A u d ema r s P igu et
DIRE C T OR Y 2015
B ell & R oss B la nc pa in
B E L L & R O S S
The Swiss-made, Paris-based company is comparatively young (founded in 1992), but it has swiftly attracted an enthusiastic following, offering as it claims “professional watches for astronauts, pilots and EOD [Explosive Ordnance Disposal] divers” (as well as, one suspects, men of a certain age who haven’t quite given up the dream of becoming any of the above).
Known for its clear dials featuring large print numbers, and its rugged, waterproof, cases, Bell
& Ross’ three main lines are “Marine”, “Vintage”
and “Aviation” — the latter features the square BR bodies, seen in the 10th Anniversary edition, far left, that the company is best known for. Stylish and distinctive.
BELLROSS.COM
BR-01 10th Anniversary, 46mm matte black ceramic, black rubber strap, Dhs18,435
B L A N C P A I N
Switzerland’s oldest watch manufacturer (it was founded in 1735) remains hugely proud that it has never produced a quartz watch, or a watch with a digital display. This hasn’t been without repercussions — Blancpain closed down in the mid-20th century, before being resurrected in 1983 by Jean-Claude Biver (then an Omega executive) and Jacques Piguet (of the revered watchmaking family).
The company is known for its technical innovations, perhaps best exemplified in the famous Blancpain 1735 (of which only 30 were ever made), a grand complication containing a tourbillon, split chronograph, minute repeater, perpetual calendar and iconic Blancpain moon- phase indicator (retained in this modern Eight Days Platinum, left).
The Swiss marque also eschews the assembly line system — each watch is built in its entirety by an individual watchmaker. Quality over quantity, then, although around 10,000 watches per year is still pretty good going.
BLANCPAIN.COM
Villeret Perpetual Calendar Eight Days Platinum, 32mm 18k red gold, brown alligator strap, Dhs311,725
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B R E G U E T
Founded in 1775 by the wildly inventive watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet, its numerous innovations included gongs for repeating watches, a keyless watch, the montre à tact watch that could be “read”
by touch, and, in 1801, the tourbillon.
Based in Paris (with an interlude in his native Switzerland during the French Revolution), Breguet reinvented watchmaking, rejecting the normal practice of employing unskilled apprentices, and instead seeking out the finest available craftsmen and employing them to construct his designs. His inventions found favour with the very highest levels of society, with customers including Louis XVI, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mary Antoinette and Caroline Murat, queen of Naples.
He received the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour from Louis XVIII in 1819 and died a celebrated man.
Breguet continues to thrive; under the leadership of Marc Hayek, the company in 2005 built a replica of Breguet’s famous “Marie Antoinette case-watch”
(commissioned in 1783 and completed in 1827, four years after Mr Breguet’s death).
BREGUET.COM
Gent Classique Rose Gold, 35mm, brown alligator strap, Dhs92,745
B R E I T L I N G
“Close and very tight links between aviation and Breitling started in the early Thirties,” says Breitling vice-president Jean-Paul Giraardin. The company’s enthusiasm for, and links with, the aviation industry has seen Breitling produce cockpit clocks, sponsor aviation associations and own its own aerobatics team — and in 1962 astronaut Scott Carpenter famously wore a Breitling watch into space (the model was dubbed “The Cosmonaute”).
Despite its huge success, it’s not a subsidiary of any vast holding company. “What’s quite uncommon in the Swiss watch industry and maybe not so well known is the fact that Breitling is one of the very, very few remaining independent, family-owned watch brands,”
Girardin says, “and only five bosses have run the company over its 131-year history.”
Breitling is known for producing technical, enormously accurate chronographs such as the Superocean II, far right, and the Transocean Unitime Pilot, which offers simultaneous readings of all 24 time zones. “In the future, Breitling will keep the same heading that made its success during all its history,”
says Girardin. “We’ve 131 years of ‘Instrument for Professionals’ and more to come.”
BREITLING.COM
Superocean II, 42mm blue rubber bezel, rubber strap, Dhs14,246
B rem on t Ca r ti er
B R E M O N T
Famed for its aviation watches, Bremont’s founders, Nick and Giles English, are both pilots. They named their company after a French farmer, Antoine Bremont, who helped the brothers when they had to make an emergency landing in their Thirties’ biplane.
“Being British is an obvious USP for Bremont from most watch brands out there,” Nick English says. “Consumers assume all high-end mechanical watches are Swiss. The fact we have our watchmakers in Henley, who we have trained up through our own apprentice schemes, assembling and manufacturing these watches, is very easy to overlook. We are incredibly proud to be playing a part in reinvigorating the British watch industry, with our facilities both in Henley-on-Thames and now also in Silverstone.”
Since the first collection in 2007, the company has consolidated its adventurous spirit via partnerships with Jaguar (the MKI, far left, and MKII), Boeing (the Model 1 and Model 247) and Bletchley Park (the Codebreaker). But flying is the heart of Bremont.
“The Wright Flyer has been a special achievement for us,” says English. “It is the ultimate aviation timepiece”. A bold claim but as it contains a sample of muslin from the 1903 flight, not an unreasonable one.
BREMONT.COM
Jaguar MKI, 33.4mm stainless steel, black calf leather strap, Dhs47,209
C A R T I E R
Cartier has been one of the world’s pre-eminent jewellers since 1847, when master goldsmith Louis-Franỗois Cartier took over the workshop of his mentor in Paris. Just as Cartier’s jewels fast found favour with the cream of society at the time (customers included Princess Mathilde, cousin of Napoleon III, and the Empress Eugénie), so too did his timepieces; Cartier created his first pocket watch, the Santos, in 1906, in response to aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont’s desire to tell the time while flying.
Cartier also precipitated the trend towards rectangular watches with the 1917 Tank watch — initially a gift to General Pershing of the American Expeditionary Force, later worn by Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik (1921), and now a much-imitated and wonderful design classic.
In the 21st century, Cartier continues to lead the Richemont group’s stable of luxury businesses, mixing classic designs such as the Cle de Cartier, left, with striking, imaginative timepieces such as the Astrocalendaire, a limited-edition model whose platinum case features a fully-visible calendar, displaying the day, month, and date within three concentric circles.
CARTIER.CO.UK
Cle de Cartier Watch, 40mm white gold, white gold bracelet, Dhs151,964
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C H O P A R D
The prestigious jeweller also runs a serious watchmaking outfit, with its own manufacture in the town of Fleurier from where it has created nine of its own calibres. The result; a surprisingly varied horological offering, with models across the range containing quartz, hand- wound and self-winding movements.
The latest collections hark back to the influence of Louis-Ulysse Chopard, who founded the company in Sonvilier in the Jura mountains in 1860. Watches range from the understated LUC Qualité Fleurier, an elegant timepiece available in limited edition 18-carat rose gold, to the modern LUC Engine One H in titanium, which boasts a horizontally mounted symmetrical construction and recalls the cylinder heads of a racing car engine.
Meanwhile, the 2015 Mille Miglia Race Edition, right, celebrates the company’s role as the competition’s official timekeeper since 1988.
CHOPARD.COM
Mille Miglia Race Edition, 43mm stainless steel, black barenia leather strap, Dhs25,199
C I T I Z E N W A T C H E S
The Japanese company is the world’s largest watchmaker, and also the producer of the most accurate non-radio- controlled wristwatch in the world, The Citizen, which is guaranteed accurate to within five seconds per year.
Citizen rode the quartz boom of the Seventies to great success, producing a high volume of well-made, reasonably- priced quartz watches. Known for its Eco-Drive movement (contained within the Chrono Time AT, seen far right), which is powered by any natural or artificial light source, Citizen also offers a radio-powered movement and the world’s smallest quartz movement (all made by Miyota, a subsidiary company).
More recently, Citizen has branched out into high-end quartz watches: the Campagnola, in stainless steel, comes with astronomical displays and also a perpetual calendar.
CITIZENWATCH.COM
Chrono Time AT, 48mm stainless steel, silver titanium bracelet, Dhs3,349
D E G R I S O G O N O
“I think in volumes, I imagine in colours, I design in lights.” So says Fawaz Gruosi, the vivacious founder and creative director of de Grisogono. Despite these bizarre sensory afflictions, Gruosi has found no little success with the company he founded in 1993 on the rue du Rhône in Geneva, first offering fine art and precious jewellery before entering the horological arena in 2000.
Initially sniffed at by purists, who suspected Gruosi to be a jeweller dabbling in the watch trade, de Grisogono silenced critics by releasing timepieces of extraordinary mechanical complexity. The Meccanico dG, for instance, offers an analogue dial and a “digital” display — the latter produced entirely mechanically, via 23 moving segments that turn on their longitudinal axis to form Casio-esque square numbers, and a proprietary movement made of 651 individual components that can be seen through the skeletonised dial.
The Instrumento Uno dress watch, far left, epitomises Gruosi’s design approach — his take on the tonneau case shape is unique.
DEGRISOGONO.COM
Instrumento Uno, 33mm stainless steel, brown crocodile leather strap, Dhs139,123
G L A S H ĩ T T E O R I G I N A L
This German company looks to both the past with its Glashütte German Watch Museum, in the eastern Ore Mountains, which traces the company’s roots back to 1845, and to the future with its own watchmaking school, Alfred Helwig, named after the acclaimed inventor and watchmaking instructor.
“We survived two world wars and the state- controlled economy during 40 years of socialism,”
says Glashütte Original CEO Yann Gamard. “But as the saying goes, ‘Necessity is the mother of invention.’” Its Grande Cosmopolite Tourbillon model, for instance, is a technical triumph (quadruple patent-pending) powered by a Flying Minute Tourbillon designed by Alfred Helwig, and features a skeletonised rotor with gold oscillating weight and perpetual calendar.
“We now own our own dial manufactory in Pforzheim,” says Gamard. “Two years ago, we doubled the intake of students in our school, so we’re well prepared to handle the rising demand in timepieces.” This year’s big release, the Original PanoMatic Lunar, is as impressive for its deep blue face as it is for the Calibre 90-02 movement housed within the case.
GLASHUETTE-ORIGINAL.COM
Original PanoMatic Lunar, 40mm, black alligator strap, Dhs42,463
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G R A F F
The multinational British jeweller was founded by Laurence Graff in 1960 and the company launched its Luxury Watch Division in 2008.
Unsurprisingly, its products are high-end.
Indeed, in Graff’s core collection of watches, the faceted shape of the bezel is modelled on the cross-section of a perfectly-cut diamond. Other trademark features are similarly luxe: a gemstone (or Graff icon) set at 12 o’ clock and a diamond- tipped crown.
Which is not to say Graff has nothing for the serious watch enthusiast; at the Baselworld 2015 watch fair, the company displayed the MasterGraff Dual Time Tourbillon 43mm, featuring a flying tourbillon, a large date and a dual-time function (oh, and 329 diamonds, totalling 13.7 carats).
GRAFFDIAMONDS.COM
GraffStar Grand Date, 45mm rose gold and DLC, black crocodile leather strap, POA
G R E U B E L F O R S E Y
Alsatian Robert Greubel and Englishman Stephen Forsey have worked together since 1992 when they were at movement manufacturer Renaud & Papi, but in 2004 they unveiled their first joint venture at the Baselworld watch fair:
the Double Tourbillon 30°. As the name suggests, the model featured two tourbillion carriages working at a 30° incline — an innovation they followed up with the Quadruple Tourbillon in 2005, which featured four tourbillons coupled by a spherical differential.
The young company continues to be fiercely devoted to innovation: the Tourbillon 24 Secondes Contemporain, far right, features a remarkably light natural titanium movement, while the extraordinary GMT, presented in 2011, features a day and night indicator, 24-hour world time display and a floating, rotating three- dimensional globe, while its Art Piece 1 features a “nano-sculpture” by miniaturist artist Willard Wigan (capable of sculpting the head of a needle) that can be viewed through a 20x magnifier.
But of course.
GREUBELFORSEY.COM
Tourbillon 24 Secondes Contemporain, 43mm white gold, black crocodile leather strap, Dhs1.96 million
H U B L O T
Hublot, founded in 1980, is going places. In 2014, it opened a second, larger, factory, and the company continues to grow rapidly. This can possibly be attributed to Kanye West (who namedrops the brand in the song “Otis”, on his Watch The Throne album with Jay Z) but is almost certainly actually down to Jean-Claude Biver, marketing guru and watch industry big daddy, now also CEO of Tag Heuer, and previously instrumental in revitalising the fortunes of Blancpain and Omega (somewhat startlingly, Biver also produces his own cheese every summer, which he refuses to sell and distributes only to friends, family and restaurants of his choosing).
As for its design philosophy, Hublot is still true to its founding concepts, shown left in the new Big Bang 10th Anniversary. Hublot is French for “porthole”, which is what the timepieces resemble (broadly speaking). The bezel is generally secured to the case with six screws (which can be used to tell the time at a glance) and the designs remain pleasingly simple, clean and industrial.
HUBLOT.COM
Hublot Big Bang 10th Anniversary, 45mm Unico Full Magic Gold, black rubber strap, Dhs141,349
H a rr y W in st on H u bl ot H A R R Y W I N S T O N
As is befitting for the company namechecked by Marilyn Monroe in “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend”, many of Harry Winston’s timepieces are self-described “jewels that tell time”. The company is nevertheless serious about high-end watchmaking.
Since 2001, it has produced its acclaimed Opus Series — in which a limited edition timepiece is released annually, in conjunction with a leading independent watchmaker. The roster of collaborators is hugely impressive, and includes Franỗois-Paul Journe, Denis Giguet and Felix Baumgartner (the co-founder of Swiss watch brand Urwerk, not the Austrian skydiver).
The most recent edition, the Opus XIII, is a collaboration with master watchmaker Ludovic Ballouard (creator of the “Upside Down Watch”).
It features 242 jewels, and a unique means of telling the time; 59 metal pins count the minutes, 11 triangles display the hours, and at 12pm and 12am a central dial cover reveals the “HW”
logo. The Avenue Dual Time Automatic, far left, features an angular art deco-inspired case and is our pick of Winston’s dressier timepieces.
HARRYWINSTON.COM
Avenue Dual Time Automatic, 53.8mm x 35.8mm Sedna gold, black crocodile leather strap, POA
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I W C
“One of our most iconic collections, the Portugieser is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year,” says IWC’s brand director Simon Chambers. “It was conceived at the request of two Portuguese businessmen who were seeking a wristwatch with the accuracy of a marine chronometer. The only solution was to use the hand- wound movement from our pocket watch production and shape a watch case around it that was tapered with lugs to which a strap could be attached.”
At the pinnacle of the Portugieser line — and, indeed, IWC’s achievements — is the Siderale Scafusia, which features a constant force tourbillon, sidereal time and 96-hour power reserve display on the dial side. None of which compares to the complexity of the case-back. “Here you discover the uniqueness that comes from selecting your personal star chart,” says Chambers. “The rotating night sky disc will show more than 500 stars and constellations — based on a pre- determined geographic location of your choice. The display also indicates sunrise and sunset along with a perpetual calendar indicating leap years.”
IWC.COM
Portugieser Annual Calendar, 44.2mm stainless steel, black alligator leather strap, Dhs88,830
J A E G E R - L E C O U L T R E
The history of the watchmaking giant stretches back to 1833, when Antoine LeCoultre set up in business and made his fortune in gear-wheel production. LeCoultre’s innovations were prolific
— in 1844, he invented the Millionomètre, which was at the time, the world’s most precise measuring instrument. Perhaps his greatest achievement, however, was in assembling “Le Grande Maison”;
a centralised manufacture in the Vallée de Joux, where — for the first time — the myriad craftsmen involved in watchmaking could gather and work under one roof.
In 1903, Jacques-David LeCoultre, grandson of Antoine, began producing ultra-slimline pocket watches for Paris-based watchmaker Edmond Jaeger.
The collaboration proved fruitful, giving rise to what was, in 1907, the thinnest watch in the world and in 1937 the companies merged to form Jaeger-LeCoultre.
Iconic models have included the Reverso (a shock- resistant model designed for British polo players), and the Memovox (which boasts a mechanical alarm and whose name means “the voice of remembering”
in Latin, ish). The Master Ultra Thin Date, far right, is an example of the marque’s proficiency when it comes to producing super-slim watches.
JAEGER-LECOULTRE.COM
Master Ultra Thin Date, 40mm stainless steel, black crocodile leather strap, Dhs32,405
A . L A N G E & S ệ H N E
Revered German watchmakers, established in 1868 by Ferdinand Adolf Lange with the aim of creating jobs in the town of Glashütte. “There is always a certain German matter-of-factness and solidarity,” says CEO Wilhelm Schmid of his company’s timepieces. He’s right, though this dramatically undersells the beauty of A Lange
& Sửhne’s watches. Indeed, as Schmid explains,
“Every watch is equipped with an in-house movement that features inventive ideas and an exception ally high level of finishing.”
Take the Richard Lange “Terraluna”, which features three sectors depicting hours, minutes, and subsidiary seconds, but also — as is the A Lange & Sửhne trademark — a dramatic and beautiful display back, in this case featuring the Moon orbiting Earth. The Datograph Perpetual Calendar, left, is so precise that it requires no adjustments until the year 2100.
“The next big event will be the inauguration of our new manufactory building and an additional production space of 5,400sq m,” says a very proud Schmid. “But the revival of A Lange & Sửhne after German reunification, which rejuvenated the entire Saxon watch industry, is the company’s greatest success.”
ALANGE-SOEHNE.COM
Datograph Perpetual Calendar, 41mm white gold, black alligator leather strap, Dhs529,060
Jaq u et D r oz A. L a nge & S ửh new
J A Q U E T D R O Z
The original Pierre Jaquet Droz lived from 1721 to 1790, and was a Swiss watchmaker who attracted much publicity to his business via the construction of hugely intricate wind-up automata (which were so impressive that he had to fend off accusations of sorcery). The Jaquet Droz company as we know it today was founded in 1995, but has truly blossomed since its acquisition by the Swatch Group in 2003.
These days, Jaquet Droz is known for producing limited editions of very high-quality watches.
The designs often have a historical resonance
— the Eclipse range, first launched in 2010, is inspired by the 18th century enlightenment, and features eight stars and an engraved moon that replicates the phases of the real thing.
JAQUET-DROZ.COM
Astrale Eclipse Black Onyx, 43mm stainless steel, black leather strap, Dhs74,869