Consider the current situation, with sluggish sales and a market that is being remodelled by the day with a few major players on one side and a swarm of small independent brands on the other. The trend has increased in recent years, and many enthusiasts/collectors are turning more and more towards the latter as independent […]
About a year ago, Louis Vuitton, through its manufacture of watches La Fabrique du Temps, announced the establishment of the Louis Vuitton Watch Prize for Independent Creatives, a biennial prize that celebrates the creative talent, savoir-faire and audacity of the independent watchmaking industry, to support and encourage artisans and entrepreneurs and accompany future generations. Since […]
Visiting Andreas Strehler’s workshop is quite an experience. A detail-obsessed craftsman who only works with a surgical microscope, he settled in Sirnach, a small city in Thurgau, isolated from the main watchmaking areas. There, Strehler has a fully equipped manufacture, one of the very few in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, enabling him to craft watches […]
Yesterday, we started to look at the best watches created by independent watchmakers in 2018, with more “classical” watches (if ever the indie scene could be labelled classical). Today, in the second part of this guide, we move to the most creative, daring, highly technical of them all. Sci-fi designs, unusual displays of the time, […]
The Tourbillon is often presented as the king of complications. Originally invented to combat the negative effect of earth attraction (a.k.a gravity), it remains today an inevitable feature for all high-end brands – as a demonstration of watchmakers’ capabilities to manufacture such small mechanisms. As for each edition of Baselworld, 2018 has brought its share of new Tourbillon watches. We have put together 10 highlights watches, all featuring such a regulating organ (and more).
There are two parts to understanding what the Vault V1 watch is all about, and one is the way in which the time is displayed, while the other is how the time is set. What you first need to know is that setting the minutes on the Vault V1 watch involves rotating the full movement itself, while setting the hours involves rotating the dial itself.
The latest watch from the British micro-brand Garrick debuted at SalonQP 2016 to a healthy dose of excitement. Not only because the people who love what Garrick does were excited to see something new, but because Garrick had teamed up with Andreas Strehler, a technical industry star, to produce a new manufacture-esque movement.
The Andreas Strehler Sauterelle à Lune Perpétuelle contains a moon phase mechanism that will only need adjustment by one full day every 14,189.538 years. And not only does the Lune Perpétuelle have an extremely accurate moon phase, but with the help of the constant force mechanism it is even more accurate for the little intervals as well.
Welcome to Quill & Pad’s 2016 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève predictions in the Calendar category in which the team picks favorites and explains why. The pre-selected watches in the running for this category are: the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar, H. Moser & Cie.’s Endeavour Perpetual Calendar Concept Funky Blue, the Chopard L.U.C Perpetual Chrono, Andersen Genève’s Perpetuel Secular Calendar “20th Anniversary” Blue Gold Dial, the Andreas Strehler Lune Exacte, and the MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual.
I love independent watchmaking and independent watchmakers; one of my great joys as a collector is having the feeling that, in a small way, I am supporting their efforts.
So I put some thought into why independent watchmakers struggle in a business sense and how they can remain relevant in changing market situations.