At the Bench With Remy Cools
Independent watchmaker Remy Cools and his first and currently only employee, Clémence Thériat, interviewed by Business Insider in a video that provides an insightful look inside his atelier as well as some of the processes and approaches that he and Thériat apply in crafting the tourbillon wristwatches he designed.
Antoine Simonin Has Passed Away
Co-founder of the Watchmakers of Switzerland Training and Education Program (WOSTEP) and arguably the world's most pre-eminent publisher and purveyor of horological books, Antoine Simonin has had an indelible and far-reaching impact on the world of horology.
Digital portrait by Jon Edwards, based on a photograph from Editions Simonin
Clarity Over Complication
Arnaud Chastaingt, Director of the Chanel Watchmaking Creation Studio, in conversation with Hervé Borne of Worldtempus:
There’s nothing worse than going round in circles with your so-called DNA and constantly reliving the past. This attitude shows a lack of respect. Freedom of creation was always one of Gabrielle Chanel’s primary values. You can’t dwell on the past; it doesn’t work. Goethe’s phrase: “Make a better future with the expanded elements of the past” is an excellent summary.
CPO Pilot Program Off Course
Rob Corder reporting for WatchPro finds Rolex ADs reticent to fully embrace new Rolex Certified Pre-owned Program.
At the end of the day, retailers sending timepieces serviced by their in-house technicians to be certified by Rolex is an expensive theatric that will only catch the superficial issues Corder noted—like a new crystal, crown, or bracelet.
Rolex slowly cutting off the supply of spare parts to watchmakers for service over the past quarter century while simultaneously increasing the prices they charge for service led to a massive and very lucrative gap that Chinese, Italian, German, and American firms have come to fill. Even with an attentive eye, high magnification, and decades of experience working on the genuine article, it can be difficult to tell bona fide Rolex movement components apart from the more advanced facsimiles flooding the market without using an XRF spectrometer to fingerprint the molecular makeup of the specific alloys each component is composed of.
Being Careful With Tools
Oliver Reichenstein, of Information Architects, poses some thoughtful perspective on the tech zeitgeist in 2024:
We can just say “no thanks” to technology if it doesn’t make sense to us. New is not inevitable. New doesn’t mean need.
We can be both critical and appreciative of new technology without categorically accepting or rejecting it.
Knowing what you want doesn’t mean that you don’t “get it”.
Being careful with tools, new and old, still makes a lot of sense.
Luxury That Loves Discipline
Shriya Zamındar, reporting for Vogue India, pays a visit to Rado's watch manufacturing facilities in Switzerland:
The brand uses raw materials like tiny globules of clay, which then go to through different stages of heating, cooling and compression to form a watch’s skeleton.
The recipes of the secret sauce for each series of ceramic watches dictate how capsules of different colours are mixed in an actual cauldron to form completely new shades. Not following the ingredient list or respecting the exact cooking time can have potentially disastrous results.
"Radium Paint Takes Its Inventor's Life"
An archival extract of the obituary for Dr. Sabin A. von Sochocky III, from page 29 of the Thursday, November 15th, 1928 edition of the New York Times.
While the none of the luminous paint his company created is functional any longer, a century onward it remains just as humanly lethal. Due to its more than 1600-year half life, the radioactive radium employed in his invention that still exists in the hands and dials of an untold number timepieces has and continues to wreak havoc and potential harm to countless lives.
Fossils of the Future
On a global scale, our economic system is predicated on a disregard for longevity, because it’s more profitable for companies to make products that die than it is to make products that last.
Tech companies would do well to take a page from the better echelons of the watch industry and bolster their service revenues with thoughtfully-designed hardware that is genuinely serviceable.
