Automatic wristwatches are in a league of their own. Nothing compares to prestige and performance of an automatic timepiece. From the smooth operation featured on the dial with the sweeping second hand operating in a fluid rotation to the intricate mechanical movement inside, revealed on many skeleton dials and casebacks, it is easy to recognize the superior attributes of automatic timepieces. In 1770, Abraham Louis Perrelet introduced the first automatic timepiece with a pocket watch model designed to operate when the watch wearer started walking. It featured an oscillating weight that moved up and down. Before Perrelet’s self-winding mechanism, mechanical watches required…
Browsing CategoryWatch History
Innovative Ritmo Mundo Time
When it comes to high-end, world-class shopping destinations both the Champs-Élysées and Rue Faubourg in Paris, France easily come to mind. Harrods Department Store and Bond Street in London, England are also at the head of the list. Across the Pond, Madison Avenue in New York offers the most illustrious names in fashion. While across the nation, Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California is the pre-eminent destination for luxury. In 1967, entrepreneur Fred Hayman opened Giorgio Beverly Hills, the first luxury boutique on Rodeo Drive. Gucci and Van Cleef & Arpels soon followed suit opening shops a year later. Today, a who’s…
Fashionable Movado Time
Time never stands still is a very popular adage, perhaps referring to the constant motion of the world we live in. In regards to wristwatches one has to wonder if the phrase was designed to represent timepieces with sweeping second hands. Interestingly there are two types of sweeping second hand movements on today’s wristwatches: automatic and quartz. Automatic watches have a smooth second hand operation that runs continuously in a fluid sweeping movement. Quartz timepieces have a second hand operation with a pulsating repeated starting and stopping action. Of course, there are also many timepieces with no second-hand movements at…
Caravelle New York Time
New York City is the hub for many American fashion designers as well as leading fashion brands from around the world. Prominent fashion designers Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, Kenneth Cole, Donna Karan, Tommy Hilfiger, Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein, Vera Wang and Stuart Weitzman are all headquartered in New York City. What’s more, international fashion houses Chanel, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Giorgio Armani and Coach all have their American office headquarters in New York City as well. The city has also served as a source of inspiration for many of these designers, including Karan whose bridge line is appropriately named DKNY.…
Award-Winning Time
The Academy Awards are this Sunday evening and Hollywood’s finest will be coming out to celebrate the highest achievements in filmmaking for the year of 2014. The motion pictures American Sniper, Birdman, Boyhood and The Imitation Game are vying for the top prizes, while film stars Bradley Cooper, Michael Keaton, Juliann Moore, Reese Witherspoon, Eddie Redmayne, Kiera Knightly, J.K. Simmons, Meryl Streep, Patricia Arquette and Emma Stone lead a list of top contenders in the acting races. Wristwatches have certainly had a starring role in many popular films this year, including being seen on the wrists of several nominated actors…
Celebrated TAG Heuer Time
When it comes to Brand Ambassadors TAG Heuer is in a league of its own. Many of today’s leading names in sports are part of the prestigious Swiss watch brand’s new “Don’t Crack Under Pressure” campaign, joined in the promotion with legendary ambassadors of the past. Popular soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo, leading tennis players Maria Sharapova and Kei Nishikori, auto racer Jenson Button, blade runner Marlou van Rhijn, and Olympic gymnast Nadia Comaneci are featured in the new TAG Heuer promotion along with film legend Steve McQueen, Formula 1 racing legend Jean-Manuel Fangio and renowned physicist Albert Einstein. The “Don’t…
The Sky’s The Limit
Aviation watches have been immensely popular for decades and have also served as the inspiration for wristwatches as well. In 1904, Louis Cartier designed a wristwatch as a favor to pilot Alberto Santos Dumont, which he could wear on his wrist when flying, since a standard pocket watch was too cumbersome to handle up in the air. The original Cartier Santos wristwatch featured a modified, rectangular-shaped pocket watch presented on a leather strap. Years later in the 1930’s, pilots relied on onboard chronographs by Swiss watchmaker Breitling, designed to be used inflight to calculate distances and travel times. In 1952…
Life In The Red Line Fast Lane
The worlds of high-speed racing cars and fast-paced wristwatches have gone hand-in-hand for decades. For generations race car drivers have relied on the split-second dynamics of watches, ever since Edouard Heuer introduced the Monte Carlo 12-Hour Stopwatch in 1958, along with the Super Autavia full chronograph and the Sebring 60-minute, split-second timer, which were released thereafter. Both racing car drivers and enthusiasts soon relied on the Heuer brand for up-to-the-second calculations of race times. Many other watchmakers followed Heuer’s lead with racing inspired timepieces of their own, including Rolex with the Daytona chronograph, Omega with the Speedmaster series and Chopard…
From Here To Eterna…
Eterna timepieces have been highly regarded and celebrated over decades for their precision automatic movements. Founded in 1856, this prominent Swiss watchmaker is noted for introducing a ball-bearing mounted rotor system on its automatic timepieces in 1948, which reduced friction and resistance in the weight that wound the mainspring of the watch. The ball bearing system not only reduced the wear and tear on the internal parts of the automatic timepiece, it also increased the accuracy as well. The design instantly catapulted the Eterna’s presence in the horological industry as many other watch brands sought to use Eterna to produce the inner mechanisms…
Running On Renato Time
In the watch world, Renato Watches are considered a powerful player to watch. Founded in 2005 by, designers and entrepreneurs Daniel Mink and Ovadia Levy, Renato is an American owned company with roots in New York City. In 2005, Mink and Levy sought out to create timepieces for watch collectors that offered not only luxurious good looks and the finest materials available, but affordable prices as well. Each of the brand’s early collections for men: the Beast, Wild Beast and T-Rex along with Beauty Series for women, offered precise Swiss-made quartz movements housed in surgical-grade stainless steel cases with such…