MeetThe Twelve 660 DLC.A 6.6mmpro lemeans it’s (almost) unnoticeable under a dinner suit cu . But wearing a Diamond-LikeCarbon(600 Vickers) matt-jetcoat, it’s sartorially appropriate if your formal is black T-shirt and jeans.
Do your research
christopherward.com
I’ve always been a sucker for a dive watch. Not because I’m a diver – except on the football eld – but because there’s something about the aesthetic I love. So when I was told about the new Sealander Extreme GMT, I knew this was going to be something special. How special will become clear when you read Matt Bielby’s in-depth article on page 14. Rugged but sophisticated, luminous but moody, the Sealander Extreme GMT is an instant classic.
If your tastes are more haute horlogerie, you’re going to love our Atelier collection, which brings together our most advanced watches – including two new stunning pieces. Read about it on page 34.
Away from watches, we’ve got an incredible photo story that takes us back to 1980s London, a history of the pop group logo and an interview with Everton manager, David Moyes.
Enjoy the issue!
Editor: Anthony Teasdale
Art Director: Jamie Gallagher
Designer: Sam Burn
It’s fair to say 2025 has been an exciting and challenging year for Christopher Ward in equal measure. The C12 Loco burst onto the scene to great acclaim in April, immediately becoming a huge success with watch commentators and CW-lovers alike. The recognition of a prestigious GPHG award nomination (we’ll nd out if we’ve won in November) is just reward for a watch that is, arguably, our nest to date.
And it’s not only our product teams that have shown their mettle this year. The work of the nance and logistics teams allowed us to roll back the largest part of the tari s imposed by the US administration on all things Swiss, keeping our world-leading value position intact.
And now we’re launching the Sealander Extreme GMT, soon to be followed by two incredible additions to our Atelier collection, which we believe cements our position as probably the leading exponent of luminosity in watches. Not only interesting and challenging times then, but also highly illuminating ones!
Mike & Peter
The new Christopher Ward showroom at Everton’s Hill Dickinson stadium is open – and it’s every bit as good as we thought it would be.
Located in a premium social space, 53° North – named after the stadium’s latitude – the showroom provides a calm, clublike setting for CW customers to try on our watches. It’s also the rst watch showroom in a sports stadium in the world.
“The result is something new – a worldrst, and yes, a little bit bonkers – but in the best way,” says CW CEO & co-founder, Mike France. “It’s authentic, inclusive and full of character, which is what Christopher Ward is all about.”
As well as operating as a watch showroom, 53° North becomes a sleek dining room on match days. On the walls, you’ll nd artwork inspired by Everton’s history, Swiss horology and Liverpool’s seafaring heritage.
The showroom – the second in the UK – opens up the CW personal shopping experience to customers in the midlands and north of England who can’t make it to the showroom in the Maidenhead HQ. “It’s about accessibility,” says Peter Ellis, co-founder of Christopher Ward. “And bringing the personal watch-buying experience to those who’ve never tried it before.”
At the heart of the space are showroom manager, Neil Greig, and assistant manager, Dom Woo. Neil has worked in luxury retail for over a decade, specialising in the upper tiers of horology, while Dom is a watch expert with a decade in the industry who understands the needs of both experienced and new customers.
Appointments are available now. There’s free, secure parking and a chance to see the new Dan Meis-designed Hill Dickinson stadium in real life.
Visit christopherward.com/ everton-showroom
Christopher Ward has announced a partnership with Charlton Athletic, the south-east London football club who play in the Championship, the second tier of English football. The deal will see Christopher Ward’s logo on the shirt sleeves of players and at locations around the club’s stadium, The Valley.
Charlton Athletic were formed in 1905, and won the FA Cup in 1947, while the wom-
en’s team were Women’s FA Cup Winners in 2005. The club has a long tradition of fan involvement and community support.
“What sets us apart is our deep connection to its community,” says Alice Larkworthy from Charlton. “Supporters have shaped the club’s story, most notably ghting to bring the team back to the club’s historic stadium, The Valley, after years in exile. That same spirit of resilience and unity de nes Charlton today. Charlton Athletic Community Trust continues to deliver outstanding work locally, while the club’s academy develops some of the brightest young talents in the game.”
Christopher Ward is already the Global Timing Partner for Everton Football Club in the English Premier League. This move will expose the company to a wider audience and align with a club that shares the company’s values.
“At Christopher Ward, we believe in authenticity and community,” says chief operating o cer Sarah Baumann. “That’s why the partnership with Charlton is the perfect t. The story of how the fans took the club back to The Valley resonates with us, as does the work of Chalrton’s Community Trust.”
Christopher Ward has o cially opened its second showroom in the US: this time in Falls Church, Virginia – a few miles west of Washington DC.
As with the rst American showroom in Frisco, Texas – the Virginia venue will provide a chic but welcoming space to try on our watches.
“We’re absolutely thrilled to be opening a second US showroom after the success of our rst in Frisco,” says Mike Pearson, North American brand director. “Falls Church feels special to me, as one of the rst events I hosted for Christopher Ward took place in this building.”
The site was chosen because of its proximity to Washington DC and the amount of watch-lovers in the area. “There are some fantastic watch communities across DC, Maryland and Virginia,” says Mike. “With Jason joining us as showroom manager, we can’t wait to welcome everyone into this beautiful new space.”
As with other Christopher Ward showrooms, you’ll be able to book an appointment with one of our friendly experts, who’ll take you through the CW collection with no hard sell, so you get a watch you’re delighted with.
Visit christopherward.com/ showroom-us-virginia
Christopher Ward’s 2 for GOOD has made its rst inroad into the USA by becoming a partner of Shields & Stripes, a US charity that provides “veterans and rst responders with world-class support to heal both visible and invisible wounds”.
According to Shields & Stripes, the charity is “a transformative mental and physical wellness program that delivers holistic care, aiming to restore lives and create a ripple e ect that bene ts families and communities”. There are also plans for S&S events in our US showrooms.
A vital element of what Christopher Ward does is supporting the watchmaking talent of tomorrow, so the company director was delighted when CW supply chain manager Paul Wright was asked to join the judging panel for Primary Engineer’s, ‘If you were an engineer, what would you do?’ competition held at Kingston University in August.
Primary Engineer, an initiative supported by Christopher Ward, aims to encourage children to engage with engineering and technology. School pupils from across London presented their engineering solutions to real-world problems, with winning designs also developed into prototypes by university students.
Closer to home, Christopher Ward recently hosted Tim and Dom from the Friends of Maidenhead Waterways group and agreed to fund a new boat that will allow the volunteers to work on restoring the local waterways. CW are also encouraging sta to use their volunteering days to help the group with the restoration work.
Roger W. Smith, Britain's world-renowned watchmaker – and co-founder of the Alliance of British Watch and Clock
Makers – has won one of horology’s most prestigious awards, the Gaïa Prize.
The Gaïa Prize was created in 1993 by the Musée international d’horlogerie in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland
“to honour individuals who have contributed, or are contributing, to the renown of watchmaking”.
Roger won the Craftsmanship & Creation award, and was introduced
to the audience by CW CEO, and another Alliance co-founder, Mike France. The museum said Roger was given the prize for “his unwavering commitment to craftsmanship in watchmaking and for his role as an ambassador for the independent British watchmaking tradition”.
Originally from Bolton, Roger Smith creates exquisite one-o watches from his workshop in the Isle of Man. He was legendary watchmaker George Daniels’s only apprentice and uses the famous Daniel’s Method to make his own timepieces. This means that Roger has mastered all 34 disciplines that a horologist must have to produce a timepiece entirely on his own.
When it comes to US naval aviation events, ‘Hook’ in Reno is the biggest and best.
The event, organised by the Tailhook Education Foundation, a non-pro t organisation that provides scholarships to the children and grandchildren of US Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard personnel.
For the second year running Christopher Ward was present, with our Bespoke department connecting with sta explaining to visitors how they can create custom watches for their squadrons.
“We had an incredible experience at Tailhook again,” says Bespoke’s Beckie Murray. “The brand was received exceptionally well by both exhibitors and attendees, and what stood out was the growing recognition of Christopher Ward. It was fantastic to meet customers who already have watches on order, those currently with designs in progress, and to introduce the world of Christopher Ward Bespoke to many who hadn’t yet discovered it. Seeing their excitement at the possibilities for their own squadrons was a highlight for me.”
If you’d like our Bespoke department to create a unique watch for you, search ‘Bespoke’ on the CW website
James McVey
Guitarist of The Vamps, James McVey is a proud Christopher Ward fan. Here he talks about the place of watches and guitars in his life, and what happens when those two worlds meet
Hi James! Tell us about your love a air with watches
I’ve been into them since 2017. My wife’s dad had been collecting watches for 20 years, and was a CW fan. From the o , he liked micro and indie brands as much as well-known companies. My rst watch was the Rolex Submariner, it’s brilliant and amazing, but I sold it in 2017 and bought a 1968 GMT Master – the original ‘root beer’.
What about Christopher Ward?
My father-in-law had a few CW watches which I borrowed. But the rst I owned was the Bel Canto that I worked on. As a musician, I thought the sound element to the Bel Canto was interesting. I was pally with Patrick [Gilbertson (CW’s PR manager] and asked if I could borrow a Bel Canto for the ‘10 Years of The Vamps’ concert at the Albert Hall. Afterwards, I sent a message to Mike France, asking if he’d consider working on a unique piece with the dial based on one of our guitars, a Gibson 339. He did, and in return, I gave CW the Gibson to hang in the o ce.
For good?
Well, If I ever own a big house, I’ll have it back!
You also own a Loco…
I was very fortunate to be aware The Loco was coming. That’s why I love CW, they listen to their fanbase. I thought it was a positive evolution of the brand. A six-day power reserve, open balance wheel for £4,000 was amazing. I took one on a trip to New York and people were blown away.
What’s happening with The Vamps?
We’re on a hiatus at the moment. We signed a ve album deal in 2012, released the last one in 2020. We did a one-o tour last year, and over the next couple of years, we’ll come up with something.
Are you missing it?
We now own our music, but we’ve coasted a bit. I like having someone cracking the whip. To be fair, putting out ve albums in ve and half years was intense. While I’ve been doing solo stu , I prefer being with a band.
Finally, what’s your favourite venue?
The Manchester Apollo. My family is from the north-west, and dad saw the big bands of the era there. We did three nights there last year and it was incredible. The oor slopes. It’s hot, sweaty and loud. It’s the essence of what live music should be!
Twenty years of the best place to talk about CW
Christopher Ward’s forum celebrates its 20th anniversary this December.
Founded by Dutch watch a cionado Hans van Hoogstraten in 2006, it has provided an online space for people to talk about Christopher Ward ever since. From the start, the forum has been editorially independent of the company, and users are free to say what they want about CW – good or bad. Here, head moderator Kip McEwen talks about two decades of watch chat:
“The CW forum was founded as a place to discover and discuss CW watches in a family-friendly atmosphere. It’s grown from a place to discover things about a virtually unknown brand to a full-blown horological source that still focuses on Christopher Ward.
“After being with the forum for almost 19 years I think the ‘pub’ analogy by longtime member ‘missF’ sums it up best. She likens the forum to a local bar/pub where one can chat about many things,
including CW watches. A place where you can engage with others and observe, learn and teach.
“We have regulars and those that stop by every week or so to check in and catch up. This is a place where people engage with each other, whether collectors or fans of horology. We’re far more than just wrist shots – although I’m most proud of the CW Archive, which provides a history of the brand, and that many forum members have contributed to.
“I’m also happy to have led a great team of moderators that watch over the growth of this forum. The highlight of my time has been meeting many members over the years and watching them engage with each other on a daily basis. Always welcoming newcomers into the fold and guiding them along the horological path while engaging in friendly pub-type banter. It is, without a doubt, the members that make this a great forum!”
Join the CW forum at christopherwardforum.com
Forum is Movement: energy in – out comes energy wound, stored, released, a bright escape. Enthusiasm is currency. (WHAT enthuses you is of no matter –gears, dials, history, what’s on your wrist that makes you swagger –THAT you are enthused is all that counts). Pay in a portion of your Time – joy out. tic toc tic toc
kickstart thoughts Forum is Space: a place to take whatever makes you Tick, then share and shape it a little bit. Action in – transformation out.
Patience is currency – take your Time. THAT you take up space is of no matter; HOW you ll your space is all that counts. tic toc tic toc
enhance the place you walk.
Forum is Flow: a complex gear train between my brain and yours. Good connection is currency –WHAT connects you is of no matter –THAT you make connections is all that counts.
Ask a question in – connection out. tic toc tic toc
articulate, talk I’d guess that building watches is much the same: some mix of Movement, Space and Flow. Curiosity is currency here so build where the curiosity goes. tic toc tic toc go on – keep on moving on; investigate, unlock.
– written by respected watch journalist and Loupe regular, Ken
When it comes to watchmaking expertise, few journalists come close to Ken Kessler.
For 40 years, Ken has been writing about the watch industry, highlighting the good, the bad – and the occasionally ugly.
If you’re a regular Loupe reader, you’ll be aware of his columns, which have taken in everything from the craze for cartoon dials to how the internet changed watchmaking.
Now, a selection of his articles have been updated and collated into a beautiful new book, Compendium, published by Christopher Ward – and designed by Sam Burn, Design Director at HELLO®, CW’s chosen branding agency, and the art director and designer of Loupe magazine, with 39 issues (and counting) to his name.
“In watchmaking there are three types of book,” says Ken. “Individual brand books, technical manuals – like George Daniels’ Watchmaking – and more general tomes. Compendium is the third, and it’s my intention to inform and irritate – and perhaps entertain and educate, too!”
Compendium is ideal for both the newbie and long-time collector. In it, a history of watch culture, the story of the ‘Dirty Dozen’ watches and history of the tourbillons. For those who are new to the hobby, there’s also a guide to buying your rst watch and a look at the link between bling and horology. And that’s just a small sample of the goodies inside.
“Ken is one of the best and most knowledgeable commentators about our industry. When he suggested the idea of a di erent kind of book about watches I, of course, listened. Compendium is a book of
watch lore for the enthusiast, a bedside companion you can dip into whenever it takes your fancy.”
At over 200 pages long, there’s plenty for the watch fan to get their teeth into, and because it’s the same size as Loupe, it’ll complement your back issues of the magazine. You can buy yours from Christopher Ward as well as other online retailers.
Compendium 01 is available now from the Christopher Ward website and Amazon.
Words: Matt Bielby
Over the last few years, Christopher Ward has been wowing the watch world with innovation and elegance: think the C1 Bel Canto Classic, the amazing C12 Loco, and – most recently – the ultra-thin Twelve 660. Incredible pieces, rede ning what the company can be, and what it can achieve.
But not, you might think, the foundations upon which Christopher Ward was built: great value, top-performing tool watches that are sporty, durable, water-resistant, and – for most people – entirely wearable anywhere.
Pieces like this remain the backbone of the Christopher Ward collection, but it gets really exciting when one of them does
something out of the ordinary – as with, just for instance, the watch you see here, the Sealander Extreme GMT. It’s part of the something-for-everyone Sealander range, an outdoorsy, explorer-style ‘go anywhere, do everything’ companion with specs as high performance as anyone could reasonably wish for in an everyday wearer – 150m of water resistance, a sweet-spot case size of 41mm – but with a number of unexpected extra elements.
For one, it’s a GMT, the bright orange oversized GMT hand and xed 24-hour bezel allowing you to easily monitor a second time zone. Whether you’re travelling or simply catching up with folk abroad, this is surely one of the most useful of all complications. But the second unusual addition is, if anything, even more exciting…
Last year, the C60 Trident Lumière blind-sided – and near-blinded – just about everyone with its solid Globolight® hands, logo and hour markers, using manufactur-
er Xenoprint’s ceramic Super-LumiNova blend to create great glowing blocks, and through them one of the most striking dials you’ll ever see. (Xenoprint has only three major customers – one is Christopher Ward, the second IWC and the third Patek Philippe, so you can see the company we’re keeping.)
In the daytime, the Lumière’s solid lume monoliths give it a chunky, almost futuristic 3D feel, and more of a sense of visual depth than almost any other outdoors watch. And at night it’s even more extraordinary, the dial glowing at least twice as brightly as any regular diver.
3D Globolight® indexes and applied logo
The dial glows at least twice as brightly as any regular diver
Now that same amazing lume comes to the C63 range, and it’s a revelation: no longer the pure white of the Lumière, but instead a warm, sandy tan – not exactly the classic vintage-referencing ‘fauxtina’, but heading somewhat in that direction. At night, the main hands, indexes and logo burn bright blue, while the GMT hand and 24-hour numerals around the bezel –yes, they’re Super-LumiNova® too – are a contrasting green.
Elsewhere, a low-key ruggedness abounds: think brushed surfaces to the Light-catcher™ case and a non-re ective matte nish on the xed ceramic bezel (a rst for Sealander), combined with a rough, grainy dial texture reminiscent of the non-slip surface you’d nd on the deck of a yacht. The end result is even more 3D than on the Lumière, helped by the addition of an applied chapter ring.
“This is a real ‘action hero’ of a watch,” says Mike France, co-founder and CEO of Christopher Ward. “It’s a masculine piece, and the perfect companion for the most rugged outdoor adventure.”
To this end comes a third, hidden but equally unusual component to the Extreme formula: a new rubberised anti-shock holder to keep the movement safe and secure inside the case, no matter how much high-impact bashing around you subject it to. (Hey, if you’re creating an action-man’s watch, it’s got to be able to cope with all that action.) Called a ‘rubberised movement mount’, it suspends the entire movement in a exible rubberised cage, instead of – as in most watches – xing it rigidly to the case.
“This cage acts like a shock-absorber between the movement and the outer steel case,” says Jörg Bader Jnr, head of product at Christopher Ward’s atelier in Biel, Switzerland. “In case of impact, the mount absorbs and distributes the energy, rather than letting the force go directly into the movement’s delicate components. This protects against everyday knocks, falls, and even the vibrations and G-forces of aviation.”
No watch is ever completely indestructible, but this one is built to keep ticking through the most traumatic of treatments, to the extent that even its applied indexes and Globolight® lume blocks have been forced to pass strict shock-testing.
It’s the ultimate expression of the Sealander’s civilian adventurer ethos
The result, whether on the steel Sealander bracelet or a new canvas strap (with a ‘twin ags’-engraved buckle and quick-release Velcro closing system) is a real stunner. “Few brands do this sort of quick-release Velcro strap,” says Matthew Sweatman, the junior product designer who worked on this watch alongside senior designer Will Brack eld and design director Adrian Buchmann. “There’s the Swatch/Omega MoonSwatch, but also the rari ed likes of Richard Mille. Ours is a noe ort-spared version, enjoying the style’s key virtue – that you can resize your strap for wearing outside a jacket, glove or wet suit, or close to the skin, with no e ort at all. But since it’s attached by spring bars, not a NATO strap wrapped around xed bars, it has advantages in terms of swapping with bracelets and overall thickness too.”
Actually, the watch’s overall thickness should be remarked upon: for a rugged piece like this to come in at only 11.65mm top-to-bottom is unusual, and helps wearability. A glassbox sapphire crystal comes as standard, while the Sellita SW330-2 inside has a solid 56-hour power reserve. In fact, all you have to do is choose between black or khaki-coloured dials, and the bracelet or aforementioned ultra-striking black or orange straps.
So, what exactly is this piece? No one at Christopher Ward considers it a eld watch. “Only the most foolhardy of military personnel would wear one,” Mike says, laughing. “It burns too brightly for that –you’d be spotted a mile o , trying to sneak up on an enemy position with a giant glow worm on your wrist.” Instead, it’s perhaps the ultimate expression of the Sealander’s civilian adventurer ethos, taken to a rugged, well, ‘extreme’.
“When designing it, we found ourselves playing with proportions quite radically, and the end result is very di erent to the standard Sealander,” Matt says. “The markers are bigger; so is the bezel, and the numbers protrude more. Unlike most Sealanders, it has a closed steel case back too, the deep-stamped globe you’ll nd there referencing its world-trotting utility.”
It’s a watch that combines two of the key Christopher Ward themes, being both an e cient and reliable everyday companion, and a technically remarkable ground-breaker, achieving things comparable pieces don’t even try to do. And it’s elevated above the norm by an exceptional standard of nishing throughout.
“I was on a ight recently, and found myself watching the latest Mission: Impossible lm,” says Mike. “And it occurred to me that this is perhaps the perfect Mission: Impossible watch. It’s a Tom Cruise of a watch, a Daniel Craig –or perhaps, as its accessible price point makes it the people’s action watch, a Jason Statham. It’s the Sealander – which is a do-everything piece anyway – taken to thrilling extremes.”
The Sealander Extreme GMT is available now; £1,450/ $1,995 on a bracelet or £1,300/ $1,785 on a fabric strap
Availability: Open Series
Movement: Sellita SW330-2
Dial colours: Black, Khaki
Case: Stainless Steel
Diameter: 41mm
Height: 11.65mm
Weight: 85g (on strap)
Lug to lug: 48mm
Water resistance: 15 ATM / 150m
Winding: Automatic
Power reserve: 56 hrs
Timing tolerance: +/- 20 sec p/day
Frequency: 28,800 p/hr (4Hz)
From learning his trade under Scottish football’s greatest managers to taking Everton into a new, exciting era, David Moyes remains as committed to the beautiful game as ever
David Moyes is one of the most respected managers in British football.
Born in 1963, he made 24 appearances for a title-winning Celtic side, before moving to Cambridge United, and then to Bristol City, Dunfermline and Preston North End. After retirement, Moyes became manager of Preston in 1998, leading them from Division Two (then the third tier) to the 2001 Division One (now Championship) play-o nal – which they lost 3-0 to Bolton.
Taking Preston to within 90 minutes of the Premier League raised Moyes’s pro le, and in 2002, he became Everton’s manager. He was Blues boss until 2013, when he left to join Manchester United following the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson.
After spells at Sunderland, Real Sociedad and West Ham United, where he won the 2023 UEFA Europa Conference League, Moyes has returned to Everton, the club rejuvenated by their move to the stunning new Hill Dickinson stadium.
In the summer, Christopher Ward joined Everton in Atlanta as part of the Premier League’s Summer Series. At the team’s hotel, David Moyes sat down with Christopher Ward CEO – and Everton fan – Mike France to talk about his life in football, the people who inspired him and how he’s planning to help Everton get back to the upper echelons of English football.
Mike France:Hi David! Do you like bringing Everton to the US?
David Moyes: Yeah! We used to come to the States a lot, probably before it was fashionable, but we were coming to play MLS teams, not Premier League sides. We could train the players, and then we could say to them, “Go out if you want to.” And nobody bothered us.
MF: Not many people knew the players then…
DM: Yes. So it was a little bit easier. But it's amazing how far it’s come in 10 or 15 years. They know so much more about the Premier League now.
MF: You’re quite a private person. But I’ve been doing some background investigation! Tell me about the Glasgow suburb of Bearsden
DM: We moved to Bearsden when I was about 12. My dad was a teacher, who’d previously been a pattern maker for the shipbuilding trade in Glasgow docks. Then he got a job as a college lecturer. My mum worked in a couple of clothes shops.
MF: Having a lecturer for a father is unusual for a footballer…
DM: Yeah, it was. My dad was in charge of the college football team at Anniesland College, and he also ran Drumchapel Amateurs. I found myself going to football in the morning watching Anniesland College, then Drumchapel Amateurs in the afternoon. Dad would bring the dirty strips back home, mum would wash them, then put them on the washing line. He didn’t do it for money, he did it because he loved football.
MF: What about school?
DM: I went to Bearsden Academy, which was a good school. We had a decent school team which I was involved in. I was usually the captain. I might have had a bit more to say for myself than others!
MF: You went to Celtic Boys Club. Were you set on being a footballer?
DM: I didn't really have anything else. I wasn’t hugely educated – as you can tell by my interviews over the years!
MF: You’re doing yourself down…
DM: No, I’m not. I had great teachers who were really supportive. In my nal years, before I became a full-time player with Celtic, they used to let me out on a Friday. I think the school saw there was a chance I might do something a bit ‘handy’. I also played for Scottish schoolboys, which was great, and I was building up a bit of a reputation. Celtic were a fantastic football club, brilliant people.
MF: Who was manager at the time?
DM: Billy McNeill [who’d lifted the European Cup for Celtic in 1967] was the manager. And he was very good to me. He’d been a central defender, and because I was a young central defender I related to him. He helped me a lot.
MF: There’s a surprising link between you and Iceland, isn’t there?
DM: Actually, the Westman Islands, which are just o the south coast of Iceland. My dad used to take football teams out there – he later got the Icelandic equivalent of a knighthood for this. When they came to Glasgow, my mum and a few others would
cook all the food downstairs in the kitchen. I was asked if I’d go coaching there with some kids – I’d have been about 16 – and that played a part in where I am now.
MF: That led to you taking your coaching badges early, didn’t it?
DM: I was 21. They used to send you to Largs, which is the equivalent of Saint George's Park [England team HQ]. It was run by Andy Roxburgh, who was the manager of the Scottish under-18s team, which I was captain of. I really enjoyed it. A lot of people like Sir Alex Ferguson, [ex-Dundee United manager] Jim McClean and [former Everton boss] Walter Smith gave up their time to coach the coaches.
MF: Why did you get your badges so young?
DM: I thought it would make me a better player. I left Celtic and came south into England to play. They had their own coaching courses, and I was worried they didn’t recognise the Scottish ones, so I did the English badges, too!
“You
MF: When you played football, what kind of a captain were you? Did you have a big voice?
DM: I think I did. At the time, Scotland was an aggressive coaching country. You’d look at the oor when the manager spoke because you didn’t want to catch his eye. So there was maybe a bit of that in my captaincy.
MF: Football science and management has always been of a real interest, hasn't it?
DM: Absolutely. I had a great playing career, but it wasn’t at the top, I wasn’t winning trophies. But when I went into management, I knew I was going to have to try and see if I could be better. For example, at Everton, we’d sit down every Thursday afternoon after training and sift through videos of the opposition. “What could we do to beat them up? What are they going to do to cause us problems?” Then I’d say, “What game are we going to on the way home?” And we’d drop in at the last minute. At that time, Tranmere or whatever games were on, and those
matches gave us great knowledge of the lower leagues. My style came from my early days at Celtic – you had to win, but you had to win with style.
MF: Onto the present day. Everton have got a brilliant stadium: can the fans play their part?
DM: We need the support probably as much as ever. If we don’t get ‘Goodison’ inside the ground, we might nd ourselves in di culty, so they [the fans] have to play a huge part. And we need to give them a team which they can be proud of. I’d like to see us challenging for Europe.
MF: You’ve got a unique relationship with Evertonians…
DM: My family was really embedded in Everton when I was rst here. You know, my son is here [in the US] just now. My brother was up in New York watching the games. My dad was scouting for Everton, he moved down to Preston where we were living. Obviously, I’ve had to work for other clubs, but I think if they were all being honest, my family were always Blues.
MF: Finally, how do you look at your career from now?
DM: I’ve had longevity as a Premier League manager, but I’ve not won enough trophies and I’ve not challenged for enough trophies. It hurts, it gets under your skin. In my rst time here, we had a great period of 11 years of regularly qualifying for Europe. So what we need to get back is that feeling of competing with the big sides. And I have to say, if you look at our results last year, and if we can keep that up this season, we’ll be in a very healthy position.
A
new photobook celebrates one of the nocturnal playgrounds of 1980s pop royalty – and takes us back to a time when popstars ruled the earth
They say if you can remember the ’60s you weren’t there.
The inverse is true of the 1980s. If you were around, you’ll remember everything – especially when it comes to pop music. Because pop stars were omnipresent: from Duran Duran larking about on a yacht in the video to Rio to Boy George on a TV chat show saying he preferred a cup of tea to sex (not sure what this says about the quality of ’80s tea).
As many of the megastars of the day were British, London’s clubland was a celebrity playground. And for a while, the place to go was Limelight, a nightclub that opened in 1985, housed in an abandoned 1880s church on Charing Cross Road.
Because publicity is everything, the club asked a young photographer, David Koppel, to take pictures of its famous clientele. “I said I didn’t like nightclubs, I didn’t drink, I wasn’t interested in celebrities, and I was a ‘serious’
photographer,” he says. “They said, ‘We’ll pay you for one night.’ That one night lasted a year and paved the way for a decade on Fleet Street.”
Now, Koppel’s images – all of which are black and white – have been collated in a new photobook Limelight. Here you’ll nd the likes of Boy George, the Beastie Boys, Johnny Rotten, George Michael, Kim Wilde and Billy Idol being outrageous. It’s no accident that Bob ‘Live Aid’ Geldof had his stag do at Limelight before marrying Paula Yates.
Looking back at his Limelight years, Koppel says: “Every newspaper and most pop magazines hadn’t yet discovered colour. There was no internet, no mobile phones, no digital cameras. It seems unthinkable now.”
Which makes these images not just hugely enjoyable, but a relic of bygone, and fast-disappearing, age.
Limelight by David Koppel is published by Pap Art, davidkoppel.co.uk
Can watchmaking bene t from Arti cial Intelligence beyond using it to sift data? Maybe, but not in the ways we think, says Laura McCreddie-Doak
AI is seemingly everywhere. It is used to generate images online, designer Philippe Stark has employed it to create a chair, and allegedly Will Smith used it to generate a fake crowd for a video of his summer tour.
However, there are limits to its intelligence, particularly when it comes to a craft as complex as watchmaking, as Robinson Erhardt proves in an episode of his podcast entitled AI and the Mystery of the Conscious Mind
In a section titled, ‘How to show that ChatGPT is dumb’. Erhardt, who researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University, is in conversation with Ned Block, a Silver Professor at New York University in the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology.
The section outlines two tests that illustrate the limits of Open AI. One is asking it to draw someone writing with their left hand, the other involves images of watches.
“There are a lot of things ChatGPT does that are memory-dominated,” says Block to Erhardt. “One example I use in my classes is this: ask it to draw you a picture of a group of watches showing three minutes after 12, so the
“AI doesn’t design for us, but it creates time and space for better design to happen”
minute hand and the hour hand are close together. What you will get is 10 after 10 [‘10 past 10’ in British English]. And if you try to do 6.28 where the hands are also close together, you’ll get 10 after 10 again. The reason for this is the pictures of watches on the web are dominated by 10 after 10 because it’s the most attractive look.”
Block explains that this is something everyone in Open AI – the makers of ChatGPT – is aware of, but no one has yet gured out what reinforcement training the machine would need to change this default. The reason isn’t di cult to work out. AI systems analyse data to identify patterns and relationships. Based on these, it can make predictions, categorise information or generate new content. ChatGPT can’t generate new content about where watch hands go because the data isn’t out there.
The same is true of watch design but for slightly di erent reasons. While numerous images of watches exist online, Open AI doesn’t fully understand how a watch is made, so it cannot create something new. Instead, it tends to create hybrids that incorporate details from a mix of brands, such as a bracelet resembling a Submariner with a dial evoking a Speedmaster.
Adrian Buchmann, design director at Christopher Ward, believes AI does have a place in watch design but as an assistant rather than a generator. “At Christopher Ward, we see AI as a creative assistant rather than a source of creativity,” he says. “We use it mainly in the early stages of design exploration. It’s useful when working on textures and visual e ects, or when we want to rapidly test a broad range of directions. In a way, it acts like a visual sketchbook on steroids. It helps us move fast, cast the net wide, and arrive at stronger human decisions. It doesn’t design for us, but it creates time and space for better design to happen.”
One of its limits, however, is when you ask it to create complicated watches that actually work. Ricardo Guadalupe, CEO of Hublot, discovered this when he experimented with using AI to generate designs. Speaking with Esquire, he said that although it came up with “ideas where it incorporated complications from other brands… some would be impossible to make. One was a kind of tourbillon/minute repeater with an ‘equation of time.’ They put the screws di erently. This one was impossible to realise.”
George Bamford, founder of Bamford Watch Department, also realised this, telling The New York Times that although he uses AI-based platform Midjourney for research and mood-boarding, he doesn’t use it to design a watch because what comes back was, in his words, “something you don’t want to see”.
What is the future of AI in watchmaking? Will it be good enough to replace human creativity? On this point Buchmann is philosophical. “At this stage, AI is excellent at generating mash-ups and visualising concepts quickly, but it doesn’t create anything original,” he says. “That said, the idea of what’s ‘original’ is always worth questioning. As creatives, we like to believe our best ideas come from a deep personal place, but in reality, most design is a synthesis of what we’ve seen, felt, heard or lived. In that sense, AI mirrors the human process more than we acknowledge. It recombines data the way we recombine memory and intuition. With a wide enough dataset and sharper curation, I believe AI could reach a point where it starts proposing ideas that are not only novel but relevant. Whether those ideas carry emotional weight is a di erent question.”
For now, Buchmann believes it is lack of intent – the ability to question why a watch should exist in that form – that is stopping AI from creating anything unique. However, he also believes that prodding AI for newness isn’t its primary function.
“I think the real potential of AI is not to replace the designer but to raise the bar. To make execution of ideas more e cient, freeing creatives to focus on meaning, narrative, and emotional impact. That still feels inherently human and hopefully stays that way for a while. AI won’t give you a C12 Loco today, but used intentionally, it might help clear the path to one.”
The Atelier collection brings Christopher Ward’s most advanced timepieces under one umbrella –and points to a future of constant innovation
the name for our most advanced watches pays tribute to the work that’s done by our team in Biel.
Christopher Ward is de ned by its mission: to bring ne mechanical watchmaking to as many people as possible. And as the release of watches like the C1 Bel Canto and The C12 Loco demonstrates, that includes the most haute of haute horlogerie timepieces.
Now the company is bringing its most innovative timepieces together under the ‘Atelier’ umbrella – providing a showcase for in-house calibres, ingenious modules, meticulous nishing and uncompromising creativity.
‘Atelier’ is the French word for ‘workshop’, and Christopher Ward’s atelier in Biel, Switzerland’s watchmaking capital, is where the company’s movements are conceived, developed and manufactured. With neighbours like Omega and Armin Strom, and Rolex’s movement base on the edge of town, this is an area immersed in watchmaking culture. Using ‘Atelier’ as
“The launch of Atelier is no accident,” says Sarah Baumann, chief operating o cer of Christopher Ward. “For the rst time, we have a critical mass of these pinnacle creations – enough to bring them together in one place, making it easier for collectors and enthusiasts to understand and navigate this part of our story.”
The key component of each Atelier timepiece is the movement. Every one is either an in-house, high-performance calibre developed from the ground up, or third-party base movement with a unique Christopher Ward module integrated into it.
Whether it’s a jumping-hour module, a perpetual moonphase accurate for 128 years, or a chiming sonnerie au passage in the key of D, each project starts with a price-point in mind – forcing the company to think di erently, design smarter and engineer more simply – often the hardest feat of all.
Atelier proves that ‘accessible’ and ‘exceptional’ are not mutually exclusive
“Atelier is where imaginations run free, but always with the most exacting challenge at its heart: to deliver remarkable outcomes at a remarkable Christopher Ward value,” says CEO Mike France. “This means thinking outside the box is a musthave condition of the collection, not just a nice-to-have.”
Innovation is part of Christopher Ward’s DNA. As far back as 2011, it launched the C9 Jumping Hour featuring former master watchmaker Johannes Jahnke’s JJ01 modular movement, while 2014’s ve-day Calibre SH21 was the rst in-house mechanical movement from a British brand in 50 years. More recently, watches like The Twelve X, C1 Bel Canto and The C12 Loco show how far the company is willing to go in the pursuit of horological excellence.
But it wouldn’t be Christopher Ward if the launch of Atelier didn’t also coincide with the release of a special watch – or two. Before the close of the year, two new models will join Atelier: a jumping-hour with a fresh, radical design, and a futuristic spin on the Bel Canto which brings a sciaesthetic to our famous chiming watch [see following spread for more].
Much of this innovation is down to the new product design team, led by technical director Frank Stelzer, product director Jörg Bader, design director Adrian Buchmann and senior designer Will Brack eld. With each major launch, the team has grown closer as it’s become more e cient, expanding the possibilities for the next Atelier creation. In a similar way, every release strengthens Christopher Ward’s supply chain – forging new partnerships and deepening existing ones. On the recent Twelve 660, for example, the custom-made train bridge was machined at Palouzzo, which is part-owned by CW, and nished at APJ, making use of key suppliers CW worked with on watches like the C1 Bel Canto and C12 Loco.
Sometimes, partners are already leaders in their eld, while others share the company’s vision and ambition, growing with us to reach new levels of quality and accessibility. For Christopher Ward, value is more than pricing – it starts with fresh thinking, a willingness to challenge watchmaking norms, and complete awareness and interest in every element of our supply chain.
“This is not about embellishment for its own sake,” says Jörg. “It’s about engineering solutions that distil complexity into elegance – and pairing them with nishing and design to make every detail count.”
Atelier pieces can also sit within broader families, eg: The Twelve X belongs both to the Twelve family and Atelier, just as the C63 Colchester exists in both Sealander and Military collections. While Atelier represents the apex of our engineering and nishing, one thing stays the same as the rest of our collection: our 3x mark-up principle. The value proposition is consistent across every rung of the Christopher Ward ladder – but as you climb, it becomes even more striking. Atelier simply proves that ‘accessible’ and ‘exceptional’ are not mutually exclusive.
“The launch of Atelier isn’t just a celebration of our most horologically advanced watches, but a statement of intent,” says Mike. “Over the next few years, Atelier will produce some mindblowing new timepieces. But due to the long development times involved in creating such sophisticated timepieces, I can’t say too much in public or else someone might arrange for me to ‘disappear’!”
“Our rst true breakthrough. Designed by master watchmaker, Johannes Jahnke, it proved that Synergies Horlogères –which merged with CW in 2014 – could deliver innovation at the highest level. Johannes set out to achieve the most accurate jumping-hour watch available. We believe this goal was achieved and still hasn’t been surpassed.”
“Johannes took on the single-pusher project of esteemed, 80-year-old watchmaker Jean Fillon, who’d been unable to nish it. He inverted the single-pusher element of it, so you could see what was happening when you pressed the pusher to activate its functions. The watch that held this movement, the C900 Harrison Single Pusher Chronograph, is very much in-demand on the second-hand market.”
“On the C9 Worldtimer, the intricate dial was required to translate Johannes’ work in modifying the ETA 2893 automatic movement, enabling the watch to tell every global time zone instantly. There were two di erent versions: the original, in which everything was presented on a 24-hour basis, and the later, more conventional (and more successful) 12-hour version.”
“When we set out to create a moonphase movement, it had to go further – we weren’t content to be part of the herd!
The result is a perpetual moonphase movement (one of only two or three in the world) that’s accurate for an astounding 128 years! It remains a cornerstone of our movement arsenal and a symbol of timeless watchmaking.”
“Launched in 2014, our 120-hour inhouse movement was a huge milestone for Christopher Ward. Thanks to its double-barrelled construction, SH21 delivered an incredible ve-day (120-hour) power reserve, plus certi ed chronometer timekeeping. We knew we were doing something right when the CEO of a large watch company said, ‘What gives you the licence to do this?’”
“The movement that took the C1 Bel Canto to the top! The FS01 modi ed movement was created by our technical director Frank Stelzer after he realised he could modify our JJ01 jumping-hour mechanism to create an hourly chiming module. The chime rings when the bird-shaped ‘hammer’ strikes a circular steel spring. I love that sound!”
“A new in-house movement developed for The C12 Loco, CW-003 is made of 138 individual components and, thanks to a modi cation of SH21’s twin-barrel architecture (here, they’re placed on top of each other), delivers a phenomenal power reserve of six days. Its visible balance wheel was created exclusively for Christopher Ward by Feller Pivotages SA, while the bespoke hairspring is an exercise in elegance.”
Atelier is not a collection that’s frozen in time. And to close the year, Christopher Ward is launching two new additions to the series.
Arriving within the next few weeks, there’ll be a new interpretation of our jumping-hour calibre that will set pulses racing, as will the Tron-style ri on the Bel Canto which takes haute horologie to new heights of luminosity.
Keep your eyes peeled for two new lume-heavy Atelier watches – coming soon
Here, product director Jörg Bader and senior designer Will Brack eld give some (reasonably) disguised hints of what you can expect when the watches are launched. Teasing is believing – after all!
The original C9 Jumping Hour housed Christopher Ward’s rst in-house modulated movement, Johannes Jahnke’s JJ01. So there’s something poetic about using JJ01 in a new jumping-hour – an extraordinary timepiece which uses luminosity to devastating e ect.
“The last jumping-hour we made was in 2017, but we always wanted to bring it back,” says Jörg. “The philosophy hasn’t changed: but this watch is like no other jumping-hour we’ve created before.”
As Will says: “This jumping-hour isn’t a throwback, but a brand new timepiece that shows we’re pushing boundaries –technical, aesthetic and emotional – to rea rm our spirit of innovation. Every time I look at the dial, it’s a concrete example of how far we’ve come, and where we’re going next. You’re going to love it.”
For Christopher Ward a cionados, the C1 Bel Canto needs no introduction. But after the success of Original and Classic versions, the teams in Maidenhead and Biel believed there was space for a radically di erent Bel Canto.
“With the rst Bel Canto we created something contemporary, while the Classic looked to the past,” says Jörg. “We wanted to do something more futuristic, something that took everything we’d learned about luminosity from the C60 Trident Lumière – merged with the prize-winning haute horlogerie of Bel Canto.”
The designs show that while this is recognisably a Bel Canto, the dial delivers a very di erent experience to those of its stablemates.
Culture that’s worthy of your time
There are some paintings worth crossing Europe to see.
And for me, Guernica by Pablo Picasso is one of them. So when I went to Madrid for a long weekend to celebrate my birthday in spring, seeing Guernica was a must.
If you’re not aware, Guernica’s is a representation of the murderous aftermath of a German bombing raid on the Basque town of Guernica (‘Gernika’ in Basque) during the Spanish Civil War in April 1937.
So one morning, I walked from my hotel to the Reina So a gallery, and made my way to the room where Guernica is located. Even though I’ve seen it countless times online or in print, nothing could prepare me for the visual punch in the stomach it gave me.
At nearly eight metres across, the canvas dominates the room, its black, white, and grey palette stripping away distraction – like a newspaper photograph
enlarged to monumental scale. You ‘read’ it from right to left, taking in everything from the bull that looms over a screaming mother cradling her dead child to the terri ed horse and the fallen gure holding a broken sword.
I spent 40 minutes with it, and then went back later again. At a time when images of war ood our screens every day, it felt particularly poignant.
There was one sign of hope. As I stood in front of Guernica, a group of infant school children came in with their teacher. She sat them down and explained what the picture was about and why it had been painted, without sugar-coating it. Then they got up and left, maybe not understanding everything, but understanding something. Which is exactly how I felt, too.
Clothes – and watches – lift the spirit in a way that’s di cult to explain. A good jacket with a well designed collar or a pair of jeans that hang perfectly over your shoes add the sort of assured con dence you normally only get with a decent tan.
Maybe I’m unusual, but I like nothing more than popping out at lunchtime and checking out what’s on the racks, whether it’s a simple jumper from the likes of M&S, a mac in Muji or a beautifully cut tweed jacket from Aquascutum. I’ve even caught myself sni ng waxed jackets in Barbour.
This behaviour may be odd but it signi es an obsession with style that began when I was 10 years old. And it’s stood me in good stead ever since. I remember it like it was yesterday. June 1982…
I stamp down the stairs from my bedroom.
“I’m not wearing these trousers any more, mum. Everyone’s laughing at me.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
I look down at the grey slacks I’ve got on, the legs of which have been tied up with belts to make them tighter.
“They’re… ares! Nobody wears ares. I hate them.”
A day later and I’m looking at myself in the mirror, a big grin on my face as I survey my new yellow canvas jeans, blue granddad shirt and cricket-style tank top. I feel fantastic, despite my dad later tut-tutting at the trousers his ex-wife has got me from Burton’s in Southport.
At the junior school disco a few nights afterwards, the headmaster comes up to me: “I’m looking at you to start the dancing with the girls,” he says. Straight away I know: good clothes make the di erence.
For men, getting your style right is a journey made up of lessons learnt (checked jeans and boat shoes isn’t a look I’ll be revisiting) and successes taken on board. The same is true of watches.
While I like a daring novelty piece as much as the next watch obsessive, I keep coming to the same four timepieces: an Omega Speedmaster Reduced, a 2014 C60 Trident Pro, a Sealander GMT and the piece I’m wearing now, a Sandhurst chronometer. As with my Adidas Stan Smith trainers, Uniqlo selvedge jeans and fancy CP Company overshirts, they t an aesthetic that could be described as ‘minimalism with a twist’.
For those who care about this sort of thing – and being watch fans, that’s us – style is something to be ne-tuned, added to and pruned, not turned over and started anew out of boredom. Fashion, true fashion, that changes week in, week out, isn’t for us. Forget the wear-it-oncethrow-it-away philosophy of the Primark generation – we know it pays to invest in clothes and watches.
I bought an ‘Harrington’-style Armani jacket 25 years ago. Cheap it most certainly was not.
But in those decades since, whenever I’ve put it on I’ve instinctively felt right, complete. It’s hanging up now, itching to make its rst appearance of the autumn. I don’t have to worry whether its boxy shape is ‘right’ for this year or whether its slightly frayed cu s make it look a little too worn. I know it looks good. And that’s all that matters.
A history of the pop group logo is a feast for the eyes –and inspiration for the ears
If you picture The Beatles playing live, there’s something you can’t miss: the band’s logo – complete with dropped ‘T’ on Ringo Starr’s bass drum. In pop music, your logo is a vital part of your brand: as important as the lead singer’s haircut or the guitarist’s favourite Fender Stratocaster.
As groups (or ‘bands’) have changed over the decades, so have their logos. In the early days of rock ’n’ roll, the group’s name, normally painted on the bass drum, was designed in the formal style of the time. Fast-forward 15 years, and late-’60s logos looked as far-out and groovy as the coolest style boutiques.
Now a book, Logo Rhythm takes an in-depth look at the evolution of the band logo, from The Kinks to Funkadelic – and all points in between. Written and edited by Jim K Davies, and designed by Jamie Ellul of Supple Studio, the book includes contributions from leading lights in design
and music, including singer and DJ Tom Robinson, and Malcolm Garrett, the designer behind iconic logos for Simple Minds, Duran Duran and Buzzcocks.
This is a book that goes deep. So you’ll nd out where Bowie’s lightning logo came from, how the Rolling Stones’ ‘Lick’ emblem was inspired by a Hindu deity and why The Ramones’ logo is so popular on T-shirts (often by people who’ve never actually heard the band’s records).
And it’s full of fascinating facts. Did you know there’s some truth that The Monkees’ logo was designed to appear on a school lunch box? Or that John Berg at Columbia Records designed over 5,000 record sleeves (as well as the logo for Chicago – itself based on the Coca-Cola emblem).
Rock and pop have never just been about music. Identity, politics and fashion all pay their part, too, and you can see all of them instantly in the best band logos. This book is a tting tribute to their power.
Logo Rhythm is out now, published by Circa
In this extract from his brilliant new book on horology Compendium, Ken Kessler investigates the relationship between watchmaking and political leadership
No one reaches the White House, Number 10, or the Kremlin by way of a poor background. Running for such o ces requires millions of dollars. But even if the candidates were born of workingclass stock, by the time they’re suitable to lead a country, the electorate knows that all of the candidates are nancially ‘comfortable’. Despite this, paradoxically, any incumbent US president or British prime minister would be cruci ed for wearing a watch that suggests wealth.
This explains why following the coverage of a bizarre photo opportunity in 2007, when President George W. Bush apparently had a watch taken from his wrist during a hand-shaking spree in Albania, it was suggested that he lost something low-priced. According to one report, “He is said to wear a $50 Timex with the Stars and Stripes on the dial.”
Such concerns about optics aren’t con ned to American leaders. On a visit to the UK in 2009, France’s then-president Nicolas Sarkozy was advised to leave his Rolex at home. With an incredible lack of sensitivity, Sarkozy’s closest personal friend had said, “You’re a failure if you don’t own a Rolex by the time you’re 50,” which outraged the mainly left-leaning French. This incident took place long before cancel culture took hold, but it was telling that this remark by millionaire advertising tycoon Jacques Seguela was branded ‘obscene’.
but two Rolexes at the same time.
It’s a tough call if your demographic is socialist. According to one legend, every world leader receives a Rolex from the Geneva house upon reaching o ce but this is probably apocryphal, because scrutiny of public servants dictates that politicians must declare gifts.
One speci c model, however, the Day-Date with hidden clasp, was nicknamed the ‘President’ or “Presidential” after Rolex presented one to Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, though some sources cite President Lyndon B. Johnson as the recipient who inspired the name for the timepiece. Eisenhower’s predecessor, Harry Truman, wore a Universal Genève Tri-Compax during the Potsdam Conference in 1945, a discreet tool watch rather than anything showy. US presidents, though, exercise their own taste, not surprisingly choosing what best accommodates their pre-erred constituents’ sensitivities.
It actually said more about the clueless press and its lack of watch awareness than it did about Sarkozy: he chose a decidedly non-bling-y stainless steel model. (Though he also owned a Breguet.) Hypocritically, nobody from the Left ever remarked on their poster boys’ penchant for Rolexes: a famous photo of Che Guevara shows the so-called ‘freedom ghter’ sporting a Submariner while lighting up a truly plutocratic stogie, while Fidel Castro was partial to Rolex GMT-Masters. Apparently, Fidel gave one to Che for the latter to add to his collection, alongside an Explorer II, while Castro was often seen wearing not one
Bill Clinton always pandered to the East and West Coast elites, among whom a Patek Philippe Calatrava is considered ‘entry level’, but he purportedly preferred to be seen wearing Victorinox Swiss Army watches and Timex IronMan –both so downright a ordable that his populist street cred was maintained. Once free of the White House, he’s been seen wearing an A. Lange & Söhne Richard Lange ‘Pour le Merite’, a Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Compressor Diving Alarm Navy SEALs Q183T770, a Cartier Ballon Bleu, a Franck Muller, and others which would have his fellow travellers spitting feathers.
From time to time, some US presidents failed in battling the temptation of accepting watches as gifts, none more so that John F Kennedy – still the only US president who could be described as stylish. Clearly not unable to a ord his own ne watches, JFK wore an 18k gold Omega Ultra-Thin at his 1961 inauguration, an earlier gift from a prescient friend, Grant Stockdale, who had it engraved,“ President of the United States John F. Kennedy from his friend Grant.”
It now resides in Omega’s museum in Biel, Switzerland, the company having acquired it at auction in 2005 for $350,000. Alongside the Kennedy Ultra-Thin is the original letter Jacqueline Kennedy wrote to Stockdale, thanking him for the “thinnest most elegant wristwatch”. In 2008, Omega produced a replica of the Kennedy Omega, limited to 261 numbered pieces.
Fittingly, given JFK’s support for the space programme, the rst watch worn on the moon sits next to Kennedy’s in the Biel museum. Also an Omega, the Speedmaster Professional caused slight embarrassment for the manufacturer when, in 1969, the company o ered solid gold commemorative editions, engraved “No.1” and “No. 2” to President Richard Nixon and Vice-President Spiro Agnew. Unlike many other world leaders, they politely declined the o ers because the watches were too valuable.
Back to Kennedy: in 1962, he received a Hamilton, an appropriately American watch, with likenesses of his two children engraved on the dial, from David Lawrence, then governor of Pennsylvania. On their fourth wedding anniversary, Jacqueline gave JFK a Cartier, re ecting her taste for the seriously chic; he was wearing this when assassinated. But Kennedy’s most famous watch is one he never wore.
When Marilyn Monroe gave Kennedy a Rolex for his 45th birthday, engraved on the back with “Jack, With love as always from Marilyn, May 29 1962”, JFK told his aide to “get rid of it”. Evidence of their alleged a air, the watch, along with a note describing Kennedy’s instructions and a love poem from Monroe, was sold to a US collector for $120,000 in 2005. Over the years, US presidents have shown varied tastes in watches, usually cautious, including Vulcain Cricket alarm watches, assorted Hamiltons and many others that eschew the showy.
Series 1500 Two-Tone Divers Watch and the Jorg Gray JG6500 quartz chronograph gifted to him by his Secret Service detail in 2007, yours for $395. Joe Biden was more adventurous, with an Omega Seamaster Professional, an Omega Speedmaster Professional and a stainless steel Rolex Datejust, among others.
Not so President Donald Trump. During his rst term, he unashamedly wore a Patek Philippe Ellipse Golden Ellipse 3738, a Vacheron Constantin Historiques 1968, and a Rolex Day-Date Ref 18038. Undermining this respect for his horological leanings, though, were his own branded watches, about which the less said, the better. While they start at around $500, he’s also announced a $100,000 tourbillon.
His nemesis/good buddy/mortal foe Vladimir Putin has surely forgotten Russia’s main political thrust. Putin is known to have a watch collection that would be the envy of any connoisseur, apparently including the A. Lange & Söhne 1815 Up/ Down, a Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar, an F.P. Journe and others from Blancpain and IWC. Like his spiritual predecessors, Signors Guevara and Castro, haute horlogerie appears to have communist approval. Conversely, Kier Starmer wouldn’t dream of undermining his street cred, so he has been seen wearing an a ordable Tissot PRX Powermatic.
Trump and Putin aside, most image-conscious leaders won’t wear the
exclusive Breguets of Winston Churchill, let alone the Patek Philippes, Cartiers, or Jaeger-LeCoultres of the Royal Family. At least, that is, until their terms in o ce are over.
Post-George W. Bush, most US presidents have been notably pedestrian in their choice of watches during their time in the White House. Barack Obama wore TAG Heuer
Compendium is an in-depth – and witty – look at everything to do with watches. If you’re curious about complications, interested in building the perfect collection or just mad about watches, this is the book for you. There’s plenty of Christopher Ward in there, too. Available now from the CW website and Amazon.
If you’re a fan of James Bond lms, you’ll be familiar with the ‘cold open’.
This is the lm’s opening sequence which gives the audience a self-contained mini-adventure before the theme music and credits begin. From 1964’s Gold nger –where Bond in ltrates a drug lab in a wetsuit, and leaves in a tuxedo – to Live and Let Die’s montage that goes from New York to New Orleans to the Caribbean, the cold open is the signature of the Bond movie.
Bond attempts to assassinate some nefarious characters in a nearby building, but his shots set o an explosion, which ends up demolishing the building. The pursuit of his target continues onto the streets before spilling into the sky, where Bond battles arch-villain Marco Sciarra in a helicopter that spirals above thousands of revellers.
And the most visually impressive, to these eyes at least, is from Spectre (2015) – directed by Sam Mendes.
Set during Mexico City’s Day of the Dead festival, it begins with an extraordinary continuous tracking shot of 4 minutes 10 seconds that follows Bond (Daniel Craig) through crowds of masked revellers. Dressed in a skull mask and dark suit, he slips into a hotel with a mysterious female companion, changes into a new suit then continues alone across rooftops carrying a machine gun. As you do.
What makes this such an extraordinary piece of cinema is that opening tracking shot. At 4:10, it’s the longest single shot in the Bond canon, and delivers an intense, personal experience that makes you feel as if you’re actually there with Britain’s most famous secret agent. It’ll leave you feeling shaken – and stirred.
*Not an order, just a statement of fact
If you love watches, it’s impossible not to be turned on by the exquisite C1 Bel Canto Classic – a timepiece that’s a feast for the ears, as well as the eyes. Powered by our FS01 movement, every 60 minutes a tiny hammer strikes a chime to mark the hour (what the Swiss call ‘Sonnerie au Passage’). The sensuous, curved 41mm case subtly ampli es the sound, while the Grade 5 titanium construction ensures lightness and durability. And the biggest thrill of all? The price. From just £3,495.
Do your research.
christopherward.com
