Switzerland is still the home of the finest watches in the world. Many brands are renowned: Rolex, Patek Philippe, Chopard, and Piaget. Rather than the exuberant (or, less charitably, ostentatious) multi-feature and/or bejeweled watches, I prefer a classy, more restrained, style.
Vacheron Constantin makes an elegant minimalist design in the Patrimony.
The watch mechanism itself is only 1.64mm thick. A fantastic feat of engineering!
For years my favourite watch brand has been Blancpain. Not as plain as Vacheron Constantin's Patrimony but still understated elegance.
My favourite is the Villeret Ultraplate with Roman numerals and a date function.
If I was going to step up to more complications, I would choose the Villeret Quantième Complet with month/day/date and moon phase.
This is an interesting creation from A. Lange & Söhne of Glashütte, Germany: an analog version of a digital watch.
The various functions on a mechanical watch beyond the hands that indicate the local time are referred to in the industry as complications. The above Vacheron Constantin Ultrafine 1955 has no complications; the Blancpain Villeret Ultraplate has one and the Quantième Complet has four.
Another standard complication is the chronograph which is basically a stopwatch or timer function. Repeaters are watches that chime out the time, usually activated by a lever on the side. Watches can have dual time settings, typically with the addition of a second hour hand, set either to a selectable second time zone or to GMT as the reference. More unusual complications are a power reserve indicator, world time indicator, and the very unusual planetarium which shows the position of all the planets.
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| World Time |
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| Power reserve indicator (upper left) |
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| Planetarium |
But the king of watch complications is the Vacheron Constantin Reference 57260 with a record 57 complications! It has 2800 individual parts and took 8 years to assemble. It has two faces, one shown below. This was a bespoke watch made for a single client. The sale price was confidential, but has been estimated at about 10 million dollars.
There is another level of fine watchmaking: those discreet makers who only make a few very expensive watches per year. One of the most lauded is Philippe Dufour who makes only about 10 watches per year. When he started, his watches sold for $150,000; they now start at $600,000, and he has made only 150 watches so far. One of his early, much sought after, Grande et Petite Sonnerie models recently sold at auction for $7.63 million. Other exclusive watchmakers are Rexhep Rexhepi, Denis Flageollet, Kari Voutilainen, Sven Andersen, and F.P. Journe.
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| Philippe Dufour Grande et Petite Sonnerie | F.P. Journe Tourbillon Souverain Clr. 1403 | Kari Voutilainen Copper Observatoire |
And if you are going to have a high quality watch, why not have one of the highest quality watch straps that is available from Jean Rousseau of Paris. They have a huge selection and also do bespoke bands. With bespoke bands you get a choice of material, backing and stitching. Kirby Allison has a couple of videos on buying and using Jean Rousseau watch straps.
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| Tan leather | Semi Matte Alligator | Salmon Mustard | Burgundy leather |
