Editor’s Note
This excerpt from a longer piece reflects on the author’s formative introduction to high watchmaking, a world that has since evolved from a niche passion to a global phenomenon. It captures the enduring allure of meticulous craftsmanship.
My first deep dive into the world of watchmaking began 15 years ago, on assignment at the A. Lange & Söhne manufacture in Glashütte, Germany. Not a bad place to start, if I must say. To this day, I can still picture a craftsman at his bench, bent over the intricate engravings of a pocket watch commissioned by a prominent Japanese collector. At the time, horology connoisseurship was still a niche pursuit, far from the mainstream obsession it has become. Yet I was captivated by the incredible artistry unfolding before my eyes.
We’ve invented so many tools meant to give time back to us—email, smartphones, A.I.—yet they seem only to consume it at an increasingly frenzied pace. For all our innovations, a fascination with the slow craftsmanship of the past endures. It’s a recurring ethos shared by a number of creators in our Watches & Jewelry issue.
The thought struck me again at Watches & Wonders, the world’s largest trade show for timepieces, held this past April. I had the most enthralling conversations with the heritage directors who now take center stage at several prominent brands. They are the focus of my story “Time Keepers.”
A similar dynamic is playing out in jewelry. In “Modern Mughals,” Victoria Gomelsky spotlights Indian artisans weaving ancient traditions of pattern, color, stonecutting, and goldsmithing into beguiling contemporary creations. Many have ventured westward, opening salons in London, Los Angeles, and beyond. But no matter how global their reach, their work invariably circles back to the East—where deep roots give their boldest, most future-looking expressions authentic resonance.
Van Cleef & Arpels, meanwhile, showcases its dual mastery of both jewelry and watchmaking with the Brassée de Lavande clock, featured in Genius at Work. Part of the brand’s Extraordinary Objects collection, it revives the centuries-old art of automatons—once the playthings of royalty—through the virtuosity of Switzerland’s finest stonecutters, gem setters, enamelers, and clockmakers. These works are so rare that the last time I encountered anything as spectacular was in the vitrines of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.
Beyond tiny treasures, large-scale projects are also channeling old-school aesthetics while driving fresh ideas forward. In “New Jewels for Boating’s Crown,” Michael Verdon explores makers such as Riva and J Craft, whose retro-styled runabouts and speedboats marry midcentury glamour with state-of-the-art marine technology. And in Burgundy, where wine and time are forever entwined, Mark Ellwood visits Château de la Commaraine. There, couple Denise Dupré and Mark Nunnelly are breathing new life into a vineyard and its surrounding 12th-century castle—once the stomping grounds of Victor Hugo and King Louis XV.
Time is life’s great magician. Some quantum physicists even argue that it may be nothing more than an illusion—a construct of humanity. Yet here on Earth, we must understand where we’ve been and where we are in order to see how far we’ve come. Should we move forward? Look back? Live in the present? I would argue that to succeed as a luxury brand today, you must delicately exist in all three at once. To be, in a word, timeless.
Enjoy the issue.