There was once a time when watches were items of necessity. Anyone and everyone who wanted to conveniently keep track of the unyielding flow of time would need a watch, be it in the pocket or on the wrist. Therefore, with the watch as a tool, people didn’t quite pay too much attention as to how it was made, so as long as the timekeeper was precise and, more importantly, reliable. This basically explains how the quartz era and its more efficient timekeepers nearly decimated the mechanical watch industry, but that is a story for another time. In the current era of watchmaking, however, a timepiece is no longer simply just a tool for keeping track of time (this job has been relegated to the smartphone) but rather a luxury purchase, an item that speaks to emotional appeal instead of practical ones.
This is why the modern watch enthusiast pays far more attention to every detail of a watch. It is no longer just about precision and reliability. The provenance of a brand, its ethos and even its manufacturing processes all play a role in converting a customer when it comes to serious watches. Due to this shift, many fashion brands, when diversifying their portfolio into the watchmaking market, decided the best way to capture the hearts and minds of watch enthusiasts was to subtly steer their watches away from their fashion elements to instead highlight more “watchmaking” inspired collections.
Chanel for example, is a house that since 1910 has been intrinsically linked with the fashion industry, first as a designer of hats and a few years later as a house of couture. And yet, the first “serious” watch they made, the iconic J12, was inspired and named after a class of racing yachts, and even built with ceramic, a material that was considered futuristic when it was launched in 1999.
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Esta historia es de la edición Autumn 2024 de World of Watches.
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EASY COMPANY
Hamilton launches the new Khaki Field Quartz collection that takes its inspiration from the G.S.watches of the 1960s.
SPIRITED AWAY
The year of the dragon is not yet over and Franck Muller's new watch will remind you once again why this year is a great Chinese zodiac year for watches.
LUNAR TIES
Blancpain resumes its deep-seated romance with the moon through the Bathyscaphe Quantième Complet Phases de Lune in black ceramic.
USEFUL BREAKTHROUGH
With the Elux LAB-ID PAM01800, Panerai has delivered the smartest and brightest dive watch ever made.
SHIELD KING
Seiko reveals a new take on a King Seiko classic, the KS1969, thus bringing back an intriguing shape to the collection.
FRENCH EXPRESS
Louis Vuitton extends their new philosophy of watchmaking unveiling the dressier Escale collection.
PUSHING BOUNDARIES
Patek Philippe brings their patented system to synchronise the date display on a world time watch to their regular collection.
APROPOS COMPLICATIONS
A watch with complications appeals to different sorts of collectors, and is quite different to a complex watch. The editors of Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand discuss the virtues of all sorts of complications and considering when more is really better…
KEEPING IT REAL
Technology proves to be a solid tool for luxury watch brands in their fight against mounting cases of fake timepieces and watch thefts.
GLOWUP
A brightly lumed dial in pitch-black darkness is equal parts joy and fascination, have you ever wondered where your Super-LumiNova comes from?