Results matching “jaquet droz”

Jaquet Droz(previously mentioned) is often good for a classically styled watch, and their new Grand Heure GMT does not disappoint.  They've taken the F.Piguet 1150 caliber upon which most of their watches are based and reworked the display to be only a 24-hour hand, as well as adding a second 24-hour hand for another time-zone.  The rose-gold hand is local time and the blued-steel one is the other zone, both turning over an actual hard-fired enamel dial of an ivory color.  Both hands` are styled as legs of an old-fashioned pair of dividers, possibly to tap into that lucrative Freemason market.  As is usual for JD, the case is a rather large, but flat 43mm by about 12mm and the strap is alligator with rolled edges.  

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Proof that some multi-billion dollar congolmerates still have a sense of humor, the following is the cover of the SWATCH Group's(previously mentioned) 2012 annual report, complete with parody arms for each Canton

Here's a higher-resolution image of just the coats of arms:

If you live in the Confederation, you can buy a special limited-edition SWATCH, the D'Schwizer, for about 100 CHF with all the arms on it. If you don't, you may not be Swiss enough to get the jokes, so here's some help from wikipedia.
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Clockwork-powered automatons(see previous) were quite the rage in the late 18th Century, Jaquet Droz, both the man and the house, were quite famous for them.  But fashions change and with the exception of a brief revival in the house of Faberge, they've not been made in the 200 years since.  All of that has started to change in the last five years, JD commissioned a fully-functioning Time Writer (patterned on the Writer, one of the three immensely complex Android-style automata made by their namesake), and now Raul Pagés has started his own brand dedicated to them.

His first product is more along the lines of Faberge, a small tortoise which, when wound with a key, walks across a table, craning its neck from side to side.  Each one will be unique, the first one has a 18kt white gold shell with blue enamel and diamonds inset as toenails.

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The watch industry, like any large industry, has it's own internal awards. These include the the Aguille d'Or(golden hand), given at the annual Grand Prix de l'Horlogerie de Genève, a "for us, by us" type of award, like the Oscars.  Also given are "press" awards by the various magazines, more like the Golden Globes, including the Watch of the Year, given by Montres Passion, the TimeZone Watch of the Year and even the Couture Design Awards, given by a Jewelry industry publication, has a watch category.

So there are plenty of awards for watches, for the best, the newest, the most complex or the most blinged-out watch, but there are no awards for the worst, the most derivative or the least inspired attempt to get a bite of the apple. There is no watch industry analogue to the Golden Raspberry or the Bulwar-Lytton Award for bad fiction. Since we're nearing the end of the 2012 watch model year, by October we'll start hearing pre-release "buzz" for the 2013 Baselworld and SIHH releases, I present my picks for the 2012 Watch Industry Razzies (I was going to come up with some sort of bad acronym to spell out WRIST, but that will have to wait). Note that these are my opinions only and only reflect the high-end of the watch industry.

Words, Names and Press Releases
First, in the realm of letters, we have 3 awards, two for Press-Release rediculousness and one for a product name.

Worst PR Text, Florid Prose Division

Roger Dubuis for the PR for their new Venturer - "For ever walking on a tightrope, always off the beaten path, the boundaries of normality have no meaning in his life. The world of the Venturer is marked by danger and challenge. Adrenalin is his fuel, action is his engine, intelligence and alertness are his protection. This is the world that permeates the new Pulsion Collection from the Genevan watchmaker ROGER DUBUIS. These are timepieces made in his own image: naturally powerful, and effortlessly controlled." (source)

Worst PR Text, Absurdly Overdone Metaphor Division

Stefan Kudoke for his Kudoke White Flower - "Flowers are in need of warmth and light. Therefore it has been planted behind two translucent sapphire glasses like in a greenhouse. The body heat of the wearer warms the sensitive plants.....Due to years of research Stefan Kudoke succeeded in cultivating a flower species that is able to cope without any water. That is why the case is protected against water. The flowers vigor is fertilized by a Swiss automatic winding movement delicately refined in Kudoke manner. " (source)

Worst Acronymic Hash

Christopher Claret - "X-TREM" (source)

X for Experimental
T for Time
R for Research
E for Engineering
M for Mechanism

Watches and Movements
Now onto the technical awards, from cases to watches and onto things kinda like watches, but not really.

Bling!

Piaget for their Emperador Tourbillon Coussin and a case-back pavee set with diamonds (source)

Smallest change to make a new model

Girard Perragaux for their Laureto 3-bridges Tourbillon. They changed replaced clear sapphire bridges with pale blue Spinel ones.

Press Pic (source)	Side by side (source). Since it's nearly impossibly to tell, the one on the right is the old one, with clear bridges. The one on the left has the new blue bridges.

Most I love the 90s

IWC and their weird fixation on Top Gun (source)

As an aside, why is there a "Spitfire Perpetual Calendar" model in the Top Gun Collection?

Middle-finger to the collectors

Beat Haldimann H9. It has neither hour nor minute hand, nor any indication to record the current or the elapsed time. It doesn't even show the beat of the, what one assumes is a, fantastically made and finished movement within. (source)

Special Raspberry of the year, 2012

This year, the Raspberry of the Year goes to the entire industry as an award for pandering, specifically the the Year of the Dragon special editions. Several of these are actually quite fantastic, for example Piaget's sculptural dragon or Jaquet Droz's playful one, but the overall effect of nearly every watch brand (excluding Patek Philippe and Rolex, bien sur) having one, some as minimally "special" as just to have a different engraving, is overwhelmingly mercenary.
(all brand names link to the image source)

Piaget	Grieb & Benzinger	AP	Cartier
Angular Momentum	Parmigiani	Vulcain	IWC 7-day dragon rotor
Kudoke	Jaquet Droz	Chopard	Paul Picot
Tissot

(All the images are from the manufacturer except the AP Dragon, from PuristsPro user Allen and several images by PuristsPro user Z3, the Piaget caseback, the Parmigiani Dragon and the GP Tourbillon comparison)

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In honor of the Year of the Dragon pretty much every single watch company is making a limited edition.  Jaquet Droz's submission is both nicer looking then most and has some leigitimate work involved, rather then just scribbling a dragon on the dial and calling it done...like Piaget.  



I don't like inlaid rotors as a rule, but this one isn't terrible.  It is overdone, but does a nice job of following with the design of the front, pretending to be the remainder of the lizard-like body of the dragon.  The 2 stars on the mother-of-pearl are something of a signature design element for JD.  The movement is the usual F.Piguet 1150 with JD modifications, basically moving the time dial up.

Two unrelated bits on two of the four watch companies that have held that name.  First from the late 1990s brand that was a sub-brand of Breguet, a skeletonized wristwatch.  Movement is a Lemania 8800, an unusual double-barrel design, and the openwork is interesting, and almost identical to that which Breguet used at the same time, except without the signature "B" on the rotor.  More pictures are available

Just some pictures of the Jaquet Droz Les Douze Villes travel time watch from European Watch Company, my local dealer.  It doesn't have the ability to display multiple timezones at once, but has the ability to jump from timezone to timezone, as well as a jump hour display.  This is the older, 40.5mm model.


Click the image for more pictures.