The End Of An Era

Very rarely do I write about particular people in the watch industry because of the dirty politics associated with it, but this time around it’s for a different reason. I don’t know how many of you like the brand Corum, but even though I would personally rather wear a Casio G-Shock with a smelly Velcro strap, it has always had it’s own niche of dedicated collectors. They have been Fine Swiss Watch Makers since 1955. The man responsible for taking the brand to new heights was none other than Severin Wunderman. Severin was an absolute legend in the industry and very well respected. He had a vision, a very rare passion and his outlook on life was anything but conservative. He lead the most interesting life, till it sadly came to a screeching halt when he died of a stroke on June 25TH 2008. He was 69 years old. Severin had a long stint of success starting in 1972 when he was given the liscence to produce Gucci watches by the Gucci family. Severin was able to produce these timepieces under his own company Severin Montres Limited, for a good twenty-five years. This relationship was eliminated by The Gucci Group in the late nineties because they wanted to regain control and produce their own watches like happy little fascists, that didn’t really matter because they are still god awful and no one likes them except women dancing around a pole.

Even though this long relationship came to an end, Severin made good, because in 2000 he bought Corum SA, and has since increased it’s distribution from Zero to almost 200 points of sale in the US market alone. The brand went from a stodgy old coin watch to their iconic identity with the infamous bubble watches which became their bread and butter staples. These limited edition Bubbles also were done in the name of charity, when Corum SA donated the proceeds of a quarter of a million dollars of sales to the Victims families of the Sept 11 twin tower attacks in 2001. These limited edition bubbles had dials of the American Flag and the caseback representing the pride of America. His charity also spread further with more personal issues as he was battling lung cancer, where he donated millions to cancer research. Severin always had his own unique flair, incorporating skulls into his bubble watches making them limited with crazy packaging and being ahead of their time in such a stuffy traditional industry.

Today, Severin’s son Michael Wunderman who was the President of Montres Corum, has returned to California and become the President of Corum USA, as of this past January. He has been a pillar of strength to Severin over the years, and even with the horrific tragedy of his fathers death, he plans to carry out his fathers vision in his own unique way. His involvement over the past 10 years in Switzerland, home of watchmaking has been one of the key factors in catapulting the success of the brand from a global perspective. With the reconstruction of the Admirals Cup two years ago, the brand has been reinvented making a hearty masculine watch with creativity, passion and watchmaking as the future new icon of Corum.

For the US market, Corum is lauching the Admirals Cup Challenge Black Flag, which will be a 100 piece limited edition that will be unveiled November 20TH, 2008. This is a watch I wouldn’t mind wearing for the day. The case is a staggering 48 mm octagonal shape, and is constructed out of black titanium with a rubber bezel, the dial is black and coated with blue superluminova for the ultimate black rebel aesthetic. The functions include a three register chronograph with bold Arabic numerals, a semicircle seamless integrated date wheel in between the three o’clock and six o’clock chronograph registers, and a 24 mm black rubber strap that you could whip anyone’s ass with. The movement is just as solid as the the housing, which is an automatic chronometer COSC certified Corum caliber CO753 movement. As much as this year was the end of an era for Corum, this is the start of new brand that has one hell of a platform to grow from!

pic courtesy of www. corum.com

Talk About Product Placement!

If your as much of a fan of the show Entourage like me, you pay attention. This show from day one has been very addictive, and leaves you wanting more every time. The product placement on the show has been just as outstanding. I mean you have seen everything, from the finest cars, to the finest women, suits and ready to wear and now the finest watches in the world. Yesterday, On episode 5 of season 7, it was very clear that Audemars Piguet became just as much of a character as the lead, Vinny Chace. I don’t know about all of you, but one of the main reasons I watch the show is because of Ari Gold, played by actor Jeremy Piven. He keeps the show light and makes you wet yourself with laughter every time.

In particular, The AP Royal Oak Offshore Chrono in solid 18k yellow gold which I find very tacky and kind of repulsive, was in one of the main scenes of the show. Ari, walks into his office already wearing a stainless steel AP Royal Oak Offshore, there is a box on his desk with Audemars Piguet written on it, and he opens it and there was the solid 18k gold version. Aside from being in the show and mentioned ,the person who gifted it to Ari Gold referred to it as “possibly the finest timepiece known to man”. I don’t know how much Audemars Piguet spent to have this kind of testimonial, but I am sure it wasn’t cheap. It shows you that today, watches are on the forefront and a force to reckon with. I mean come on I am writing about it. It’s one thing to have a mention or an appearance, but to write a show around it, just shows the strength of how watches have become the ultimate status symbol of wealth and power.

pic courtesy of http://www.hbo.com

Albert Einstein Resurrected at Antiquorum

Albert Einstein was one of the rarest phenomenon’s the world has ever seen. He is best known for his scientific discoveries, namely his theory of relativity. He is revered as the Genius God Father of physics by geeks all around the world, and in 1999 he was haled by Time Magazine as “Person of the Century”. Even though he has been deceased for 53 years, his spirit and legacy lives on. You may ask yourself, how the hell does this relate to watches?

Well, On October 16Th,2008 Antiquorum had yet another absolutely record breaking auction in NYC. I mean with the way the current state of affairs is with the global economy, that is quite and outstanding feat. Of course Patek Philippe made history by selling a Ref 2499 Yellow Gold first series made in 1956, for over one and a half million dollars. So Patek still proves to be the legendary auction champion, by outdoing themselves every time. However, The hero, The excitement that stole the show was a Longines watch made in 1930 and presented to Professor Albert Einstein on February 16, 1931 in Los Angeles. This very unique specialty piece broke two records, First for a time only watch and Second for Longines. This watch went for five hundred and ninety six thousand dollars which is a record breaking estimated 2,000 percent of it’s original value.

The watch is nothing to really right home about. It is very simple and classic. The watch in my estimation is anywhere between a 32 mm to 34 mm in case size. So it was quite small. The case is a touneau shaped gold filled case, manual wind, white Arabic dial, which has a very nice patina from the age of the watch. The strap is a dark brown calf strap that looks completely war distressed which gives it incredible character.

This certainly proves that in an economy worse than the great depression, watches are still absolutely most sought after, and the spirit of Albert Einstein lives on by being resurrected and making history at Antiquorum.

pic courtesy of http://www.google.com
watch pic courtesy of http://www.antiquorum.com

IWC Goes Hollywood!

Hello People,
I have a little bit of a dilemma with regards to one of my favorite brands, IWC. The brand has done wonders the last couple of years because of their commitment to innovation, design, craftsmanship and loyalty to their own DNA, there is no doubt about that. The cool factor of this brand has always been their exclusivity with their retail partners and their low production numbers of incredible product. It seems in this economy where people are struggling to keep their homes, pay for their groceries and economize on filling up their cars at the pump because of the high gas prices, IWC is opening a boutique in Beverly Hills even though it’s really not the best time to do so. To be honest I really am in two minds about this because to be fair, the demand for the brand has gone through the roof, as the “it” brand to have.

I guess, I just never pictured them in Beverly Hills, regardless of how the economy is doing. Typically, when brands showcase boutiques like this, it serves as a billboard to enforce the message of brand awareness. I have seen IWC in it’s infancy, and the watch purest part of me says stay exclusive, don’t grow too quickly because of greed, but the business side of me feels that the demand is there, and the brand is hotter than ever, so why not highlight the brand in one of the most famous, affluential areas in the world. The flipside to all this is, that by having a boutique like this, it will drive the business of their retail partners and become a destination for IWC enthusiasts all around the world.

I don’t know if any of you out there are familiar with the TV show Gossip Girl? I hate to admit it, but I can’t get enough of it. It’s on Mon nights on the CW. This week on the show, one of the main lead characters Nate Archibald, played by Chace Crawford was wearing the current IWC Big Pilot Watch in stainless steel. In real life he is twenty three, but on the show he plays a very rich spoiled 18 year old on the upper east side. I just found it weird that the dude was going to Yale for first round admissions and The Big Pilot got as much camera time as he did. Thank Christ he wasn’t wearing the transitional movement with original dial, otherwise I might have sharted.

I don’t know if this was IWC’s effort to get product placement and attract the 18 somethings or the product placement people on the show, but it just didn’t feel right. Don’t get me wrong either way it’s great for IWC because the desired effect was accomplished, but these things are tricky, I almost felt like it didn’t do justice to the Big Pilot, which is supposed to be impossible to get. It has always been that real man’s watch which is so highly sought after. In my opinion, it would have been better suited on David Duchovny on Californication, which would have exuded understated elegance like it is suppose to. That’s the problem I have with watches and celebrities. Unless, it’s the right fit it can look like shit and not send out the right message. It seems from the way things are going of late, IWC has changed it’s marketing stance from that cool underground exclusive brand for that everyday man, to going to the “in” Hollywood watch!

pic courtesy of http://www.cw.com

IT’s About Time For A Lawsuit!

We place so much importance on making celebrities practically invincible. Whether we try to emulate them by their hairstyles, what clothes they have on, or by watch they are wearing. To often then not, celebrities are in a super league that seams so unattainable to the rest of us. As as result, these celebrities are given privileges which have no merit. In the last ten years it is quite evident that the watch companies have jumped on the bandwagon of having celebrities endorse their products in exchange for multimillion dollar deals. The only problem is, that very few of these celebrities actually keep their end of the bargain, because they are to busy playing the role of GOD in their own minds. Sad really, I mean bloody hell, these celebs are making upwards of twenty million a picture, on top of that they are getting millions to wear some of the finest products in the world and they can’t even pretend that they like it. Shit, if I signed a multimillion dollar contract to wear something I didn’t like, I would have to bite the bullet and do it. You see that’s the problem, these celebs are so greedy that they don’t know what the F they are doing.

This is the case with Oscar winning actress Charlise Theron. She is such a beautifully gifted actress, and because she can’t stick to a frigging contract, she is being sued by Raymond Weil for twenty million dollars. Look, to be fair, Raymond Weil would not be my watch drug of choice to endorse, because they are tacky and a very tired eightees/ninetees brand that has very much has lost their identity, but this time around, Miss Theron is about to get what she deserves. As part of her contract it states that she needs to be only wearing this watch around the clock. She fail do so and she is feeling the sting. In February of this year, Miss Theron tried to fight back. It appears that according to new documentation, she has been ordered by New York federal court to show up at the end of October, to engage in these legal proceedings.

So People, the message should be loud and clear for celebs and the watch industry, even though it may look glamorous and make business sense to have oscar winners endorsing luxury products, make sure you don’t do business if your not going to suck it up and play the game, otherwise ” I Fought the Law and the Law Won”

pic courtesy of http://www.raymondweil.ch

Black Power!

I have to admit, in life as much as there are subtle shades of grey, it is primarily a black and white world. Black, a color that is timeless, evoking the spirit of serious, masculine, bold and iconic with that subtle hint of sod off! That’s what I like about it, that as much as people perceive it in many different ways, it is what it is and always stays powerful and timeless. OK, I know enough with my synopsis on the color black, right? Well, in the last five years black has been the over powering color used primarily in men’s watch cases. All over the world, in many different brands, whether it is a couple hundred dollars to over a hundred thousand dollars, this aesthetic has been used to capture the essence of the everyday man.

Who would ever have thought that even the big boys, the masters of complications would ever experiment with this sort of look? but shit it is happening everyday, and for the first time it is happening to one of my favorite brands, Jaquet Droz. The brand of late has been up and down like an erection for the last few years. This jolt has created a surge for this prestigious brand who are known for their very well finished movements alongside their magnificent dial work to combine homage to the 1784 Geneva collection, and at the same time stay relevant today.

This bad boy is made out of high-tech ceramic, and measures 44 mm in case diameter, the movement is the automatic Jaquet Droz caliber 4063D with 30 jewels and a power reserve of 68 hours which is indicated in red almost like a fuel gauge located on the left hand side of the dial. This dial is jet black like the black ceramic case, with the hours and minutes displayed in white roman numerals overlapping into the second subdial displaying seconds with Arabic numerals 10,20,30,40 and 50 in white with white indices markers in between for the rest of the numerals. The red second hand gives life to this very stealth dial, and the overlapping subdials making the number 8 is a reference to how the number eight is an auspicious number in the Chinese culture for health,prosperity and fortune, which has become the symbolic icon of Jaquet-Droz brand identity. The high grade rubber strap has a PVD coated steel deployant buckle for that last bit of technical durability.

To be honest, I am really fascinated, where in a world of conservative stuffy snobbery, such a well respected brand has chosen to go bold, stay true to their identity, and re-surge by making a statement of NOW, by making good use of the power of black!

pic courtesy of www. jaquet-droz.com