You can tell the time instantly, everywhere, from train departure boards to the screen you may be reading this upon, ultimately – paradoxically – rendering today’s humble wristwatch so much more than the sum of its parts. All the latest watch news from Breitling, Audemars Piguet, Van Cleef & Arpels and more.
Van Cleef & Arpels’ poetry in motion
For the next few days South Kensington’s 4 Cromwell Place will open its doors to host ‘Poetry of Time’, an enchanting exhibition of animated mechanical watches crafted by Van Cleef & Arpels’ genevoise ateliers. Since 1906, fairies, flowers and flighty fabulousness have come to life in horological form, with all the whimsy you’d expect of Paris’ historic haute joailler non-pareil.
What’s more, in keeping with VC&A’s impassioned mission to preserve and perpetuate its ‘métiers d’art’s’, weekending parents desperately seeking inspiration will be glad of a particular highlight: L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts, which will host a series of children’s workshops whose programme can be booked via the website.
• Tuesday to Saturday 11am-6pm, Sunday 11am-4pm, free of charge, vancleefarpels.com
Tudor is timekeeper for the Giro d’Italia
As anyone who participated in last month’s Ford RideLondon 60-miler or 100-miler will know, endurance cycling isn’t for the faint of heart. Nor is it for the heart of a mechanical watch, whose shock-absorbing ‘collet’ must keep the delicate balance ticking steady, regardless of Epping Forest’s potholes.
With typical pragmatism and value for money, however, RideLondon’s official timekeeper and sponsor of the historic Giro d’Italia, Tudor has seemingly come up with the ultimate horological peloton. Its new Pelagos FXD Chrono “Cycling Edition” has been specifically designed for two wheels, cased in carbon composite, integrating titanium elements to help make the watch necessarily robust. What’s more, its logarithmic ‘tachymetric’ stopwatch calibration is coiled around the dial, allowing average speeds to be read at a glance.
• £4,560, tudorwatch.com
Breitling’s chrono loco!
It’s a dream come true for chronograph geeks: Swiss flyboy Breitling has acquired full rights to its long-departed nemesis, Universal Genève. Universal evolved from a timid ladies’ and men’s dress watchmaker to become a key player in the post-war chronograph arms race. Both brands designed in parallel the now-standard, efficiently readable configuration of placing the pushbutton at the 2 o’clock position to unleash a central ‘sweep’ seconds timer, plus 30-minute and 12-hour ’sub-counters’.
Since 1986, ‘Universal Genève’ is a name that’s appeared sporadically on watches from a Hong Kong outfit, Stelux. With Breitling’s acquisition, we await to see whether the new imprint is positioned higher (ca£8,000-plus) or lower (ca£4,000-minus) than its chronograph offering. We suspect the latter…
• breitling.com
Audemars Piguet’s experiments in 3D
Its tortuous name – ‘[RE]Master02 Selfwinding’ – could alone be paying tribute to the watch case’s equally dazzling jigsaw of asymmetric facets. Then again, the design of 1960 was originally dubbed ‘Model 5159BA’, so you can forgive Audemars Piguet for a little poetic licence come 2024’s revival.
Model 5159BA’s run of just seven watches barely justified an initial capped letter, let alone a sub-brand of its own, like the ‘Royal Oak’ of 1972 – an early exercise in fashion iconography from the notoriously buttoned-down Swiss watch industry. But [RE]Master02 follows on from ’01’ in 2020, which kickstarted contemporary reinterpretations of vintage AP obscurities with a 1943 chronograph reissue, powered by modern, future-proof mechanics.
• £41,000, audemarspiguet.com