The List: Watches
The diving watch has proven to be one of the most popular
variants of the sports watch, despite the fact that few
owners use them for the purpose for which they are designed.
Their popularity, perhaps, is due more to their potential,
rather than their actual, capabilities; the notion that the
watch is able to operate at depths far beyond which the
human body can survive provides a comforting sense that it
will easily withstand the knocks and bangs of prosaic
everyday life... click here for
more
Many works of fiction over the years have made reference
to the watches worn by their protagonists, the most famous
example being, perhaps, James Bond’s association with the
Rolex Oyster (despite, in recent films, the best efforts of
the marketing department of Omega to convince us that 007 is
a Seamaster fan.) But few watchmakers can lay claim to the
kind of name-checking in great works of literature that
Breguet can, with Balzac, Dumas, Verne and Pushkin all
mentioning the company’s creations in their novels...
click here for more
Quartz – the mineral that almost destroyed the Swiss
watch industry – is not, you might argue, something that you
would expect to find in any watch that has earned itself a
coveted place on The List. It is the cheat’s way of making a
timepiece; the accuracy achieved, not through rigorous
design and meticulous attention to detail, but by the simple
and cheap expedient of utilising a crystal that vibrates at
a constant frequency when an electrical signal is passed
through it... click here for more
Ask a member of the general public which watch they
associate with the iconic super-spy, James Bond, and the answer
may vary depending on the age of the person being
questioned: those above a certain age will answer “Rolex
Submariner”, those born more recently will state “Omega
Seamaster”. But there have been other watches, besides these,
featured in both the films and the novels, and one such
watch is the Breitling Top Time; a somewhat unusually named
chronograph from the mid 1960s that doubled as a geiger
counter in Thunderball... click here
for more
The term Carrera has its origins in La Carrera Panamerica,
a long distance race across Mexico that was once widely
described as the most dangerous race in the world. Since
then the name has been appropriated by both Heuer and
Porsche to describe model lines; the former in homage to
drivers, such as the great Juan Manuel Fangio, who both
competed in the event, and wore Heuer watches, the latter in
reference to their involvement, (and at times, victories) in
the competition... click here
for more
There is a scene towards the beginning of the Steve
McQueen movie. Le Mans, in which the actor’s character,
Michael Delaney, drives his 1970s Porsche 911 along the
public roads that form part of the famous race track.
Despite this being the decade that brought us nylon flares
and beige tank tops, McQueen looks as cool as it is
possible for a man to be. Later on in the film he is revealed to be wearing a Heuer
Monaco, one of the Swiss manufacturer’s first automatic
chronographs. At this moment, when the film was first screened, a horological cult item was born...
click here for more
here
must have been few jobs around in the 1960s and 1970s that
were easier than the one that involved being responsible for
naming new Heuer sports watches. Step one –
realise that Heuer has associations with motorsport. Step
two – think of a suitably famous European racetrack. Step
three – name watch after racetrack. Step four – repeat as
necessary. Step five – retire to restaurant for three
Martini lunch... click here for
more
There are many luxury watches available today that have
some connection with flight. The Rolex GMT Master, for
example, will forever be associated with Pan-Am and the
glamour of being a commercial pilot in the 1950s, when much
of the populace had not been near a plane, let alone
travelled to far flung continents on one. But it is IWC that can, arguably, lay claim to possessing one
of the longest associations with flight, having supplied
watches to military pilots since before the Second World
War... click here for more
Few would claim that polo is
an egalitarian sport. The
twin requirements of owning
numerous polo ponies and
having had a public school
education tend to discourage
any widening of
participation in the game
amongst the less affluent
portions of society. That JLC is now
inextricably linked with its
Reverso line, which has
strong historical ties to
the game of polo, is perhaps
fitting, then; after all,
the Swiss company’s watches,
worn by polo-playing royals,
mirror the values of the
sport, both in expense and
in exclusivity...
click
here for more
Although there are a small number of people of varying
levels of lunacy (pardon the word-play) who still believe
that the 1969 moon landing was the world’s greatest hoax,
most of us could not fail to be astonished by the
achievements of Armstrong et al. That they navigated and
travelled the three hundred and eighty thousand kilometres
with the assistance of roughly as much computing power as
the average Sinclair Spectrum only increases one’s
admiration. On the astronauts’ wrists, as most Omega fans will know,
was the Speedmaster; the only watch at the time that was
certified by NASA for space flight...
click here for more
Some manufacturers of luxury goods are known for being at
the cutting edge of design, where mutability, as Shelley
once wrote, is all that endures. Such brands define
themselves by their ability to reinvent continually, moving
in new directions far before the hint of staleness is
detected. Occasionally, by chance, items are produced that
transcend the short-termism of their origins to become
iconic, but this is generally the exception rather than the
rule... click here for more
Complicated watches, for many enthusiasts, represent the
zenith of the watchmaker’s art; here are engineering
miracles in miniature, enabling the wearer to know the exact
phase of the moon, the equation of time or the price of
fishcakes in Hong Kong (we jest).
Unfortunately, in our opinion, the majority of
complicated watches, by dint of all of their garish
extraneous dials and features, do not possess the necessary
aesthetic qualities to earn a place on The List. Substance
they may have, but style they almost always do not. The
Patek Philippe World Time, though...
click here for more
Sometimes a watch becomes so inextricably linked with its
wearer that it attains iconic status by association. Steve
McQueen had the Heuer Monaco, James Bond (despite the best
efforts of Omega in recent years) had the Rolex Submariner,
and, as popular wisdom tells us, Paul Newman had the 6241
Rolex Daytona with the ‘exotic’ dial...
click here for more
any watches over the years have been designed to suit the
particular demands of specific sports or activities: the
Rolex Submariner for divers; the Jaeger Le Coultre reverse
for polo players and innumerable watches, from brands such
as Breitling and IWC, for pilots. However, even watch enthusiasts may find it difficult to
name a watch that was designed with the activity of caving,
or speleology, as it is technically called, in mind...
click here for more
It was once said of Ferrari that the engine was what
you actually paid for; the rest of the car was thrown in for
free. A similar vein of thought may be applied to the
watchmaker Zenith, whose El Primero movement could be
compared to a high revving Ferrari V12, such is the level of
its technical excellence. Unlike Ferrari, however, which
remains one of the world’s most widely recognised luxury
brands, Zenith is not a name with which the layman would be
instantly familiar... click here
for more
