It’s our first problem of 2021, our twentieth 12 months of steady publication. We’re nonetheless in pandemic occasions although so celebrations usually are not top-of-mind. As an alternative, the fallout from the worldwide disaster preoccupies the journal, even because the watch commerce prepares for the second digital Watches & Wonders. Effectively, it’s truly each digital and bodily in order that makes the occasion a primary in its personal proper. We shall be monitoring this on our digital platform, LUXUO.com in fact, so stick with us.
Prematurely of that, the group at WOW want to take a second to hope that COVID-19 has impacted as few lives in our commerce as doable. Whereas the press and watch loving communities could bemoan the scarcity of some fashions of some watches, none of us want to suppose that individuals are risking their lives to make wristwatches. The latest launch of the Blancpain No Radiations watch jogged my memory that watchmakers did put their well being on the road to maintain making watches that the general public needed, however maybe didn’t fairly want.
We make room for this watch within the problem, together with a number of different watches issued for the army – these are the same old suspects however we now have tried to maintain it mild and breezy. After all, the wristwatch itself involves us due to conflicts within the nineteenth and 20 century, as we uncover in our foremost 30-page part on wrist bands. The closing instalment in our year-long exploration of this topic will get into leather-based, rubber and material straps, put along with each one of the best in up to date expertise and the talents of artisans honed over centuries. We even embody a word in regards to the humble spring bar, which watch collectors each love and detest.
Our cowl for Spring 2021 options the Breguet Classique Double Tourbillon 5345 Quai de l’Horloge, however in a primary for us, the watch isn’t the main target. As an alternative, we’re celebrating the 220th anniversary of Abraham-Louis Breguet’s invention of the tourbillon. Sure, it nonetheless has a spot within the twenty first century wristwatch. Talking of which, this problem additionally options the primary new watches for the 12 months, alongside the final of the 2020 novelties on our radar. There are gems right here to be found, if one is aware of the right way to look.
WOW Editor-in-Chief Ashok Soman feedback: “After 20 years on this commerce, we now have embraced lifelong studying, as a result of to be a collector is to all the time be on the hunt for that which others overlook. In all seriousness, such watches are throughout us. Most are removed from fully unavailable.”