeping so much, in fact, that the glow of its patented Radiomir paint applied to the watches’ dial calibrations had to be shrouded by cloth when close to target. With the military secrets act lifted, Panerai’s beefy redux in the ’90s at the hands of Richemont Group – on the wrists of similarly beefy Sly and Arnie – became a modern legend in its own right. The watchmaker isn’t resting on its evergreen fashion laurels, however. It may be relocated to the heartland of fine Swiss horology, with its own delicately fancy mechanics and less-likely patrons such as frightfully-frightfully Hugh Grant, but Panerai is still alive to its front-line origins. So much so that it’s inviting its customers to enlist. To wit: the latest PAM ref., 01402. Or, for those who’d rather distance themselves from the ‘Paneristi’ fanboys with all their jargon, the Experience Edition: Submersible Chrono Navy SEALs. Each one of its 50 customers has the option to sign up for an immersive ‘Special Operations Experience’. Non-combative or mercenary, just to be clear. The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land [SEAL] teams are the US Navy’s primary special operations force, heading up the Naval Special Warfare Command. The US equivalent of the British Navy’s

Special Boat or Air Service deploys small-unit covert ops in all manner of theatres, from maritime to jungle, urban, arctic, mountainous and even desert environments – all, yes, tracing their roots to World War II, despite taking ’til 1962 to be officially coined. If you’re up to the challenge, purchase of a PAM01402 is your ticket to a series of tactical exercises in the States, all designed to challenge you physically and mentally. It’s unabashedly billed as something going way beyond a paintballing weekend with the lads, and more power to Panerai. By the same token, more power to your choice of wristwear. Every Brunito (or ‘burnished’) steel case is hand-finished one by one to create a seasoned look, with the intently weathered effect protected by a PVD (physical vapour deposition) coating of hard metal. The Submersible is equipped with a Flyback chronograph function that enables the wearer to instantly time a successive event from zero, with a simple push. There’s another GI Joe switch-up in the toolbox too: a ‘Time to Target’ function, counting down to a preordained fixture. It’s more likely to be when the Sunday roast is done, rather than a furtive nocturnal rendezvous. But just as useful.

Sealed with a Risk

Words: Alex Doak

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Pin Tweaks

The tiniest refinements to the tiniest components make all the difference within a mechanical watch, with all its wheels, springs, pivots and service to quotidian reliability – once a ‘luxury’ indulgence, nowadays distinguishing itself as a crucible for life-proof sustainability, hithertounrealisable innovation and archival reinvention, all within a mere 40 or so millimetres

Pin Tweaks

P I N T W E A K S

Words: Alex Doak

10:10 Magazine Issue 9

Iterative evolution has honed Rolex’s mechanics to perfection

A manually or rotor-wound wristwatch is the antithesis of obsolescence: unlike that quartz or ‘smart’ watch, it doesn’t shed lithium batteries into landfill, it’s powered by you, it’s always reparable with the right tools, and it’s made by a string of gleaming, carbon-zero factories perched incongruously throughout the Jura Mountains, none of whose suppliers are more than 50km away. After spending 30-odd years repositioning themselves as an overt ‘luxury’ over the quartz technology that practically decimated the craft in the ’70s, the watchmakers of Switzerland are now setting out to make a ‘better’, more lifeproof product – not simply a ritzy status symbol. Most of these efforts have been channelled against horological enemy number one: magnetism. The mechanical principles have barely changed in the last 150 years or so, but watchmakers have toyed with antimagnetic alloy components ever since electricity entered our lives – more so than ever with neodymium batteries pulsing from every one of our devices – and especially for the delicate balance spring

Balancing Act

BALANCING ACT

Unlike GirardPerregaux’s constant-force flexi-band system (see p13), Rolex's silicon innovation lies at the very centre of things: the pulsing 'balance' spring around which the pendulum-inminiature that’s the balance wheel oscillates, four times a second

ticking at the heart, whose expansion and contraction is critical in regulating the speed of said ‘tick’. Breaking clean from the iron/nickel/ chromium/beryllium juggling act that kicked off at the turn of the 20th century, Rolex, Patek Philippe and the entire Swatch Group collectively entrusted an all-silicon laser-etched revolution to Neuchâtel’s CSEM microtech faculty from 2002. The university skunkworks and its clean-suited boffins developed a way of ‘deep reactive ion etching’ wafers of SiO2 hairsprings, thermally stable as well as magnetically, plus self-lubricating and in the case of Rolex’s cleverly sculpted Syloxi design, complete with Superlative Chronometer certification. Which is another way of saying that you’ll get nothing less than +2/–2 second precision and five-year warranty as standard, plus a ‘Chronergy’ streamlining approach to cogs, levers and teeth. Future proof, if unfathomable. And over 20 years down the line, silicon is on everyone’s lips once again, since CSEM’s 2002 patent has now expired, throwing the silicon doors completely wide open.

Balancing Act

Words: Alex Doak

PERPETUAL POSSIBILITIES

Doubling down on last year’s return to its disco heyday (the ’70s, when else?), Baume & Mercier – one of Switzerland’s true horological blue bloods – is reminding everyone this year that it’s not all about 12-sided sporty-luxe wrist candy, sashaying about quaysides in 1973. Late to the party, but still very welcome, said revived Riviera perfectly and geometrically frames watchmaking’s complication nonpareil: the perpetual calendar, or quantième perpetuel. To torture yet more Swinglish, it’s a savoir-faire B&M has had in its blood since the 18th century. But mothership Richemont Group has always positioned Baume & Mercier as its most affordable fine watch brand. So, once you get your head around the sheer, tortuous nature of a QP’s ability to keep perfect track of your day – even at the start of March, thanks to a cog that turns once every four years – the Riviera QP’s £16,990 price tag not only gets you long-overdue reassertion, but a funkadelic revelation of bargainous proportions.

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Perpetual Possibilities

The 12 sides of Riviera are framing decidedly nonsporty diversions

Louche, but always with the right date, even on leap years, thanks to a 48-toothed cam that turns once every 48 months

What a difference a strap makes, thanks to real-life Q Branch

IN WITH THE BAND

In with the Band

of the pin bars spanning the lugs pinged off. (The French Marine Nationale went for a similar solution but the ensuing, elasticated ‘MN’ strap means fiddling with sprung pin bars, which ‘ping’ in suboptimal fashion if aboard, say, a submarine.) The current Def-Stan spec is 66-47, the NATO nickname coming from the fact the MoD quotes a number of NATO stock numbers for variants – and, accordingly, the web is awash with fast’n’funky NATOs these days, your sole point of discernment being whether the seams are glued or stitched. For 24-carat authenticity we refer you to Certina, whose ‘inside’ reinvention in 2023 is a navy-stripe NATO, mounted by a gorgeous revival of a 1968 diver’s classic, with ‘TV-screen’ case. For £1,875, the silicon componentry that’s really inside, commanding additional chronograph functionality, makes things seem anything other than strapped.

Words: Alex Doak

When talking horological reinvention, it's not just the movement; the UK MoD is responsible for the most elegant strap solution, the NATO, which runs beneath everything in one loop, guaranteeing it holds fast

Given it occupies at least 75 per cent of your ‘wrist estate’, people need to afford more thought to their strap. And it really can be affordable, even in the heady realms of fine watches. The easiest way to switch-up your watch’s look is with a so-called ‘NATO’ strap. Usually made of brightly coloured nylon, but occasionally high-end weave (Tudor, for example, has its straps intricately crafted by a French weaver using the same Jacquard looms used by Prada), it still enjoys huge popularity for mix-andmatch customisability. The NATO’s origins are anything but fashionable or fun: in short, the British Ministry of Defence. It was first outlined in a 1973 Defence Standard document commissioning it, which defined it simply as ‘Strap, Wrist Watch’. Coming in at 20mm wide, intending to fit the Army’s standard-issue CWC watches, and only available in Admiralty Grey, its folded loop design meant that things held fast on your wrist even if one

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Edgy Metal

Crisply crenelated, sculpted, polished and burnished: the sporty heft of Vacheron Constantin’s Overseas takes the venerable marque to the ends of the earth, at the cutting edge of its craft

EDGY METAL

29 Edgy Metal Words: Laura McCreddie-Doak

Caliber 5200 ticks proudly through the caseback of all Overseas chronographs, gold rotor, high precision, exquisite Poinçon de Genève-certified hand-finish, the lot

Photography: Rosie Harriet Ellis

The taut lines of the boutique-exclusive Overseas three-hander in pink gold (£58,500) progress the '70s rakishness of the historic 222 from ballroom floors to teak decks

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Edgy Metal

Piercing panda eyes adorn the latest chronograph edition of VC's Overseas (£34,300 in steel), a classic two-tone configuration harking from the counter arrays of classic '60s motoring watches like the Autavia and Carrera

Edgy Metal

soon came into the business, taking their ornately decorated pocket watches into new markets before hotshot globetrotting salesman François Constantin came aboard in 1819. François’s motto, “Do better if possible and that is always possible”, first appeared in a letter he wrote to Jacques-Barthélémy Vacheron that year, and it certainly came to bear on things when Vacheron Constantin got down with the sporty luxe scene of the ’70s. It was Audemars Piguet who coined the genre in 1972, with its immortal, octagonal Royal Oak – perfectly pitched at the era’s burgeoning, disco-glitz jet set. Girard-Perregaux and Patek Philippe followed with their own luxurious takes on geometric steel, the Laureato and Nautilus respectively.

Photography: Rosie Harriet Ellis

tourbillon carousing gaily about tuxedoblue dials. If leading oxygen-eschewing alpinist photographer and National Geographic cover hero Cory Richards sees fit to collaborate on an Overseas in titanium that still looks fit for an evening at a Montenegrin casino, you know the high-horological waters run deep here. It’s arguably down to the watchmaker’s continued foothold in the heart of Geneva itself, rather than the outlying Jura mountains, where dairy farmers started by just making components during the snowy winters, rather than whole watches. It was on an island where the city’s Rhône river opens into Lac Léman that Jean-Marc Vacheron opened his atelier in 1755. His son and grandson

Words: Laura McCreddie-Doak

Heritage is a priceless commodity in luxury watchmaking, which makes Vacheron Constantin more valuable than most. The Genevese master boasts over 260 years of uninterrupted production – the longest in Switzerland – informing an unwavering consistency in handcraftsmanship, but also an aesthetic beamed from another time; something that feels slightly more ‘Latin’ than its Swiss counterparts. It’s this firmly entrenched pedigree that means even Vacheron Constantin’s relatively racy line, the Overseas, comes bearing a cosmopolitan élan. And not just because it comes in gold as well as steel (regardless of intended sportiness) let alone £100k-plus ‘price on application’ versions fitted with a highfalutin

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Edgy Metal

Words: Laura McCreddie-Doak Photography: Rosie Harriet Ellis

Photographer Rosie Harriet Ellis at Artworld Lighting Director Garth McKee Production Artworld

Edgy Metal

In pink gold and royal blue dial, the Overseas Chronograph (£76,500) makes the case for arguably the most lavish iteration of a sportstimer

But when it came to Vacheron? The virtuoso horloger was, of course, to reinstate more of the ‘luxe’ to the ‘sport’, rendering its own player entirely in luscious gold (as well as steel, as per the genre’s disruptive wont): the slinky, silkyof-bracelet and ever-so-lounge-lizard 222, in celebration of VC’s 222nd anniversary. 20 years on, and 1996 saw a steroidal overhaul, with 222 evolving into Overseas. Pitched as “an invitation to travel”, Overseas was now framed by a castellated, six-sided bezel, which tightened up the ‘knurled’ ring that crowned Jorg Hysek’s original 222 design (yes, it was Hysek at the drawing board, not the Royal Oak and Nautilus’s more garlanded draftsman, Gérald Genta). It cleverly riffs on the brand’s Maltese Cross logo – itself descended from the shape of a cam that coordinates the 12-month indicator for ‘perpetual’ calendars. More to the point, the bezel pumps things up from VC’s usual classical cool, while at the same time managing to instate a different form of classicism – just as a Roman temple might go for Corinthian columns over Ionic. Sure enough, its inverse Maltese angles flow seamlessly into a robust ‘integrated’ bracelet, whose central links fortify the motif. In 41mm’s worth of boutique-exclusive pink gold (£58,500, yes, but do remember how much metal goes into that bracelet, as well as case), with the option of chronograph functionality (£76,500) – also available in stainless-steel ‘panda eye’ format (£34,300) – the three Overseas featured here are as sporty as it gets for Vacheron Constantin. Which is another way of saying: unlike anything the rest of Switzerland could muster. That’s what heritage buys you.

WOUND UP

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Rewound Up

RE–

There’s an Ivy League of cum laude classics that continue to graduate from Switzerland – all-rounder horological stars that build on a DNA that (ironically enough) remains timeless, as tastes and technology move along, with genes strong enough to bear evolution in any which way

35 Rewound Up Photography: Lydia Whitmore

Don’t be thrown by 1858: this ambitious Swiss-made timepiece from a German brand normally associated with fountain pens is entirely inspired by the plucky alpinists of the ’30s – crampons, Kendall mint cakes and all. Hence the retro logo and stylistic tropes drawn from Montblanc’s merged compatriot, Minerva (est. 1858), still in the business of sumptuously hand-finished chronograph mechanics, nestled appropriately in a lush valley near a village in the Jura mountains. Two 3D hemispheres turn once a day, northern and southern, 14 dots marking the world’s 8,000m-plus peaks. £8,100

Words: Alex Doak

Montblanc 1858 Geosphere 0 Oxygen South Pole Exploration Limited Edition

Oris Divers Sixty-Five Chronograph

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Rewound Up

The understated, mid-centuryinspired Divers Sixty-Five family is a contemporary echo of Oris’s first diver’s watch, released in 1965. It’s now joined by a chronograph model with a confident 40mm case, a refined monochromatic dial design and a choice of a metal bracelet or a sustainably sourced black Cervo Volante deer-leather strap. The twocounter chronograph is framed by sweeping lugs, a muscular uni-directional rotating bezel and ‘mushroom’ chronograph pushers, giving it an oldschool, utilitarian profile that should probably be paired with harpoon gun and diving bell. £3,300

Tudor Black Bay GMT The ‘snowflake’ hands of Tudor’s waterbaby are joined by a 24-hours hand with the Black Bay GMT, launching it over date lines and time zones where Rolex’s affordable version of its Submariner couldn’t, back in the ’60s. The mechanics whirring within are Tudor’s own today, made in-house to untold precision, but that red/blue day/night bezel is another cheeky steal from stablemate Rolex, and its Pepsi-coloured GMT-Master was sported by Pan-Am pilots as far back as 1954. £3,660

Rewound Up Words: Alex Doak Photography: Lydia Whitmore

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Rewound Up

Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean Ultra Deep Blue

Photography: Lydia Whitmore

Just when you thought Rolex’s 2020 spectrum of five Perpetual models in five respective ‘pops!’ was jazzy enough for the premiere practitioner of horological utility, comes a dial rendered in all five colours, as… bubbles? Furrowed brows switch immediately to joyous grins (then slight sadness at the realisation that the Celebration motif is undoubtedly earmarked for the most ‘A’ of A-list waitlists). Candy pink, turquoise blue, yellow, coral red and green, floating above all the super-precise mechanical seriousness you’d expect. £5,400

Words: Alex Doak

Rolex Oyster Perpetual 41 Celebration

Rewound Up

That one Commander James Bond (may he rest in peace) has been a Seamaster devotee since 1995 says everything of Omega’s oceangoing credentials, taken to new extremes by another blueeyed boy, the Planet Ocean Ultra Deep. The bonecrushing pressures of 6,000m underwater mean no one can take it to task (apart from billionaire Victor Vescovo who strapped one to the outside of his bathyscaphe in 2019, plumbing the deepest depths of the Mariana Trench), but that’s like saying you’ll never drive your Lambo’ at 210mph. And this similarly impressive chunk of metal engineering is decidedly cheaper. £12,300

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Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore Selfwinding Music Edition Back in 2005, Jay-Z was the first instance – for Audemars Piguet, but also Switzerland’s closeted scene in its entirety – of watchmaking’s engagement with street culture, followed by genuine ‘shared values’ A-list collaboration. “We don’t give watches away,” was the mantra, and its anti-ambassadorial integrity continues to chime, creatively as well as lucratively. The eight-sided Royal Oak is still the darling of hip hop and Hollywood, but now in the business of music production itself, via the likes of pop-wizard Mark Ronson – a musical trajectory marked, tongue in cheek, by a trio of limited editions (37mm model pictured). Their printed, tapestry-texture dials represent the VU (volume unit) meters whose LEDs light-up studio mixing desks. £27,400

Rewound Up

Back in the ’60s, Willy Breitling was alive to the zeitgeist, and set his world-renowned chronograph-making team to task in reflecting the verve of the time – the result being Top Time, a funkadelic wristwatch that even found itself on the wrist of George Lazenby during his one-time stint as 007. That spirited tradition continues today with Breitling partnering with some of the coolest names in wheels to reinvent Top Time designs. A collaboration with British legend Triumph is precisely colour-matched to an ice-blue Triumph Thunderbird 6T from 1951, as well as a rare, bluedialled Breitling Top Time Ref. 815 from the 1970s. £6,250

Breitling Top Time B01 Triumph

Words: Alex Doak Photography: Lydia Whitmore

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Rewound Up

When the French Aéronavale (or naval aviation arm) unveiled its Type XX spec in tendering a new pilot’s chronograph in 1953, 18th-century horological forefather Abraham-Louis Breguet’s Parisian brand was already a major force in French aviation. Louis Charles Breguet even founded the Société des Ateliers d’Aviation in 1911, which supplied 55,000 aircraft and 110,000 engines to the military during WWI. The criteria included an instant back-to-zero flyback or ‘retour en vol’ facility for the stopwatch function, so successive stints had no manual reset lag. Breguet has tinkered constantly, re-emerging from its Swiss ateliers this year with a flyback flyboy more ‘fly’ than ever, tricked-out with antimagnetic silicon componentry. £16,400

Breguet Type XX & Type 20

Hublot Classic Fusion Orlinski Blue Ceramic

Photography: Lydia Whitmore

Photographer Lydia Whitmore Set Design Elliot Rooney

Words: Alex Doak

Richard Orlinski is the contemporary French artist whose style seems the most cut out for Hublot’s Classic Fusion. His signature, primary-coloured chopped facets – usually sculpted in animal form – lend particularly well to the Swiss watchmaker’s ziggurat-like case design, whose fusion of octagonal base and circular, eponymous ‘porthole’ bezel remains very much in effect here, despite the outlandish ceramic flex. £11,800

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Peak Twins

45 Peak Twins Photography: Tonje Thilesen

PEAK TWINS

Words: Alex Doak

70 years back, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's historic Everest summit crystallised Rolex's nascent, nowimmortal Explorer

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Peak Twins

It’s been 70 years since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became legends at the top of the world, dryfreezing legend status in Rolex’s brace of Explorers

Two at the top, but standing on so many shoulders – just like Rolex's iterative pursuit of precision

As with any story, rumour or urban myth relating to Switzerland’s most cultish marque, you mention the ‘Rolex vs Smiths’ debate at your own risk anywhere near the web or indeed pub. If you must – and we really must, since the Rolex in question, the Explorer, gets a sleek new upgrade this year, on the 70th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay summitting all 8,848 metres of Everest – it’s always best to start with what we know. Not which man peaked first, but more importantly, which watch? Celebrated during a magical evening in Kensington on June 12th, the thread running through every talk at a packed Royal Geographical Society theatre was anything but the duo’s achievement; rather that of their entire team, whose dynamic all those years ago holds plenty of lessons for the modern breed of alpinist. (Google Nims Purja’s infamous ‘queue for the summit’ photograph, if you don’t already know it.) Introducing proceedings, the daughter of the expedition’s leader, Charlotte Hunt recalled her delirious mother getting the phone call downstairs while in the bath on the eve of Elizabeth II’s coronation. She also recognised the humility of her father, Sir John’s decision to defer the ultimate accolade to the next pair behind, rather than let hypoxia get the better of him. Jamling Norgay (Tenzing Norgay’s son) paid tribute to how the expedition’s 25 sherpas were genuine team members, never treated as ‘bag carriers’ while the team members reaped all the prestige. An accomplished alpinist in his own right, Peter Hillary wryly shared his father’s most potent bit of advice: “Peter, a posthumous success is overrated; what’s most important is getting down safely.” It’s small beer by comparison, but for #watchnerds the world over, Sir Edmund managed something else extraordinary: to have two competing watch brands bankroll the expedition. Rolex was the most heavily publicised expedition partner in 1953 (and seemingly most loyal, given the clocks dotted about the Royal Geographical Society’s historic lecture theatre), and Mr Norgay was dutifully wearing his Oyster Perpetual as he stepped onto the top of the world. Indeed, later that very year, anyone on Civvy Street could pick up their own Explorer. This year its latest iteration drops, the pinnacle of 70 years’

continuous fine-tuning: up to 40mm across, now equipped with the full suite of Rolex’s futureproof bells and whistles, such as the super-precise Chronergy regulator, ticking rocksteadily regardless of swings in temperature or magnetism. Since the 1930s, Rolex had equipped numerous expeditions, to constantly learn from real-life conditions. With Everest and the Explorer, however, Rolex proved it had arrived at a watch capable of withstanding high humidity and freezing Himalayan temperatures. It was the start of the ‘Professional’ line, and the crystallisation of Rolex as the go-to ‘tool’ watchmaker. But while Norgay played along, Hillary himself had quietly left his own Explorer back at base camp, choosing instead to wear a Smiths Deluxe to the summit – one of 13 that Britain’s biggest watchmaker had issued, prepared at their Cheltenham workshops with a special lubricant to withstand low temperatures. Sir Edmund presented it in person to the City of London’s Worshipful Company of Clockmakers in the same year, having reported back to Smiths that the watch had performed “very well”. You can now admire it at the Science Museum, next door to the RGS. But with Smiths long gone and waiting lists for steel Rolex Daytonas and GMTMaster IIs as they are, what else do budding alpinists have to choose from, with true Everest pedigree, which won’t have you laughed out of Kensington’s esteemed institutions? It is another Rolex Explorer. Only bearing the suffix ‘II’, demarcating the no-nonsense core model’s upgrade to GMT status: the addition of a 24-hour hand in other words, popping with urgent-orange luminescence thanks to the watchmaker’s proprietary Chromalight paint. And now with the option of an icywhite dial. Should you be particularly unfortunate on the actual ice, the Explorer II’s GMT function packs another handy tool, in navigating your way home the boy scout’s way. To earn your explorer badge, simply set the 24-hours hand to the local time zone, rather than ‘home’ time (according to the 24-hour bezel, not the 12-hour dial) and point the 12-hour hand at the sun, holding your watch flat. That’s north… sort of. Godspeed!

Photography Tonje Thilesen Creative Director Juan Felipe Rendon

Peak Twins Words: Alex Doak Photography: Tonje Thilesen

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EX When faced with the task of reinventing a device that continues to hinge on 200-year-old mechanical principles, it helps to have local access to the cutting edge of micro-engineering. The outward design and materials science being funnelled into Swiss wristwatches make them, today, the most creative of all luxury goods populating Bond Street windows

CARBON CREDIT

Oris ProPilot Altimeter Automatic, £5,250

Oris is 3D-printing composite cases, because it can

EXT. Words: Alex Doak

You might think that the ProPilot Altimeter being fitted with a miniaturised, metallic aneroid capsule is the big deal, its squash or swell indicating your altitude up to 19,700ft, via a calibration circling the dial. But look closely at the monobloc case ring and its strap attachment lugs: there is a striated flow to its carbon/polymer composite fibres. A hitherto unseen ‘tree-ring’ effect, where carbon watches are usually either formed of randomly marbled, forged scraps of fibre, or crudely cut-out cross-weave blocks. From ceramic to bulk metallic glass to titanium, the world of mechanical watches is being chiefly progressed through its innards’ surrounding packaging, or habillement to adopt the Swinglish. Based in Zürich, Oris’s new partner is the tech start-up 9T Labs who can 3D-print a carbon case – using their own washingmachine-sized Red Series printers – to the sort of tolerances demanded by a high-end watchmaker. For most of 9T’s short-run output – helicopter door hinges for example, or performance mountain-bike suspension wishbones – the challenges are based on where the loads are applied. Its particular mode of ‘additive manufacture’ is a breakout technology called ‘continuous fibre deposition’ (CFD), meaning a feedstock of 1mm-wide tape of unidirectional carbon weave (60 per cent), pre-impregnated with PEKK polymer, is melted while extruded from a robotic nozzle head. Laid down in 0.4mm layers, in whatever direction bears best the component’s eventual real-world stress, this not only endows Oris’s design with an organic pattern that follows the lines but lends strength to particular points such as the aforementioned lugs.

HIGH DIVE

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EXT.

Longines ramps up the rate of tick, below waves

Its rose-tinted ‘Heritage’ line never fails to stir nostalgic thrills akin to Biggles or Dan Dare – after all, Longines boasts one of Switzerland’s most colourful timelines of derring-do, both technologically and adventure-wise. Since its original raid on the archives, the ’60s-throwback Legend Diver of 2007, the emphasis has been on the latter, but with this year’s blisteringly cool Ultra-Chron diving watch we have both in spades. Mostly though, this is a sumptuous, sapphire-reinforced reminder that it was in fact Longines’ boffins who established ground zero for high-frequency mechanical timekeeping. The watch to which it pays tribute is a 1968 piece

that introduced a movement ticking at 36,000 vibrations per hour, or 10 beats per second (inside a 100m-water-resistant case no less) – one year before Zenith and Seiko’s respective, headline-grabbing chronographs. The precision gained by upping the ticking from 4Hz to 5Hz is proven here by Longines’ Ultra Chronometer certification from TIMELAB, an independent testing laboratory in Geneva. With less room for error (i.e. shock-related wobbles to the delicate balance spring) you get life-approving confidence in timing your SCUBA-tank oxygen reserves, via the rotating bezel. The killer retro vibes, needless to say, can stay.

Longines Ultra-Chron, £3,300

WITH GREAT POWER… Audemars Piguet’s Marvel-ous special pays respect to a great

EXT. Words: Alex Doak

Say what you want about the so-hot-rightnow zeitgeist that’s seeing grown adults suiting up, but there was a one-off ‘Black Suit Spider-Man’ auctioned by Audemars Piguet at the launch of its bitesize 250piece collection of superhero watches in Dubai, and it fetched a chunky $6.2 million, all in benefit of the First Book and Ashoka NPOs working to empower young people. We’re happy to report that with such great responsibility comes powerful, exquisitely open-worked watchmaking. On paper, purists may balk at an infantilised take on Audemars Piguet’s gamechanging Concept: a UFO for the wrist that took the house’s equally pioneering, octagonal Royal Oak sports watch of the ’70s into a new genre of 21st-century haute horlogerie. A genre entirely of AP’s own conceit. However, the addition of one besuited Peter Parker to a new-school classic will inspire the same vapours as that original, steroidal Concept of 2002 – vapours now dispersed with the luxury of time, and indeed with a wholly reinvented notion of what can constitute luxurious timekeeping in the first case. The concomitant success of otherworldly visionaries like Richard Mille, Urwerk and MB&F prove that. (Google all of their trailblazing endeavours.) Housed by a voluptuous, architectural titanium case, a cobweb-like movement spans the entire width of the watch, yet eliminates so much material that SpiderMan himself appears to be suspended in a void. He alone requires 50 hours of work, pushing the limits of even AP’s historic HQ and elite craftsmen, deep in the mountainous heartland of Swiss horology. Contoured from a block of gold and requiring over 40 hours’ machining, laser- and hand-engraving, Spidey is then meticulously painted by an in-house artisan. It even comes with a red/black rubber strap if you’re feeling similarly heroic.

Audemars Piguet x Marvel Royal Oak Concept Tourbillon 'Spider-Man', CHF195,000 SpiderMan's raw-gold maquette is held in wax, ready for handenamelling in vivid colour

ROMAN JOY

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EXT.

The latest succession in Bulgari’s Octo dynasty fuses carbon with gold

As we’ve come to expect from modern watchmaking’s genuine renaissance brand, here’s another monumental fusion of Italian artistry and Swiss expertise that manages to command a lightness of touch with gravitas. A full 110 wafer-thin facets of the ziggurat Octo Finissimo case – rendered this time in extremely lightweight, anthracite-coloured carbon – frame the ultra-thin mechanics of calibre BVL 138. Its diaphanous 2.23mm-high jigsaw of 100-odd components tick in concert to a daringly contemporary aesthetic, paying zero heed to Swiss, German, let alone Italian watchmaking tradition. Elizabeth Taylor would be treated to something Bulgari by Richard Burton every time they visited Rome together. But for once, this watch seems like something Burton would treat himself to. The 6.9mm case still packs a manly 100m water-resistance, plus that heat-andpressure treated amalgam of carbon-fibre threads forged into Bulgari’s iconic Octo shape: the marbled effect could be lifted straight from the Parthenon.

Bulgari Octo Finissimo CarbonGold Automatic, £25,000 Rado DiaStar Original Skeleton, £1,850

WHEELS OF FORTUNE Rado’s DiaStar is more sci-fi than ever

EXT. Words: Alex Doak

In 1957, brothers Fritz, Ernst and Werner Schlup made a wise decision: after 40 years building a solid watch atelier up from a room at their parents’ house, they decided to rebrand. Discontinuing the rather ugly Schlup & Co. boilerplate, they coined a new brand, Rado, a word meaning ‘wheel’ in Europe’s ill-fated, ubi-lingual Esperanto. The brothers never looked back (unlike Esperanto). By 1962, they’d released the world’s first scratchproof watch, the Rado DiaStar, forged from tungsten-carbide ‘hardmetal’ and seemingly beamed from outer space for all its Captain Kirk-worthy styling. This aesthetic futurism, hand-inhand with futuristic, bulletproof materials became the two-stranded DNA running through Rado from then onward – leading to pioneering adventures in zirconiumoxide ceramic in the ’80s, inadvertently laying ceramic foundations for everyone from Audemars Piguet to Zenith today. This year’s DiaStar revival is a captivating upgrade, still egg-shaped and fit for the bridge of the Enterprise, but with spacious, spectral inner works (anthracitegrey coated, magnetically immune, interstellar power levels of 80 hours), now bathed in sunlight, thanks to sapphirecrystal portholes mounted both bow and stern. Engage.

F A N T A S T I C

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Fantastic Beast

B E A S T

Thirty years ago, something emerged from the sleepy village of Le Brassus – a troublesome creation that would go on to change everything

55 Fantastic Beast

that Offshore represented: pumping up the delicate, octagonal facets of 1972’s equally iconic Royal Oak, but in such an uncompromising fashion as to earn the nickname ‘The Beast’ among Audemars Piguet’s dyed-in-the-wool interns. That’s as may be, but from East Coast to West, at the hands of US chief and future CEO François-Henry Bennahmias, it was crucial in transforming the shy and retiring Swiss watch to bling-bling status symbol. It opened up the valleys of the Jura to hip-hop, film and basketball, paving the way for Hublot, Richard Mille and Roger Dubuis. The world of fashion too, as demonstrated by the ritzy gold numbers photographed here. Matthew Williams’ day job is creative director for Givenchy, but such is the mythic allure of the Royal Oak that his wilfully antagonistic label

Photography: Eliza Bourner

is being forged at the hands of horology’s fresh generation – with one particular influencer looming larger than most – size having always been the MO of Audemars Piguet’s modern icon, the Royal Oak Offshore. Ripped arm in ripped arm with Panerai (see page 20), the Offshore created the market for steroidal oversized watches, normalising a diameter like 42mm for ‘normal’ men’s wristwear. (Hard to believe that the ur-Offshore of 1993 was just 42mm itself.) While Panerai had Sylvester Stallone endorsing its emergence from Italy’s murky military secrets act, it was fellow beefcake and Planet Hollywood business partner Arnie who helped fuel the Offshore. Panerai was still based on the cushion shape of a Rolex pocket watch from the ’30s. It was big, but hardly the enfant terrible

Words: Alex Doak

The Swiss will forever be fixated on the glory days. Those of the 19th century, when most of its major players blossomed throughout Geneva and the Jura; and those of the mid-century, when wrist-born timekeepers properly got their groove on – design-wise, and technologically. Two golden eras in constant states of reissue, tribute or revival. But what about the modern classics? The breakout stars of modern watchmaking, ever since the industry’s reimagination as ‘luxury’ in the early 1990s, in recovery mode from the so-called quartz crisis? We’re talking turnof-the-century, genuinely new designs like the Bulgari Octo, the Chanel J12, A. Lange & Söhne’s Lange 1 or Patek Philippe’s Aquanaut. Luckily, with a few decades under their respective belts, a ‘young heritage’

56 Fantastic Beast 10:10 Magazine Issue 9

1017 ALYX 9SM couldn’t resist a collab’. The Offshore has helped normalise the monumental statement look, carrying over seamlessly to the Royal Oak Chronograph’s own sculptural might. One year late, Offshore was supposed to mark the 20th anniversary of garlanded watch designer Gérald Genta’s own shock drop of ’72. But AP’s then-designer Emmanuel Gueit struggled for four years, saying at every stage that The Beast would never work. When it finally emerged at the industry’s big trade fair in Basel, Genta himself allegedly marched onto the brand’s stand, barking, “You killed my baby!” “It took time for the Offshore’s status to rise,” concedes AP’s heritage and

museum director, Sébastian Vivas, in an interview with specialist UK title, QP. “The rise of watches as luxury items took them right back to their roots as beautiful objects to show off. And in the context of the time, the ’90s, you realise that that had to mean something sporty and casual.” Among Gueit’s many daring evolutions, the lugs were now curved, an imposing black seal was revealed under the bezel while the crown and push-pieces were clad in rubber. Also, crucially, it was equipped with a stopwatch chronograph as standard (until the noughties’ threehanded Diver), compounding the youthful sporty vibe. Think perky Sony Walkman Sports in yellow, over po-faced black B&O turntable.

It was another six years, but what truly propelled the Offshore into the mainstream and onto every Riviera gadabout’s wishlist was a personality of equal stature: the aforementioned Mr Schwarzenegger. Recently retired CEO Bennahmias hails their collaboration as his proudest moment in Offshore’s lifetime, with 1999’s End of Days special raising $1m for Arnie’s After School All Star children’s charity. More complicated, bigger Offshores followed, creeping up to 44mm, inspiring the outlandish ‘Concept’ series with all its bulbous, otherworldly sci-fi stylings. Offshore has become something of a crucible for materials-science innovation, too. Before Audemars Piguet decided to

57 Fantastic Beast

use forged carbon to create an entire case, carbon fibre was confined to decorative elements such as dials and pushers, since the woven nature of the sheets meant that water resistance couldn’t be guaranteed. To get around this, AP worked with an engineering company near Lyon who’d conceived a method for use on aircraft propellers. Rather than sheets, moulds are stuffed with fibre strands, which are then compressed under high temperatures. The random nature of the fusion means the marbling on each case is unique. It was debuted on the briny wrists of Switzerland’s bid for the Holy Grail of the yachting world, the America’s Cup, aka Team Alinghi (now sporting Tudors in titanium, for what it’s worth). It weighed anchor on a gold rush of carbon-clad watchmaking, at its apogee with Oris’s current adventures in 3D printing (see page 48). AP has now turned more concertedly to ceramic, however. The Offshore’s formidable facets lend well to the monumental aesthetic of zirconium oxide, plus the material’s lightness means more comfort for the wearer, no matter how mammoth-like AP’s designers go. From octagonal bezel to chrono’ pushbuttons and caseback, ceramic depends on a complex industrial flow. In the words of Mr Bennahmias, no doubt echoing those of Mr Stephen Urquhart who presided over AP’s daring tactics of 1993, it makes perfect sense: “It was a risk of course, but ‘risk’ is the Offshore’s middle name. It has always sparked controversy, so it’s nothing we haven’t handled before.”

Words: Alex Doak

The original badboy that was Royal Oak's 1993 Offshore, with 42mm's worth of amplified, octagonal faced, intricately etched 'tapisserie' dial, chronograph raciness and chunky, integrated bracelet

Photography: Eliza Bourner

Limited to 202, this season’s reinvention of the Royal Oak Selfwinding Chronograph (£80,900) is the boldly monochrome brainchild of Matthew Williams – Givenchy’s creative lead, but in this case under the banner of the US fashion director's 1017 ALYX 9SM fashion label. All yellow gold and all-fierce, with every gene of its DNA inherited from the Offshore of 1993

Issue 9

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Sound, Vision

SOUND, VISION

Patek Philippe’s Advanced Research arm has deployed unlikely future-forward tech to perfect the charming, chiming minute repeater Sound, Vision Words: Alex Doak

When you think of Patek Philippe, ‘high tech’ is not a phrase that springs to mind. Patek Philippe symbolises tradition; it is a brand where watchmakers are trained in crafts that date back to the days when a young Polish émigré met a French horologist and decided to set up shop in Geneva, by candlelight. You do not think of labs, engineers and bleeding-edge laser experimentation. But that is exactly what the Advanced Research arm of the modern business is all about – it is here that the synergy between tradition and innovation is being explored; where research into the potentials of new materials and micromechanical construction are taken into whole new horological realms. While this may seem incongruous to some, it should be noted that Patek Philippe has, despite its aura of grandedamerie, always been an innovator. In 1845 it created the first watch with a built-in winding mechanism. Come 1860, Patek unveiled the first watch with a winding and hand-setting ‘crown’ that negated the need for a separate key. It pioneered the ‘worldtimer’ or ‘heures universelles’ in 1937 when it adapted Louis Cottier’s concentric ‘city ring’ of 24 global time zones, each read instantly from a centrally mounted hand. In this spirit, Advanced Research was founded in 2005. To push the boundaries of what could be done, Patek Philippe weren’t proud: they sought outside help (itself in the spirit of Swiss watchmaking

CSEM microengineers check a wafer of freshly etched 'Silinvar' balance springs

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Sound, Vision

The 'sound lever' stretches across from the gongs circling the 5750's movement to the central sapphire oscillating wafer, sounding out the resonance through a tiny hole visible at the bottom of the case

as a whole, which still largely functions as a hyper-localised cottage industry dotted throughout Geneva and the Jura mountains). Patek co-operates with external research institutions, development laboratories and with the Swiss Association for Horological Research. Even acousticians, to work solely on the sound quality of its repeaters, whose tiny internal hammers chime-out the time, down to the hours, quarters and minutes, on two fine-tuned wire gongs encircling the main movement. These people are tasked with questioning everything about traditional watchmaking processes and interrogating themselves constantly to see if things can be done better. Patek Philippe also partnered with a variety of institutes around Switzerland, such as the academic Swiss Centre for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) in Neuchâtel. The first round of experiments focused on the untapped potential of silicon micro-components, up until recently at CSEM, whose technology was also endorsed by Rolex and the Swatch Group. From 2005 to 2017 Patek introduced its proprietary version of this crystalline solid called Silinvar, which is more robust than pure silicon, antimagnetic and self-lubricating (thus lengthening service intervals, since mucky oils are the bane of a constantly ticking, whirring watch movement). Then it proceeded to use Silinvar to replace more and more elements of the movement’s beating heart, or ‘escapement’, the pinnacle being 2011’s Perpetual Calendar Ref. 5550P, which had the entire complement of regulating organs – escape wheel, lever, balance spring and balance wheel – made of silicon, the ‘Oscillomax’.

All made possible thanks to a process mastered by the clean-suited geniuses of CSEM, called ‘deep reactive-ion etching’ (DRIE). In a strictly dust-free laboratory, smooth wafers of silicon are covered with a light-sensitive material, exposed to a mercury lamp, which allows the pattern on the wafers to show up. Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), a corrosive, etches the silicon where the photoresist is absent. Next C4F8 (octafluorocyclobutane, an organofluorine compound containing a carbon-fluorine bond) is used, followed by SF6, which cuts through the wafer to reveal the balances. Wet etching is then used to separate the silicon from the unusable oxidised layer. That was back in 2017, and it is now showing up in the escapements of sub-£1,000 Tissots. From there, Advanced Research moved into ‘compliant’, or ‘monobloc’ mechanisms. It took six years to unveil its Aquanaut Travel Time Ref.5650G, which reduced the number of parts needed to make the timing adjustments to a single piece of flexible steel. And now, those aforementioned acousticians have been given a chance to showcase their talents with the musical module in the quiteextraordinary Ref. 5750. Patek Philippe wanted to produce a minute-repeater movement that improved on sound amplification and transmission. The team took the existing in-house R 27 PS minute repeater movement from 1989 and added a module – what they call the ‘ff ’, or ‘fortissimo’ if you know your sheet-music notation. Essentially, ff acts like a mechanical loudspeaker. As you look at the movement, extending out from in between the gongs to the centre is what Patek refers to as a ‘sound lever’, attached to a wafer of synthetic sapphire

crystal just 0.2mm thick. To transmit the sound, traditional minute repeaters allow it to resonate through the watch by three different paths – the movement, dial, then out of the top of the case. But this minute repeater does something a little different. Rather than three ways out, the sound only has one. The tuning-fork-esque sound lever transmits the sound from the gongs straight to the sapphire oscillating wafer. Because this wafer is free moving it can then channel the waves through the openings in a titanium movement ring and then through a single minuscule opening between the caseback and band. Dust is prevented from entering these openings via an anti-dust filter; an idea Patek Philippe borrowed from mobile phones’ various apertures. To prove that this movement would deliver superior sound whatever the case material, Patek chose to house it in platinum, a precious metal that’s actually notorious for stifling sound due to its weight and composition. However, Patek are claiming the ff module can be heard from six times the distance of a traditional repeater – 60m instead of 10m. However, as there are only 15 in existence, and made on application, you’ll have to work hard ingratiating yourself with some particularly wealthy and specifically academic people to prove it. Taking on a complication conceived for telling the time when candlelight was in short order? It may not be the best realworld application of Patek’s Advanced Technology team, but it does exhibit a wit not often seen from this most haute of horlogerie houses, plus an admirable drive to push seemingly arcane crafts into new territory. And that’s something certainly worth making a noise about.

Sound, Vision

Words: Alex Doak

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Square Peg

SQUARE PEG

Patek Philippe Aquanaut Chronograph 5968R in rose gold £60,950

Cartier Tank Américaine in rose gold £16,100

Square Peg Words: Alex Doak Photography: Rosie Harriet Ellis

The hands still go round and round, but not necessarily in a circle, as our pick of 10 defiantly reimagined tickers prove – encased in anything from rectangles to squares to ‘cushions’ (yes, cushions), all representing a deft feel for hand-polishing across a jigsaw of off-kilter facets, let alone a machining headache

64 Square Peg 10:10 Magazine Issue 9

Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Monoface Small Seconds in steel £10,100 Nomos Glashütte Tetra Kleene in steel £2,600

Square Peg

Words: Alex Doak

Photography: Rosie Harriet Ellis

66 Square Peg 10:10 Magazine Issue 9 Grand Seiko Mount Iwate Autumn Dusk in steel £5,500

Square Peg

Words: Alex Doak

Photography: Rosie Harriet Ellis

Chanel Boy.Friend Cyberdata in blackcoated steel £7,950

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Square Peg

Vacheron Constantin Historiques American 1921 in white gold £40,400 TAG Heuer Monaco Chronograph Night Driver in titanium £8,300

Square Peg Words: Alex Doak Photography: Rosie Harriet Ellis

Panerai Radiomir Tre Giorni in steel £6,100

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Square Peg

Bell & Ross BR 03 Military Ceramic in ceramic £3,900

Photographer Rosie Harriet Ellis at Artworld Lighting Director Garth McKee Set Design Phoebe McElhatton Production Artworld

Square Peg

Words: Alex Doak

Photography: Rosie Harriet Ellis

72 Waystar Roy No 10:10 Magazine

WAYSTAR ROY NO

Watches were a potent signifier in HBO’s runaway success series, Succession, from the off: series one, episode one sees Tom Wambsgans commencing his weaselling campaign by presenting father-in-law/ billionaire-media-conglomerate-CEO Logan Roy with a Patek Philippe – naively misinterpreting the import of the family’s annual softball game, which he was interrupting, let alone the pusillanimous desperation of his gesture (for the meantime, of course…)

Tom Wambsgans: Hey, so I wanted to give this to you in person, to say, y’know, happy birthday. Logan Roy: Ooh… Tom Wambsgans: It’s… it’s just a Patek Philippe.

Issue 9

Logan Roy: I can read… it says from the title. Tom Wambsgans: It’s incredibly accurate; every time you read it it tells you how rich you are. Logan Roy: That’s very funny. Did you rehearse that? Tom Wambsgans: No! No, well, no, well, yes, but… Logan Roy: OK, uh huh (can you take that?), OK let’s play ball! Images: Copyright HBO (2018)

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