cityam.

com FRIDAY 19 APRIL 2013

LONDONTIME 21

LONDONTIME

German

50 years of TAG Hard man

Heuer’s Carrera P.23 horology P.28
cityam.com FRIDAY 19 APRIL 2013
LONDONTIME 23

SK a watch aficionado to name

A a classic sports watch, and the

first answer may well be the
TAG Heuer Carrera.
Why? Well, it’s been around as
long as Beatlemania; it’s been seen
on the wrists of superstars like
Leonardo DiCaprio and Jenson
Button; and as a modernist retort to
the stuffy designs that preceded it,
it helped change the way watches
were both designed and worn.
The Carrera appeared 50 years

RACING ONWARDS
ago, back when TAG Heuer was just
Heuer (the company was bought out
by Techniques d’Avant Garde in
1985) and the world was about to
get into its Swinging ‘60s stride.
Company boss Jack Heuer had the
idea for his new chronograph
wristwatch after a conversation
with Mexican race driver Pedro
Rodriguez, who had told him about
a furiously quick five-day road race
called the Carrera Panamericana.
The race was full of glamour and
panache, and the jet set flocked to
see professional drivers and rich
amateurs hurtling along Mexico’s
dusty roads. But it was also
incredibly dangerous, and was
cancelled after claiming 27 lives
between 1950 to 1954.
Nevertheless, Heuer seized on the
machismo of the event. Carrera
means “road” and “career” in
Spanish, and he felt the name
would appeal to ambitious, red-
blooded, sophisticated men
emerging as the world left behind
the shackles of the post-war era.

MODERNIST, MINIMALIST
His design was lithe, handsome and
undeniably masculine. At the time
most chronographs retained the
military look of those used wartime
pilots, but Heuer, who idolised the
minimalist designs of Oscar
Niemeyer and Charles Eames,
thought it was time watches
embraced the modernist spirit. The
original Carrera, with its sleek,
Robin Swithinbank celebrates 50 years of a true sporting classic
pared-down lines and baton markers cornerstone of TAG’s offering, in a Behling, the mastermind behind the Right, Jack Heuer stripped back watch
rather than numerals, may look collection that includes this year’s asymmetrical case found in last design to its basics with his crisp,
retro today but was as boldly 50th anniversary Carrera Calibre year’s groundbreaking TAG Heuer
minimalist chronograph from 1963
modern as a Lichtenstein comic 1887 Chronograph Jack Heuer Mikrogirder – a mechanical watch
book painting at the time. Edition [£5,295 www.tagheuer.com]. with a stopwatch function that can
It helped transform Heuer from a Jack himself – 81 this year – had a measure to an accuracy of 2,000th of One last thought – Jack Heuer is
company specialising in hand in the design, insisting, for a second – that is used again here. It retiring this year, meaning this will
stopwatches and timing systems for example, that the dial carries baton was also Behling who swung the almost certainly be the last watch
industry into a celebrated prestige hour markers and not numerals, crown and chronograph buttons he has a hand in. Given the fact his
watch producer. In the half century ensuring the unfussy, utilitarian round to 12 o’clock, in part to evoke original Carreras have become
since, it has become one of look the Carrera is famous for. old-school Heuer stopwatches, but exceedingly collectible pieces,
watchmaking’s bona fide icons. Heuer shared design duties with also so the watch could be worn and there’s no reason his last won’t do
Today, it continues to be a London-based designer Christoph operated on either wrist. the same.

The internet is the new frontier for watch retailers

Here’s an interesting thing: people
are now buying seriously expensive
new watches online. I know one
internet retailer who regularly
makes sales of watches over £10,000
and upwards (sometimes a long way
upwards). His business is up over
100 per cent year on year.
A couple of years ago that simply
wouldn’t have been possible: high-
end brands didn’t allow retailers to
sell their products on the internet,
because they reckoned it
besmirched their luxury status.
Now they’re falling over themselves
to get their products up on retailer
realising that sophisticated online
interaction with a customer is not
LONDON about flashy website bells and
whistles, but good old fashioned
contact and information.
TIME More importantly, the slow-on-
the-uptake powerhouse luxury
groups are finally realising how
people now do their purchasing:
TIMOTHY BARBER research, research online, then
perhaps head to a boutique to try
websites. The net is no longer watches on in the metal, then
declasse – it’s right at the heart of home again to research some more
the strategy. and finally summoning up the
What’s changed? The sites courage to click “buy”. An awful lot
themselves have got better, of online watch transactions occur
on a Friday night, after someone
has spent days or weeks
researching and finally gets home,
opens a beer and decides to go
through with the big purchase.
Having said all that, the bricks &
mortar boutiques are going
nowhere – in fact they’re springing
up in numbers. This spring sees
new shops from Breitling and
Vacheron Constantin arriving on
Bond Street (no doubt complete
with special edition watches only
available in the brands’ own
boutiques), while Parmigiani only
recently opened on Mount Street.
Meanwhile, here in the City, the
Royal Exchange remains one of the
finest hubs for watch buying in the
UK. In February it saw a new arrival
in the form of the Watchfinder &
Co boutique, a specialist in vintage
and pre-owned pieces. Next month
the Exchange is hosting a week of
watch-related activity, including
workshops, displays and talks (see
page 32 for more details). I’d
encourage anyone with even half
an interest in watches to attend.
Timothy Barber is the editor of 00/24
WatchWorld magazine and managing
editor of www.TheProdigalGuide.com.
 24 LONDONTIME
FRIDAY 19 APRIL 2013 cityam.com

Vorsprung durch tik-tök

ERE IT not for Ferdinand
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the tiny town of Glashütte has
idated into the people’s watch com-

W Adolph Lange’s particular

penchant for lazy Sunday-
afternoon rambling, we
might not have ever seen the likes
witnessed a phenomenal resurrection in its local watchmaking
pany, or “VEB Glashütter
Uhrenbetriebe” (GUB), turning out
multitudinous, generic and unre-
fined product.

industry. Alex Doak hikes his way to Germany’s Ore Mountains.

of Nomos, Glashütte Original and A. It was Ferdinand Adolph Lange’s
Lange & Söhne lighting up the great-grandson and master watch-
windows of Bond Street today. All of maker Walter who first took the ini-
these brands, with their sober but tiative. After the fall of the Berlin
elegant design and surprisingly Wall and the reunification of
pretty movement decoration, offer a Germany, he returned from the West
genuine alternative to the in 1990 and teamed up with IWC and
dominant Swiss brands, and they all Jaeger-LeCoultre’s then-owner, the
owe their existence to the late, great Günter Blümlein.
aforementioned 19th-century “Certainly there was no lack of
clockmaker. qualified staff in Glashütte and its
What’s more, unlike Switzerland’s surroundings,” Lange recalls in his
scattered horological landscape, they memoirs, The Revival of Time (Econ,
all come from one tiny village, 2005), “for GUB alone had about
Glashütte, itself like a mini Swiss 1,000 employees… Most of GUB’s
idyll, surrounded by snowy peaks employees probably thought the idea
and spiked with ornate, chocolate- of building a company in Glashütte
box rooftops. to market exclusive watches sheer
Herr Lange (1815-1875) enjoyed a adventurism…”
privileged lifestyle in the royal
palaces of Dresden, the “Florence of
the North”, where mathematics DVENTURISM or no, relatively
and physics were embraced
in equal measure to the arts.
Lange was not the sort to
rest on his laurels, however.
On his weekend hikes
A unskilled but eager
watchmakers were plucked
from the GUB and trained up
at IWC in Switzerland, millions were
invested into machines, refurbishing
through the neighbour- the original run-down premises, and
ing Erzebirge mountains, – in keeping with the doctrine of its
he soon became aware of eponymous forefather – no
the dreadful poverty that compromise spared when it came to
had stricken the local quality and finish. Sure enough, A
mining towns since Lange Sohne now produces watches
their seams had run comparable to those of Patek
dry. Glashütte – Philippe, Piaget or Vacheron
getting its name Constantin.
from the glass-like Lange’s success has paved the way
“glasenerz” lead-sil- for as many as 12 other local con-
ver ore it once relied cerns, all crammed into Glashütte’s
upon – was one of tiny, idyllic enclave. Most of them are
the worst; a ghost revived brand names, like Moritz
town. Grossman and Nautische Instrumente
Taking advantage of Mühle-Glashütte; one of them,
interest-free subsidies Swatch Group’s Glashütte Original, is
levied by the Saxonian a consolidated tribute to the Saxon
prince, Lange determined A Lange & and enough locals were willing to Saxony’s watches were the finest – a tradition; some of them, like Tutima,
to inject life back into the so- Sohne’s become watchmakers.” byword for quality, reliability and have returned from their Western
called Ore Mountains with a remarkable Of Lange’s original volunteer mechanical sophistication.” boltholes to reclaim some of their
new watch company staffed by Perpetual apprentices, 15 qualified successfully However, it was World War II that Glashütte heritage; and there’s even a
Saxon peasants. Calendar as watchmakers, and his ingenious almost saw-off the Glashütte as we relatively new kid on the block,
“A competition was held in 1845, Rattrapante, an enterprise was soon in full swing, know it. Not only was it heavily Nomos, whose ice-cool Bauhaus
where each town petitioned to haute making 600 watches a year. Former bombed on the very last day of the designs may take shape in hip Berlin,
Dresden’s palace,” explains the employees set up on their own and war, with 80 per cent of the surviv- but whose manufacture – the compa-
German Watch Museum Glashütte’s
horlogerie became suppliers to Lange, or even ing machinery plundered by the ny produces its own movements at
Ulrike Kranz. “Glashütte was chosen master piece brands in themselves. Russians, but by 1951 it had fallen extraordinary value – couldn’t hap-
over everwhere else because it was unveiled this “At the peak of the German empire, into the DDR’s socialist doldrums. pen anywhere other than sleepy
the closest to Dresden, its rough year from the late 19th century up to the Every local watch company was Saxony. The Swiss have every reason
paths made it (just about) accessible Twenties,” says Kranz, “southern expropriated by the state and consol- to keep an eye over their shoulder.

Nomos Glashutte Original Tutima Wempe

Orion Grau Senator Panorama Date Classic Flieger 1941 Chronograph Chronometerwerke

One of the most exciting emergent watch brands in any country, The town’s other senior haute horlogerie brand to A Lange & Leaving aside the fact that this was originally designed for You may know the sensational Bond Street boutique, but the
Nomos makes its own movements for its minimalist watches. Sohne specialises in exquisite, unfussy pieces like this new Luftwaffe airmen, a classic retro pilots’ watch retailer also produces its own sensational watches.
£1,530 www.nomos.com stunner. Price on application. www.glashuette-original.com £2,125 from www.stewartswatches.co.uk Price on application. www.wempe.ch
 A NEW WAY
OF OVERTAKING.
Ingenieur Chronograph Racer.
Ref. 3785: This is a watch that knows
only one direction: fast forward. So it’s
ideally equipped with one of the most
efficient movements we have to offer;
the 89361 calibre in a stainless-steel
case. In fact, the only backward glance
you’re likely to cast here is at the back
cover itself, which features an intricate
The world’s finest timepieces are exclusively available from selected watch specialists. For an illustrated catalogue or list of nationwide concessionaires please contact IWC UK. Tel. 0845 337 1868.
engraving of a FORMULA 1 racing car.
IWC . E N G I N E E R E D FO R M E N .
Mechanical chronograph movement, Self-winding, 68-hour
power reserve when fully wound, Date display with
crown-activated rapid advance, Stopwatch function with
hours, minutes and seconds, Hour and minute counters
combined in a totalizer at 12 o’clock, Flyback function,
Small hacking seconds, Screw-in crown, Sapphire glass, Official Partner of the
flat, antireflective coating on both sides, Water-resistant MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS
12 bar, Case height 14.5 mm, Diameter 45 mm Formula One™ Team
IWC Schaffhausen, Switzerland. www.iwc.com
E-mail: info-uk@iwc.com
 M ESURE ET DÉMESURE *

K ALPAGR APHE
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* EXACT AND EXULTANT

ATELIER PARMIGIANI 97 MOUNT STREET, LONDON W1K2TD, TEL. 020 7495 5172

LONDON HARRODS | ARIJE

YORK HARPERS
cityam.com FRIDAY 19 APRIL 2013
LONDONTIME 27

Undersea explorer and former special forces operative Scott Cassell is taking on poachers and drug cartels
E had me pinned underneath relies on his watch, particularly in

H the boat with a boathook

puncturing my chest,” recalls
Scott Cassell of one of his
hairier moments on a mission to film
shark poachers off the Mexican coast.
“As he was poking me he was trying
to bring me up, so I took up my
fighting knife, slid up the pole, jabbed
it into his hand and snapped it to the
side. That probably broke every bone
in his hand, and I got away from him.”
Around Mexico’s coastal Baja
peninsula where Cassell operates his
covert recon missions, the poachers
are in cahoots with the drug cartels
– pretty much the very worst people
on Earth to mess with. He is not a
popular man in these communities,
where his films of people poaching
sharks, turtles, sea lions and other
endangered species have landed the
perpetrators with heavy prison
sentences. So he was happy to get
away from the guy with the boat
hook, right?
“My knife lodged in his hand, so
that bastard got my $200 knife and I
only got his $5 boat hook. I’m still
mad about that – I want my knife,”
he says bluntly.
no-light conditions – both at depth
and when making his night time
escape from Mexican poachers (he
sometimes lies motionless on a
beach in camouflage for over two
days on a “sniper stalk”, filming).
He works with Luminox, an
American company that specialises
in luminescent watches thanks to
markers on the dial and hands filled
with Tritium, a glowing radioactive
gas, to develop his ideal timepiece.
Able to be read at depths where
sunlight never penetrates, it’s a
crucial part of his kit as he makes his
escape. “At an exact point in time,
usually 2.30am, I’ll swim out on a
compass course, count my kicks so I
know how far I’m travelling, and
surface in the right place at the right
time to be picked up. The next
landfall is 75 miles away – that’s how
much I rely on this watch.”
Cassell willingly describes serving
alongside heroes – so does he
consider himself one? “No, I’m kind
of a regular guy. I’ve rubbed elbows
with heroes but I’m not one.”
TIMOTHY BARBER

SPECIAL FORCES
For a 52-year-old former Special
Forces sniper, combat diving
specialist and sometime mercenary,
with the build of an armoured car
and frontline experiences from any
number of theatres of combat,
Cassell is a surprisingly placid
character. Actually he’s charming,
and has an almost evangelical
fervour for his true love – the sea and
the life within it.

TIME TO
“The oceans globally are in the
process of dying,” he says. “We’re on
an extinction event: we’re watching
temperatures shift, ocean
acidification, systems collapsing.
We’ve only explored about 1 per cent
of the ocean, and in that 1 per cent
we see terrible things happening, so
what’s happening in the other 99
per cent? We don’t know, but what
we do see is very alarming.”
Cassell, who grew up scuba diving
and admits to being more
comfortable under the sea than
above it, has made numerous
underwater films, and led the team
that was the first to film a giant
squid in its natural environment.
He’s even built his own submarine to Luminox Scott Cassell Special
continue exploring and perform Edition Deep Dive Automatic
scientific missions. Like any diver, he £1,595 www.luminox.com

MAGNETIC MOMENTS
MAGNETIC fields are one of the major origins of inaccuracy in watches, causing moving
parts of the movement to stick together, repel each other and behave erratically. With
more electronic machines producing more magnetic fields, Omega is unveiling the
most powerful anti-magnetic watch yet – the latest in a line of watches battling
magnetism dating back to the 19th century. Companies then were researching materials
that could be used in a movement instead of ferrous steel and brass, but it was not until
1930 that this could be successfully used in a wristwatch. It was IWC’s invention of
shielding inside the watch case that really moved things forward in the 1940s.

1948 – IWC
Schaffhausen Pilot’s
Watch Mark 11
Made for RAF pilots, the Mark 11’s
movement was placed in an inner
case of soft iron, which acted like a
Faraday cage to deflect magnetic
fields emanating from cockpit
instruments.
IWC introduced the inner
1933 – Tissot
market in a watch aimed at
Antimagnetique
The first mass-market
working in fast-developing
antimagnetic wristwatch, Tissot’s
watch used palladium in the
crucial escapement mechanism to
reduce magnetic interference.
1955 – IWC
Ingenieur
shielding tech from the
Mark 11 to the civilian
engineers and scientists
technical areas.
1989 – IWC Ingenieur 500,000 a/m 1996 – Bell & Ross Bomb Disposal Type
IWC used non-ferrous materials to create a watch that could The young French company making military-style pilots watches created an
resist far higher magnetic forces than anything attempted antimagnetic watch for use by bomb disposal experts.
before. Its timekeeping was unreliable, however, and it was
only produced in small numbers.
2007 – Milgauss revived
Rolex brought back the Milgauss,
still with 1,000 Gauss resistance. It’s
been a niche favourite with buyers
ever since, particularly in its green-
dial incarnation.
1956 – Rolex Milgauss
2013 – Omega Seamaster
Rolex also used the inner
shielding method for its Milgauss, Aqua Terra 15,000
which could resist fields up to Omega has rewritten the rule book
1,000 Gauss (a fridge magnet is this year with a watch capable of
about 50 Gauss). It was marketed withstanding 15,000 Gauss – enough
for scientists at the newly- to see off the magnetism generated
opened CERN laboratory. The by an MRI scanner. It uses futuristic
following year, Omega made nonmagnetic materials, including
produced the Railmaster silicon – with no shielding, the
antimagnetic watch as electronic movement can be fully on display.
rail travel proliferated.
 FRIDAY 19 APRIL 2013 cityam.com
28 LONDONTIME

HARD-MAN
Ultra-tough materials and suave styling make
for watches that can take on any situation.
We pick 2013’s ultimate tough guy timepieces
OU CAN wear it up a mountain or

Y
1 in the boardroom” – so goes the 2
mantra spoken by those at
Bremont, the British watch
company whose steel watches are
specially hardened through
industrial processes. They’ve got a
point. If you’ve got an active
lifestyle – whether that means
climbing mountains, jumping out
of planes, wasting bad guys on Special Ops missions
(Jaeger-LeCoultre has worked on watches with the
Navy Seals) or particularly intense PlayStation
sessions – it’s worth having a watch that won’t fall
apart on active duty.
Modern watch companies are more than up to the
task. High-tech materials like industrial ceramic and
carbon fibre mix such qualities as lightness, shock
Audemars Piguet – Royal Oak Offshore Diver absorption and serious toughness, while designers Bell & Ross - BR01 Airspeed
The Offshore line is the younger, chunkier, sportier brethren of Audemars Piguet’s have understood how to bring smart clarity and Last year France’s aviation-obsessed brand released three watches directly based on
classic Royal Oak, and this may be one of its strongest models yet. The case is in rock functionality to watches that mark you out as a man cockpit instruments, and this year it presents three more. This punchy number, as its
hard, lightweight black ceramic, and the watch is waterproof to a depth of 300 metres. of action. Even in the boardroom. name suggests, takes its look from the speed indicator. Available in May.
£15,720 www.audemarspiguet.com £3,200 www.bellross.com

3 4 5

Bremont – Supermarine S2000
You want tough? Bremont’s cases are hardened through industrial processes to 2,000
Vickers, nine times the norm for watch cases. Its new diving piece is also sealed for
antimagnetic protection, and waterproof to an incredible 2,000 metres. Looks good
too.
Graham - Chronofighter Oversize K2 Mountain
You want tough? It’s got “fighter” in its name, and what resembles a hand grenade
trigger on the side (actually the start/stop pusher for the chronograph) – this is hardly
a watch for a quiet game of chess. Climb any mountain with this strapped on.
£4,380 www.williamandson.com
IWC – Ingenieur Carbon Performance
Having entered into a partnership with resurgent F1 team Mercedes AMG Petronas, IWC
has been incorporating ideas like the tough-as-a-diamond (literally) carbon fibre here
used for the case and dial, in F1 used for the entire monocoque of a car.
£18,750 www.iwc.com

6 7 8

Jaeger-LeCoultre – Deep Sea Chronograph Cermet
Take lightweight aluminium, strengthen it with particles of ceramic and give it an outer
protective ceramic coating and you’ve got the rugged material for Jaeger-LeCoultre’s
charismatic diving piece, with a groovy red/white on/off indicator for the chronograph.
www.jaeger-lecoultre.com
Panerai - Luminor Submersible 1950 3 Days Automatic Ceramica
Panerai originally made watches for Italian Navy frogmen, and there’s still a sense of
old-fashioned military derring-do to its latest diving piece. The case is scratchproof
matte ceramic, and at 47mm it’s a whopper.
£10,900 www.panerai.com
Ralph Lauren – RL67 Automotive Chronograph
The king of preppy elegance has pulled off something with a much more rugged
sensibility than you’d expect – the Jeep-like camo-green case is in innovative titanium
resin – while still retaining his customary classic aesthetic thanks to that burlwood dial.
£12,300 www.ralphlaurenwatches.com
AVIATION BR 03-92 AUTOMATIC - VINTAGE BR 126 SPORT CHRONOGRAPH
Bell & Ross UK +44 207 096 0878
information@bellross.com · e-Boutique: www.bellross.com
 FRIDAY 19 APRIL 2013 cityam.com
30 LONDONTIME

HILE it’s hardly a

With women being offered
new adornment,
mother of pearl is increasingly sophisticated
having a bit of a
moment in ladies’ watches
right now. Also known as nacre, the
watch choices, iridescent
iridescent inner shell coating of
molluscs has been used in nacre is all the rage again,
decorative items, from buttons to
musical instrument inlays, for
centuries. The watch industry is
writes Laura McCreddie
currently experiencing a surge in
interesting, complex women’s
watches, and mother-of-pearl is dial
material of choice.
“The trend for mother-of-pearl
dial is largely down to the fact that
it can be used in such a wide variety
of colours and is perfect for simple,
elegant dials,” says a spokesperson
for high-end watch and jewellery
house, Chaumet. “It can also be cut,
carved and inlaid, thus opening up
a range of wonderful possibilities to 1 2
be creative for the designers and
artisans. It brings life to the dial.”
Chaumet is not alone in
rediscovering this material. Jaeger-
LeCoultre this year unveiled its
Grande Reverso Lady Ultra Thin
Duetto Duo, a feminisation of the
classic two-sided Reverso, one side
of which has an Art Deco mother of
pearl dial. Added to this Blancpain
is unveiling its Grand Date
Chronograph, which sports a
nacreous, diamond-set dial, and
Hermes recently launched its
Arceau Petite Lune.
“We decided to use mother of
pearl for the dial of the Arceau
Petite Lune to give it a softer, more
brilliant touch,” says Luc 3 4
Perramond, CEO of Les Montres
Hermes. “It is a question of
aesthetics. It makes sense for us to
use this kind of material for small
complications. It gives a more
feminine touch to a woman’s
watch.”

DAY OR NIGHT
A mother of pearl watch can also be
the perfect transitional piece.
Although women are slowly
catching up with men when it
comes to horologically interesting
watches, in general they are still a
long way from accruing “watch
wardrobes” – a range of watches to
suit different occasions. While an 5
oversized, borrowed-from-the- 6
boyfriend timepiece can work
during the day, it’s hard to make it
work after hours. Conversely, a
delicate cocktail watch jars when
paired with daywear as much as a
high jewellery piece.
Mother of pearl watches, however,
can do the crossover. It was one of
the most famous jewellery houses
that first showed this.
“Without question, Cartier
helped make mother of pearl a
fashion statement,” says fine
jewellery consultant Bronwyn
Cosgrave. “Its workshop did so by
juxtaposing the industrial aesthetic
of its cases and bracelets with the
light, feminine, pink-hued shimmer
of the dial. This strong look means 7 8
that there is no restriction on when
to wear it.”
Zenith’s Ultra Thin Lady
Moonphase, which pairs a nacre
dial with an alligator strap, is a
good example of this. The delicate
shimmer of the mother of pearl dial
may suggest a watch made for the
flickering glow of candlelight, but
by combining such dials with more
everyday elements like steel cases
and leather bracelets, modern
watch houses are proving that this
is a material whose beauty isn’t
dimmed by the harsh light of day.

1. Blancpain Chronograph Grande Date, CHF 40,000, www.blancpain.com 2. Chaumet Montres Precieuses Piece 3, price on application, www.chaumet.com 3. Dior Dior VIII in white ceramic with stainless steel case, £9,300, www.dior.com 4. Hermes Arceau Petit Lune,
£4,850, www.hermes.com 5. Jaeger-LeCoultre Grande Reverso Duetto Duo, £15,100, www.jaeger-lecoultre.com 6. Montblanc Star Classique,£8,400, www.montblanc.com 7. Zenith Ultra Thin Lady Moonphase, £5,700, www.zenith-watches.com 8. Van Cleef & Arpels
Charms Extraordinaire Muguet, price on application. www.vancleefarpels.com

32 LONDONTIME
THE GREAT ESCAPEMENTS
New extreme versions of a mechanical watch’s beating heart
S a wise cove once told me, a
A mechanical watch is really just
a device for regulating the
uncoiling of a spring (the
mainspring that’s wound up to
power the watch). The crucial organ
in this operation is the escapement,
an assembly of a toothed wheel and
anchor that delivers even impulses of
energy to the oscillating balance
wheel, which in turn regulates the
energy into units of time. It’s a
mesmeric thing to see beating away;
and as it represents the crucial area
determining a watch’s accuracy, it’s a
ripe platform for complex
innovation. Add these facts together
and you get sensational collector
watches designed to dazzle with their
vibrating, spinning, beating
micromechanical hearts.
Most famous in this category is the
tourbillon escapement, which puts
the mechanism inside a constantly
1 2
Breitling and Vacheron come in style to Bond St
A
LREADY home to the
glorious watch boutiques
Wempe and Marcus and
own-brand stores from
Chopard, Cartier, Breguet and
Piaget, Bond St is gaining a couple
more heavy hitters. In June,
Breitling – newly represented by
Paris St Germain’s latest signing,
Mr David Beckham himself – will
be opening a huge store in what
was formally Diesel’s Bond St
home.
Shortly after that one of the
most esteemed names in top-
end watchmaking, Vacheron
Constantin, is to open the doors
on its first London boutique.
The Old Bond Street venue,
arranged over two floors, will
feature a gentlemen’s club-
style lounge, a private VIP
area and an in-store
watchmaker. Most
importantly, it’ll have
Vacheron’s most precious
watches only available
through its own boutiques,
such as this year’s decorative
Florilege watches (pictured),
inspired by the work of English
19th century botanist Robert
Thornton. The boutique will also
offer Vacheron’s “Atelier
Carbinotiers” service for
customised and even bespoke
watches. From 27 June to 3 July
rotating cage assembly, designed to
negate the detrimental affects of grav-
ity on timekeeping.
But tourbillons are relatively com-
mon these days, so for something
truly prestigious, consider Jaeger-
LeCoultre’s Gyrotourbillon, first intro-
duced in 2004. The genius of this is
that the assembly rotates on two axes
at once, an inner cage tumbling one
way and an outer cage the other. In its
latest incarnation, the not-exactly-
shyly-named Master Grande
Tradition Gyrotourbillon 3 Jubilee
(1), it takes flying tourbillon form with
the added innovation of a spherical
hairspring in blued gold, that can be
seen “breathing” in and out as it tum-
bles away.
Zenith’s Academy Christophe
Colomb Hurricane (2) takes a differ-
ent route to defying gravity. Inside a
crystal bubble on the face of the
watch, the escapement sits on a gim-
Above, David
Beckham with his
Breitling watch;
left, one of
Vacheron
Constantin’s
Florilege
decorative
watches
FRIDAY 19 APRIL 2013 cityam.com
1
bal system that keeps it horizontal at
all times. Zenith has also included the
traditional clockmaking mechanism
of a fusée-chain, a tiny chain that
wraps around wheels in the mecha-
nism to ensure a constant rate of ener-
gy delivered through the gear train.
That’s actually an age-old problem:
as the mainspring unwinds it delivers
diminishing force, and accuracy is
affected. So Girard Perregaux has
achieved an astonishing complete
redesign of the escapement system in
its Constant Escapement (3) watch. In
this, a nano-formed, butterfly-shaped
structure in blue silicon vibrates away
infront of two escape wheels, deliver-
ing a constant force of energy. Like the
others on this page, the accuracy of its
function is in the end neither here nor
2
there – it’s the dizzying sight of it in
action that’ll have people stumping up
six figure sums.
TIMOTHY BARBER
3
Royal Exchange to
celebrate watches
THE SQUARE MILE’S own home of Patek Philippe seller Boodles.
luxury, the Royal Exchange, is to Watch Workshop Week will kick
host a week of events and displays off on May 20, with exhibitions,
dedicated to watches next month. watchmaking masterclasses and
The Exchange recently added consultations. There will be an
WF&Co, the first bricks-and-mortar exhibition of vintage Rolex Daytona
shop of online pre-owned and pieces from WF&Co and an invite-
vintage specialist only VIP evening on the opening
www.watchfinder.co.uk to its clutch night hosted by City A.M.’s own
of high-end boutiques, which watch editor, Timothy Barber. For
include Watches of Switzerland, more info see
Omega, Montblanc, Bulgari and www.theroyalexchange.co.uk
Vacheron Constantin will once
again be presenting at Masterpiece
London, Chelsea’s selling
exhibition of art, antiques and
beautiful design objects. Vacheron
will have both new watches and
vintage pieces from its unparalleled
250-year history on display and
available to buy. For more
information see
www.masterpiecefair.com
Watchfinder’s WF&Co boutique sells pre-owned and vintage timepieces.

Chances are, you’ve never had to eject from
a fighter plane.
It’s not much fun. (Though, it’s got to be
said, the alternative is even less fun.)
In the first second after ejection, your body
is subjected to pressures of up to 30G. Ouch
isn’t the word.
Happily, most pilots get through their entire
careers without having to exit through the
cockpit roof.
But the possibility is always there. And we
built our aviation chronometer, the Bremont
MB, with that in mind.
A pilot’s timepiece, we reasoned, should be
able to withstand everything the pilot does.
High altitude. Low temperatures. And
unscheduled departures at 500 mph.
So we enlisted the help of none other than
Martin-Baker, the company that pioneered
the ejection seat.
(Thanks to them, more than 7,000 pilots
have lived to fly another day.)
At their headquarters in Denham, they
subjected our watch to a punishing regime
of vibration testing, the equivalent of thirty
years’ flying.
Shaken, but not stirred, it was then time for
the ultimate test: the ejection seat.
Strapped to the vinyl wrist of a crash-test
dummy, our watch was shot from the
cockpit again and again and again.
Yet the Bremont lived to tell the time.
How? Well, for starters, the Bremont MB
is encased in solid steel, seven times harder
than the average watch case.
NOBODY
IN THEIR
RIGHT
MINDS
WOULD PUT
A WATCH
THROUGH
THIS.
BUT
FRANKLY,
MANY
OF OUR
CUSTOMERS
ARE NOT
IN THEIR
RIGHT
MINDS.
(We bombard the steel with electrons to To ensure that the Bremont MB can be
toughen it up.) read in all conditions we use Grade-A
Super-Luminova® paint on the dial.
Inside this is a second case, held in place by
a flexible ring that absorbs any shocks. Then add nine layers of anti-reflective coating
to the sapphire crystal for maximum clarity.
We make the inner case from soft iron and
it forms what’s known as a Faraday Cage, Some might call that excessive. We don’t
think so.
protecting the delicate mechanism inside
from magnetic fields. A pilot who’s just ejected from his aircraft
may not know what day it is.
The mechanism itself is assembled by hand
in our workshop in Henley-on-Thames. But thanks to the Bremont MB, he’ll always
know what time it is.
The movement is 99.998% accurate and
has undergone an arduous fifteen day
certification process conducted by COSC,
the Official Swiss Chronometer Testing
Institute.
All of which goes to make a watch that will
perform way beyond the call of duty.
Do we stop there? Of course not.