One of my best watch manufacture visits was a recent one to Montblanc’s facilities—in Villeret in the Swiss Jura mountains, home to their traditional Minerva manufacture, and the other in Le Locle, which features their state of the art techniques and equipment. It was fascinating to see how the brand is straddling both worlds. I have written about my experience extensively in ‘Twice as Nice’, but what I didn’t highlight there was that these two manufactures perfectly epitomise what mechanical watchmaking means today—exquisite horology that is painstakingly put together, and modern equipment that furbish these watches with precision and endurance. I am often asked as to why anyone would want to buy an expensive mechanical watch when digital timekeepers on our phones, laptops, and smartwatches do the same job perfectly. I am not sure if my reply on the beauty of craftsmanship and mechanics convinces every person. Of accurate perpetual calendars, moonphases, and tourbillons that are put together by hand. But sometimes comparing mechanical watches to a Hermès bag or Canali suit helps.
Many of the stories in this issue highlight this beauty of watchmaking. Like Somya Rauthan’s feature on Gerald Charles. This is the last brand that watchmaker extraordinaire Gérald Genta established in 2000. Gerald Charles today is headed by the Ziviani family that invested in it in the early 2000s and ensured its continuation after Genta’s death in 2011. But more than that, they have ensured the continuation of Genta’s iconic designs. Read about the story of the brand in the feature ‘Keeping the Legacy Alive’. Another story that focuses on another legendary watchmaker is ‘Written in the Stars’. In this feature, Chitra Lohani Saharan focuses on George Daniels, creator of the Co-Axial escapement, and his Space Traveller watches, which combined the different concepts of time reading, a first of their kind in the 1970s.
The beauty of mechanical watchmaking also comes to the fore in IWC Schaffhausen’s milestone creation introduced this year—the Portugeiser Eternal Calendar takes into account different lengths of months and precise leap years exceptions of the Gregorian calendar. It also entered the Guinness Book of World Records for its extremely precise moonphase display, which will only deviate from the moon’s orbit by one day after 45 million years. We spoke about the development of this piece at length with the brand’s CEO Christoph Grainger-Herr, in the story ‘In Top Shape’.
On our cover, we have the Santos de Cartier Dual Time, a watch whose roots can be traced back to the first wrist watch in history for pilots, named after Alberto Santos-Dumont, the Brazilian aviator who inspired it. The watch marks the first time that a Santos de Cartier timepiece has been outfitted with a Dual Time functionality. In the story ‘Perfect Landing’, we’ve tracked its story, the new timepiece’s design and facets, and how it perfectly lives up to its legacy—a perfect specimen of modern mechanical watchmaking.
Also Read :
Review: Ralph Lauren’s next vibrant generation of Polo watches
|
6 top quartz watches that have great value proposition
More In features
Sign up for our newsletters to have the latest stories delivered to your inbox
