There are boutiques that you can’t wait to leave (ie., most of them) – the types of boutiques that are cramped and cluttered with nothing but rows of watches and uninspired “brand extension” accessories – you know, like cufflinks, tie bars, and pens. The new IWC boutique in NYC is anything but this.
In fact, IWC’s first Manhattan-based store is enormous – over 3,000 square feet, with massive vaulted ceilings and the most inviting entrance way you could ask for. In fact, when you walk in the door, it looks like you’ve entered someone’s home (someone’s really nice, nautical-theme home) – this is the home of the Portuguese collection. Amidst the watches lining the walls, you will also see new IWC navigational equipment, books, and accessories. By the way, the couches you see above? Yup, they’re made from real sails off of championship sailboats.
Click through for a detailed look at the incredible (and now officially open!) IWC boutique on Madison Avenue (at the corner of 54th street) in NYC, where each collection gets its own “environment” and dedicated lifestyle accessories. This is a totally new type of watch store for NYC and you’ll want to see these pictures.
A behind the scenes look at a fashion photo shoot for ‘O’ The Oprah Magazine South Africa by styleguidecapetown.blogspot.com Model Monique Darton (Project Runway & Models of the Runway) photographed by Anthony Friend in Cape Town. http Featuring labels such as Accessorize, Anya Hindmarch, Ba&sh, Blue Label, Burberry, Capitol M, Chopard, Country Road, Dillon & Jada, Gap, Gerard Darel, Gucci, Guiseppe Zanotti, Habits, Jimmy Choo, Jo Borkett, Joanne Taylor, Laurence Dolige, Levi Strauss, Louis Vuitton, Luella, Lupo, MaxMara, Nicole Farhi, Mango Collection, Polo, Preview, Tosoni, Prada, Renaissance, Richard Gamble, Rotary, San Marina, Sass Diva, Spijkers en Spijkers, Truworths, Tag Heuer, The Cat’s Meow, Tosoni, Trenery, Triwa, and Woolworths. Video Rating: 5 / 5
You won’t see us commenting on the Russian Orthodox Church or its affairs too often around here, but a recent story about a certain watch that Patriarch Kirill may or may not wear was too good to pass up. The story begins with a picture taken in 2009, depicting the watch less Patriarch sitting with a Russian justice minister. Nothing unusual about that, except that on closer inspection, within the reflection of the table, a watch is clearly present on his wrist, indicating the presence of some photo trickery on behalf of the ROC, who posted the image on their website. What’s the big deal? The watch is a $ 30,000 Breguet, and it seems Russians have grown sensitive to the Church’s lavish displays of wealth.
There is a lot to love about Basel World – the obvious, like 1300 exhibiting timepiece manufactures all within a square mile – and there is a lot one can do without – the long days, endless meetings, bathrooms oddly placed in smoke-filled stairwells and seeming total unavailability of lunch food beyond bratwurst. But, without a doubt the best thing about Basel World is getting to see friends you don’t often see, sitting down over a beer and just having fun. You see, the watch world is, at the end of the day, a rather small one, and the majority of us are dear friends. Sure, we may write for this blog and they might write for that blog, and person X might slave away tirelessly and brilliantly with little aclaim, while person Y might be a media darling, but at the end of the day, we are all friends and while Basel is business for all of us, we make sure to take a night off from the glad handing to do what we want to do – and this post shows you exactly what we want to do.
Since I’ve been coming to Basel World, i’ve joined some good friends, like Frank from Monochrome, Gerard from In2Watches, and Robert-Jan from FratelloWatches for a saturday night of schnitzel and beer. Last year, the group grew to include several other friends, like Ernie from Watchuseek, the Grönefeld Brothers, and Stepan Sarpaneva. This year, the group grew to include several more friends – so many friends in fact that we took over the entire restaurant. And, since we were all together already, it seemed like the perfect place for the folks from Timezone to present the “Watch of the Year” award to the Gronefelds.
Click through for a detailed photo report on our favorite night of the year at Basel World – schnitzel saturday shared with many of our friends, and many of the greatest watchmakers in the world. See who you can spot after the jump, and we hope you enjoy this look at the very human side of the watch industry.
One of the more impressive watches to come out of Basel this year came not from the quiet cantons of Switzerland, but rather from none other than the quintessential Japanese brand, Seiko.
The Seiko Astron is a Solar GPS watch and takes its name from the Seiko Astron of 1969, the worlds first quartz watch (which got a very cool reissue recently) . Invoking the Astron name isn’t (just) convenient marketing on Seiko’s behalf; the Astron of 2012 is a worthy successor to its groundbreaking namesake.
What makes this watch special is a low energy GPS receiver that means that this watch can talk to GPS satellites to determine the time and date on its own. The receiver in the watch gets a signal from at least 4 satellites to accurately update the time, one a day, and in every timezone on earth. How this works in the real world is the really cool part. You step off a plane, hit the button and in about six seconds your watch will have synchronised the time from satellites (the indicator at 10 tells you how many). Once it’s worked out the time, it will take another 30 seconds to automatically adjust the time for you. It’s easy to see why this watch would be a boon for jetsetting types.
Arcadia is the boutique brand of the Fleurier Watch Company that was originally found in the 19th century and brought back to life in 2007. With three types of collections (four if you include the watches made on request), Arcadia is able to fulfill the demand of all sorts of watch consumers. Arcadia has a Contemporary line of watches to which the reviewed AC01-V2 belongs, a Vintage collection that grabs back to chronographs of yesteryear and a collection especially for ladies.
We received an Arcadia AC01-V2 for review and we’d like to share the pictures we took with our readers.
This AC01-V2 chronograph by Arcadia has this unusual shape and is packed with all kinds of cool details. The AC01-V2 comes on a superb finished leather strap with a single folding clasp with the Arcadia logo engraved.
As you can see, the sapphire crystal has these diamond shaped facets all around and is attached to the case by 4 screws. The lugs on the Arcadia AC01 look really massive, but they are flexible and will adjust to any type or size of wrist.
The chronograph pushers remind us of racing car pedals. Although they don’t stick out the case that far, perhaps even not far enough for the eyes, they really feel like silk when using them. The winding crown has a nice finish as well and features the Arcadia logo. It’s easy to grasp and use by unscrewing it at first and then pull it for time setting and changing the date.
The ETA 2892-A2 movement with Dubois-Depraz module is a solid looking movement and has been proven to be an accurate friend over the years (since 1982). It does not only have a chronograph feature, it also has a 24 hour indicator at 12 o’clock.
More information about the Arcadia AC01-V2 can be found at the official website or their Facebook page.
The AC01-V2 retails for CHF 9900 excl VAT or 9795 EUR including VAT.
The Breguet La Tradition was launched in the mid-2000s to much fanfare and many subsequently mixed reviews amongst fans and connoisseurs – here was a watch that put the escapement on the dial side, was constructed in a very traditional 18th century style (note the odd, almost arbitrary shape of the bridges and sub-plates), finished unusually (but very well indeed) and launched at a reasonably accessible price for what it offered.
Even the architecture was pretty unusual: the time dial was pushed to the top of the watch, regulateur-style, with the barrel in the center and going train laid out across the bottom of the watch. There’s also a little power reserve indicator tucked away at top-right, minimally decorated so as not to interfere with the symmetric aesthetic of the watch.
But then we turned it over, and were surprised by the vast emptiness on the top plate – sure, most of the going train was put on the front, but I think what looked odd to most people was not the emptiness – but the vertical height between the top plate and rear sapphire. I was told that this was the way watches during that period were designed and laid out; no milled recesses for components, just a plate with everything else bolted on to it. I still think a little deviation here and there for the sake of aesthetics would be acceptable – there’s no way they’d use 18th century oils on the escapement, either.
The La Tradition line has spawned a number of complications, some of which do actually use the extra space on the top plate to good effect – the tourbillon, for instance both fills out the front of the dial and the top plate well. It just looks more ‘complete’ to the eye. Whilst I personally prefer the monochrome color scheme with WG case and anthracite dial (similar to the tourbillon) – there’s no denying that the traditional gold version has its appeal too.
But enough of that, to the photographs. As usual, clicking on any of them will bring you to a larger version. The series was shot with a mix of equipment – the Nikon D700 and 60/2.8 macro; Leica M9-P, bellows and Zeiss 2/50 Planar; and finally, the Olympus Pen Mini. Furthermore, if you’re interested in how I made some of the higher magnification ones, please have a look at these two articles on my photography site (The never-ending quest for more magnification; Macrophotography and the Leica M) which both go into more of the technical details. MT
The subject of today’s lens work is a very rare (and also well-worn with lovely patina) Tudor Submariner model 7016/0; the serial number dates it from the early 1970s.
However, I was told that this particular watch was actually purchased as part of a bulk lot by the French navy for their divers – hence the ‘Marine Nationale MN’ stamp on the case back. Unlike other military forces, the French bought off the shelf watches instead of commissioning a special batch – presumably to keep the costs down.
The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that this is not the original dial. Instead it’s a replacement ‘snowflake’ – and there’s a good reason for this, too. Once again, to save costs, the MN employed their own in-house watchmakers whose objective was to keep the watches useable and running, not pretty; they simply swapped out whatever spare parts they had to hand to make a working piece and rotate it back into service as fast as possible. This has created a number of very interesting and unique pieces for the collector, especially an example like this – which has full decommissioning papers and accompanying photographs to authenticate that this was the exact condition it left the Navy in.
Enjoy the photos! As usual, a click on any one takes you to a larger version. MT
The late, great George Daniels knew his watches, certainly, but he also had a serious love of fine automobiles. As we previously reported, Bonhams have secured the Daniels automobile collection for an upcoming auction, and just yesterday in New York we stopped by to photograph what is one of the highlights of the Daniels Car collection. You are looking at a historic 1929 Bentley Blower 4.5 litre supercharged, single-seater racing car that set the Brooklands Outer Circuit lap record of 137mph….in 1931. 137mph in 1931? Whoa.
This absolutely beautiful car will be sold in June at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Click through for a live look at one of the most important cars in the world, owned by one of the most important watchmakers to have ever lived. For more details on the sale, visit Bonhams.
It seems to be Jaeger-LeCoultre month here – which of course isn’t at a bad thing at all! I recently had the opportunity to photograph the uncommon JLC Master Compressor Navy Seals Alarm Beverly Hills Boutique Edition (what a long name). It differs from the standard edition in a) it’s very limited production run; b) the yellow accents on the compressor crowns and strap; c) the logo printing on the underside of the sapphire crystal; d) the most obvious part, the anthracite case.
As usual, all images may be clicked on for larger versions.
The movement is the same as the regular model, subject to the 1000 hour Master Control test and equipped with both automatic winding and a loud and very functional alarm. Being a diver, it also has a functional 200m depth rating and locking compressor crowns to maintain water resistance; I’m just not sure how many submersions that nice leather strap will tolerate, though. There’s also plenty of luminous material and easily readable hands, much like its regular production cousin.
