Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2025 - / Issue 59 i REVOLUTION WATCH

The occasion of our 20th anniversary has given me pause to think about what Revolution should represent. Two decades ago, it was created to bring watches out of the doldrums of insular hobbyism — from the so-called Nerds’ table in the high-school cafeteria to the Cool Kids’ table — while still retaining all their horological authenticity and technical veracity. Now I want to bring us back to the Nerds’ table. Why? Because in the past 20 years, we’ve had a rapid rise in watch lifestyle journalism. Watches have now become so entrenched in popular culture that there is not a single red-carpet, sporting or musical event that takes place without watches attracting attention as statement accessories. In just three years, Swiss watch exports to the United States grew from 3…

In just a few short years, New York Watch Week has grown from a weekend on the collector calendar into a citywide conversation about what watchmaking means today. For one week each October, the world’s most kinetic city becomes a stage for every level of horological passion: the institutional, the independent, the intellectual and the irreverent, all sharing the same skyline. At its center sits WatchTime New York, the show that started it all 10 years ago. Housed once again in Gotham Hall, it was the gravitational hub around which the rest of the week orbited, where heritage maisons, modern independents and seasoned collectors converged. This year, its influence was felt everywhere, spawning a constellation of complementary events that together captured the breadth of contemporary watch culture. High above the…

There was a moment, just before the first guest stepped through Cellini’s doors, when the store felt almost suspended in time. The cases gleamed and Park Avenue’s noise faded to a polite hum. Then the door opened, and the space began to fill with people who care about watches for all the right reasons. While much of Watch Week unfolded in a swirl of big-brand spectacle, Cellini’s fair offered something rarer: proximity. Collectors, journalists and makers stood shoulder-to-shoulder, talking not about marketing or celebrity ambassadors, but about movement architecture, case finishing and the slow satisfaction of building a watch that lasts. Urwerk drew an early crowd, its new releases a study in restrained futurism. The pieces were unmistakably Urwerk, but more refined in proportion and detail. Nearby, Moritz Grossmann presented…

On October 16, high above Lower Manhattan, Hublot and Revolution hosted one of the most memorable evenings of New York Watch Week. The setting of the Moët Hennessy floor at 7 World Trade Center, 35 stories up set the tone: open, glittering and unmistakably New York. The evening marked a double anniversary: 20 years of Revolution magazine and 20 years since the debut of Hublot’s Big Bang. Guests arrived to the sound of champagne corks and easy conversation, drifting between vitrines displaying Hublot’s latest releases, including the Classic Fusion Chronograph Bronze Brown, a 30-piece U.S. exclusive unveiled that week. Off to one side, watchmakers from Nyon ran hands-on demonstrations, giving guests a chance to handle tools and movements usually seen only in the manufacture. The formal program began with a…

Elegance in simplicity. The new Panerai Luminor Marina PAM01759 1,000-piece limited edition honors the heritage of Italy’s most famous watch brand. It is a mature reimagining of the earliest Panerai watches, executed with the modern manufacturing know-how accrued by the brand over its many years of experience. The PAM01759 is a testament to the principle that less is more. Over the decades, Panerai has rarely strayed from the design codes that first made it famous, and this continuity has established it as a truly unique brand among its more conventional peers. Here, we see certain nods to the marine instruments developed by the Florentine maker in its formative years. The most notable of these is surely the domed crystal, which magnifies the clear and legible display created by the sandwich…

Bulova has always been the pinnacle of American watchmaking. Founded in New York in 1875, it built its name not on European imitation but on an industry making watches for ordinary people who wanted something reliable and well made. A century and a half later, it’s still doing that, just with better movements and sharper marketing. The latest chapter is a partnership with Stetson, the 160-year-old hatter whose name is shorthand for the American West. On paper, it’s a neat pairing: one rooted in New York precision, the other in frontier grit. But it also has a genuine family connection. Louise Bulova married Ira Guilden, later President of Stetson, in 1930 and that history gives this collaboration a little more substance than most. The Bulova × Stetson collection consists of…

Citizen has been working with titanium longer than most brands have been talking about it. Since the 1970 launch of the world’s first titanium watch, it has turned a notoriously difficult material into something distinctly wearable. The new Attesa Platinum Shine Collection marks another step in that story. It is not so much a reinvention, but a refinement. This is the first time Citizen has used recrystallized titanium, a material created through a carefully controlled heat and cooling process that alters the metal’s internal structure, leaving a subtle crystalline pattern on the surface. It’s not decorative in the traditional sense, it is more of a technical consequence made visible and each piece emerges with its own unique variation. It’s a rare example of individuality born from industrial precision, and a…

It is tempting, when writing about Andy Warhol, to start with the Campbell’s soup cans or the Marilyns. But before the Factory, before the Silver Clouds and the silk screens, there was Andrew Warhola of Pittsburgh: the sickly son of Car-patho-Rusyn immigrants, confined to bed with St. Vitus’ dance at the age of eight. The young boy passed endless hours clipping and pasting the glossy faces of Hollywood stars, a private devotion to icons that would, in adulthood, become both his life and his work. By the early 1950s, the fragile Pittsburgh boy had reinvented himself as a Manhattan star. Warhol was Madison Avenue’s most decorated illustrator, celebrated for his witty I. Miller shoe ads in The New York Times — line drawings embellished with gold leaf and hand lettering.…

There has been a quiet shift this year. After several seasons of color changes, hype pieces and endless collaborations, watchmaking has taken a deep breath. The focus is back where it belongs: on the craft itself. Proper watchmaking has never been about nostalgia. It is about respect for the ideas and the people who shaped the industry. Progress means nothing without that foundation. The best watchmakers today understand this balance. They are moving the craft forward by returning to what made it special in the first place. Audemars Piguet’s RD#5 is a perfect example (page 208). It is a watch that pushes technical boundaries while remaining completely in tune with the brand’s heritage. The Research and Development series has always been where AP experiments, but every new idea still feels…

When WatchTime New York debuted in 2015, few could have predicted how profoundly it would reshape the American watch scene. A decade later, the event has evolved into a cornerstone of the collector calendar and the heartbeat of what is now New York Watch Week. Rather than viewing the satellite fairs as rivals, WatchTime’s organizers see them as validation: proof that watch culture in the United States has matured, diversified and found its own rhythm. Back at Gotham Hall for its 10th edition this October, WatchTime New York drew a record 2,700 visitors over three days, reaffirming its place as the point where enthusiasts, brands and media converge. The atmosphere was one of engagement rather than showmanship. Collectors moved easily from booth to booth, chatting with watchmakers and CEOs, comparing…

Tucked inside a private game room at Hudson Yards, Indies.NYC turned five hours of New York Watch Week into one of its liveliest nights. More than 350 collectors, friends of the independents, and watchmakers themselves filled the space in a hidden bowling lounge recast as a creative salon where culture and craftsmanship collided. The idea behind Indies.NYC was never to build another fair. Its founder, Belgian collector Jon Cruys, who spent 13 years in China before co-founding RedBar Shanghai, calls it “a passion project that champions independent watchmaking and the people behind it.” Now dividing his time between Switzerland and New York, Cruys is joined by co-founders Niu-Niu, Marie Ansel and James Kong (@Waitlisted), each of them an active part of the city’s collector community. This edition marked a change…

In a world of instant gratification, there are some things that demand time to make them happen — with no shortcuts allowed. We all know what that’s like in the watch world where, even if you get an allocation from one of the greats, be it Rexhep Rexhepi, Kari Voutilainen or Simon Brette, you know you’re going to be waiting for a few years until your watch is finally ready. In the restomod Porsche world, Rod Emory of Emory Motorsports is that craftsman. When I met Rod Emory back in 2017 and looked at his restomodded Porsche 356 builds, I knew these cars were special. As a Porsche collector, the desire for a 356 of some sort has always been strong. Images of cruising a long-forgotten era of 1950s Los…

The watch industry loves an anniversary — and for good reason. Much like the watches we all love, these celebrated days mark not only the history of where a brand has come from, but also brings into focus all that lies ahead. This past September, at an intimate cocktail hosted at a trendy speakeasy in NYC, Swiss Made watch brand Vieren celebrated its five-year anniversary. Founder and CEO Jess Chow was joined by Creative Director Sunny Fong and friends of the brand to toast the achievement. On display were limited edition watches created to celebrate the occasion. Cased in the brand’s signature stainless steel rectangular case, five unique examples of the OG Automatic White have been created in collaboration with different artists from around the world. These watches each encapsulate…

It’s tempting to imagine Hermès’ métiers d’art work as something newly discovered — a sudden flourish of artistic whimsy in an industry too often bound by tradition. But in truth, Hermès has been playing this tune for years, refining its approach to artisanal craft until it became less a showcase than a state of mind. Arceau On Air!, created to celebrate the maison’s new Nashville boutique, is simply the latest riff on a lyrical expression of playfulness, precision and pure creative joy. At first glance, the watch could be mistaken for a visual pun: four guitars strumming across a dial that looks suspiciously like a vinyl record. But look again. Beneath the humor lies a breathtaking feat of craftsmanship. The dial, rendered in sapphire, has been pad-printed with fine grooves,…

When the world’s environmental leaders gathered in New York this autumn for Climate Week, few expected one of the most striking statements to come not from a politician or an activist, but from a Swiss watchmaker. Yet it was at the United Nations headquarters that ID Genève unveiled the SDG Limited Edition, the first timepiece officially created in partnership with the UN and dedicated to its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The launch placed Swiss watchmaking on an entirely new stage. ID Genève, founded in 2020 and already a certified B Corp, has built its reputation on uniting traditional craftsmanship with circular design. But unveiling a watch at the UN during Climate Week elevated that mission to the global level. As the brand’s CEO and Co-Founder Nicolas Freudiger put it, the…

Rectangular watches have always existed slightly in the margins. They appeal to people who think about design rather than decoration and those who prefer proportion and restraint over impact and size. Frederique Constant’s Carrée has occupied that quiet corner of the market for more than two decades, never trend-led enough to be hyped, never irrelevant enough to disappear. The new Classics Carrée Moonphase Automatic continues that slow, steady evolution. It is a modest update rather than a reinvention, but one that raises some interesting questions about how the brand sees itself. The Carrée has always been Frederique Constant’s most stylistically articulate watch. When it appeared in the early 2000s, it was an outlier: rectangular, polished, faintly Deco and unapologetically formal, at a time when the world wanted dive bezels and…

Mo Coppoletta is, to me, best described as a design polymath. If he had lived in the Stone Age, his self-made edged tools would somehow be imbued with a streamlined architectural beauty, his loin cloth fashioned with a nonchalant élan that others would not possess, leaving them to only marvel slack-jawed at his ineffable sense of style — such is his capacity to remake the objects around him according to his extraordinary aesthetic sensibility. You know that line in Martin Scorsese’s film The Departed, when Frank Costello, portrayed by Jack Nicholson, says, “I don’t want to be a product of my environment; I want my environment to be a product of me.” That’s my friend Mo Coppoletta. While he has his roots in tattooing, based on his extraordinary design talents,…

Cheryl Chia One of the greatest technical minds in luxury watch journalism today, Cheryl Chia is a renowned watch writer and Revolution’s Technical Editor with a deep interest in independent watchmaking, movement engineering and decoration. Contrary to popular sentiment, she believes that watches can be assessed objectively in terms of complexity, quality and finishing. Israel Ortega Israel Ortega is the Editor-in-Chief of Revolution Mexico and Latin America editions, and has been chronicling the region’s vibrant watch culture since 2016. He is a fan of independent brands and unique complications, but he believes that a classic chronograph is all one truly needs. Music and sports infuse his storytelling. From bold timepieces to eclectic beats, Israel looks to capture the essence of Latin style. Troy Barmore Until recently the Content and Community…

It felt almost inevitable when the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie (FHH) finally brought its Watch Forum to New York City. After years of expanding its cultural reach beyond Switzerland, the FHH chose New York Watch Week for its first transatlantic edition, hosting the summit high above the Hudson at Glasshouse Chelsea. Nearly 300 collectors, journalists and industry figures gathered for a day that felt equal parts symposium and reunion. The FHH’s 20th anniversary gave the occasion an extra layer of reflection and a chance to look at what fine watchmaking has been, and what it might yet become. Switzerland’s Consul General, Ambassador Niculin Jäger, opened the day with a reminder of the enduring link between Swiss craft and American curiosity. His point was simple but resonant: this wasn’t a…

It begins not with a tick, but with a gesture. Beneath a vast glass dome painted with constellations that filled the sky on September 17, 1755, a bronze figure awakens. The Astronomer raises an arm to the heavens, traces the curve of the Moon, then slowly points to the hours and minutes suspended in the air. Music swells — composed by Woodkid, mechanical yet lyrical — and for a moment, the entire mechanism feels alive. This is La Quête du Temps, Vacheron Constantin’s extraordinary creation for its 270th anniversary. Not a watch. Not simply a clock. But something beyond category: an object that fuses philosophy, mechanics and art in a single, towering presence. THE CONTINUITY OF A QUEST Marking 270 years is no small milestone, and Vacheron Constantin has chosen…

When Apollo 8 became the first manned spacecraft to orbit the Moon in 1968, the world watched as Commander Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders disappeared beyond radio contact — Lovell signing off with the immortal words: “We’ll see you on the other side.” These were the first humans to leave orbit with an Omega Speedmaster strapped on each of their wrists, and they returned after a flawless flight, paving the way for the success of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. More than half a century later, Omega continues to capture both the romance and the rigor of space travel, this time with updated proportions and finishes to the Speedmaster Dark and Gray Side of the Moon series. NEW SPEEDMASTERS IN CERAMIC Ceramic has always been central to the…

The sleek new G-STEEL GST-B1000 is the latest step in the evolution of a watch like no other. The G-Shock was conceived in the early 1980s by a young Casio engineer obsessed by durability. The results changed the concept of how durable a watch could be. The G-Shock has since developed into a whole range of shapes and sizes with a full range of modern functionality, all built around a core of ruggedness. Like a lot of good things, the G-Shock came about by accident. Kikuo Ibe dropped a beloved watch and was dismayed to see it smash to pieces on the floor. The watch was not expensive, but it had belonged to his father, so it was of great sentimental value. Ibe’s sadness at the break was tempered by…

What Fam Al Hut has accomplished is nothing short of extraordinary. In my view, the rise of the brand marks a defining moment that firmly puts China on the map for haute horlogerie. Among a new generation of independent watchmakers, its ascent is especially significant. Given the country’s immense capabilities in precision engineering, abundant talent and deep pool of resources, I’ve always believed it has the potential to become a true watchmaking superpower. And I had the great privilege of witnessing this milestone come to life. But before diving into Fam Al Hut’s first watch, it’s important to understand the people behind the brand — the visionaries whose story led to this breakthrough. THE FOUNDERS Known by their first names — Lukas, Dai and Zoe — the founders of Fam…

NEW: AUDEMARS PIGUET ROYAL OAK PERPETUAL CALENDAR As Christmas draws near, there’s one watch that has eclipsed everything else on my wish list — the new 38mm Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar in steel (Ref. 26684ST.OO.1356ST.01), fitted with the Caliber 7136. It is derived from the landmark Caliber 7138, in which all calendar indications could be fully and independently adjusted via the crown. Perpetual calendars have always been magnificent in theory but exasperating in practice, with adjustments typically requiring a stylus to prod at multiple recessed pushers scattered around the caseband. There have been several perpetual calendar mechanisms over the years that can be entirely adjusted by the crown and can be set forwards and backwards. Yet these systems came with their own frustrations. If the watch had stopped for any…