Loupe. Issue 40. Spring 2026.

The brilliant Bel Canto

The (GPHG Award-winning) FS01 chiming module in all Bel Cantos orchestrates a crystal-clear ‘D’ note. Every hour on the hour. Now, with a ‘Lumière’ addition to the cast, you can opt for an accompanying visual extravaganza, too. A production that may have admirers talking to your wrist during the day. And a light show making it di cult to look away from at night. Bravo!

Do your research

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Loupe.

The magazine of Christopher Ward.

Planning this issue of Loupe was a breeze.

With the C60 Clipper GMT setting the pace, it was obvious that we had to make the magazine a celebration of all things American.

We start with Matt Bielby’s forensic examination of the C60 Clipper GMT, which isn’t just a watch pro le, but an in-depth history of Pan American Airlines itself. That’s followed by an interview with Roger Bennett, the Liverpudlian founder of Men in Blazers, the US’s top soccer podcast.

Keeping with the theme, our O-pinion section is an homage to American mid-century modernism, with some stunning photos of newly refurbished motels.

You’ll also nd a photo story from David Bowie’s old tour photographer and a look at the new 44mm Trident series – something those of you who prefer a larger dial will appreciate.

Enjoy the issue!

Editor: Anthony Teasdale

Art Director: Jamie Gallagher

Designer: Sam Burn

Photographer: George Simms

The Yard, 14-18 Bell St, Maidenhead SL6 1BR

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Hidden gems

With our growing number of showrooms (New York, North Virginia, Dallas, London, Liverpool and Maidenhead) as well as the many watch shows and get-togethers we attend across the world, more people are able to see and wear our watches before they buy. From this, a fascinating trend has emerged: people are falling in love with some of our least well-known models.

We’ve started to call these watches our ‘hidden gems’ and they include models like the reverseengineered C65 Super Compressor Elite, the C63 Colchester (it even has a hidden crown!) and the C65 Aquitaine GMT with its bewitching sapphire bezel.

If you can’t make it to one of our showrooms, or a show, you may want to visit the new ‘Hidden gems’ section of our website to discover the models that excite so many people when seen ‘in the metal’. And who knows, you too may fall in love!

Mike & Peter

Latest news from Christopher Ward and the wider world of watches

It’s showtime!

Christopher Ward celebrates the year our showrooms went global

Christopher Ward is proud to be the world’s rst online-only watch company.

But that hasn’t stopped us from o ering the ultimate personal watch-buying experience in the shape of our showrooms. And this year we’ve expanded our o ering, opening new venues in both the UK and the USA.

We opened our rst US showroom in Frisco, North Dallas in 2024. Not only has it provided a bespoke watch-buying service for American fans, but it’s become a community hub in its own right for lovers of horology. Now, it’s been joined by two new showrooms. The rst is in Falls Church, Virginia, close to Washington DC and Maryland. The second – and perhaps most signi cant of all – in SoHo, New York City.

“Standing in the SoHo space, staring out at those re escapes and cobbles, you can feel the electricity!”

“The reaction in DC, Virginia and Maryland over the previous 18 months told us loud and clear that Northern Virginia was our perfect next home,” says Mike Pearson, North American brand director. “And New York? Well, it felt just right. Standing in the SoHo space, staring out at those re escapes and cobbles from the fourth oor, you can feel the electricity. It’s special… and we are part of it!”

Back in the UK, things have followed a similar pattern. Joining the Maidenhead showroom, is a new venue at Everton’s magni cent Hill Dickinson stadium, north of Liverpool city centre.

“It’s been fantastic to welcome customers from the north and midlands who didn’t fancy the trip to Maidenhead,” says Neil Greig, showroom manager. “They appreciate the ease of parking and the clublike atmosphere, with decor that re ects Liverpool’s maritime heritage. And you don’t have to be an Everton fan to visit!”

The third UK showroom opening is on Mill Street in Mayfair, central London, long a popular destination for tailors from nearby Savile Row. At the helm is Declan Strange, long-time manager of our Maidenhead showroom, supported by Eryc Niedbala and Harrison Pegg.

“For me, this is a big moment,” says Declan. “Watchmaking and tailoring go together well, so the location is perfect. And the fact you can try on the entire collection in central London, means you can combine a trip to town with some watch-buying, and maybe a pint at the Windmill pub next door.”

Of course, the Maidenhead showroom is still going strong, and with our move to Bell Street, now just two minutes’ walk from Maidenhead train station, manager Oliver Jones can o er you an even more personal experience. “The showroom is such a nice place to spend time and try on our watches. And because we’re located in the new HQ, you might even get to have a word with our CEO Mike France, who’s always popping in.”

Book your showroom appointment on the Christopher Ward website

It’s GOOD news all round!

Christopher Ward’s charity partnership project is having a positive e ect on causes close to the company’s heart

When it comes to charity support, Christopher Ward’s 2% for GOOD initiative is taking the lead, donating to organisations and individuals that are making a real di erence, from environmentalists like the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation to Team BRIT, the rst pro-motorsport team made up exclusively of disabled drivers and support sta .

Anna Quinton, head of communications, says: “I’m incredibly proud of the impact we’ve made through 2% for GOOD. During the last nancial year, we donat-

Water project

A band of volunteers has brought Maidenhead’s long-neglected waterways back from

Christopher Ward has launched a new partnership with Maidenhead Waterways, the charity responsible for the revival of the town’s historic canals.

Formed by residents determined to restore the neglected waterways threading through CW’s home town, the group has spent years dredging, clearing and repairing canals.

To see the work rst-hand, a group from Christopher Ward joined volunteers on a tour aboard one of the charity’s small boats. The trip revealed not just the

ed close to £1 million – no small feat for a business of our size. And we’re only just getting started: there’s so much more we can achieve when we combine creativity, community and a commitment to doing the right thing.”

Here are four projects bene tting from the work of 2% for GOOD.

remarkable improvements already made, but the potential for future projects.

Christopher Ward’s funding will help the charity purchase a much-needed additional boat, allowing more educational and community trips along the restored routes. And this spring, CW sta will be joining volunteers in clearing stretches of bank and waterway.

“It’s rare to nd a project where such a small team makes such a big di erence,” says CW communications executive Andrew Collins. “We’re proud to play a part in it.”

Snow Leopard saved!

The partnership between Christopher Ward and the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF) has entered a new and ambitious phase – and for once, conservation news starts with a triumph.

For several years, CW supported DSWF’s work protecting the endangered snow leopard in Kyrgyzstan and neighbouring regions. Thanks to the e orts of conservation teams, the species has now been reclassied and is no longer critically endangered.

But the programme has yielded human bene ts too. Economic initiatives built around conservation have helped raise local incomes by an average of 11 percent, demonstrating the social impact of protecting wildlife.

From saving snow leopards to ghting wildlife crime: a new chapter begins at DSWF

With this milestone achieved, Christopher Ward and DSWF are now turning their focus to a growing global threat: the Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT). Together, the organisations aim to ‘Stop Time on Extinction’ by funding front-line e orts to dismantle tra cking networks, protect vulnerable species, and support communities a ected by wildlife crime.

Plans are already underway for a series of collaborative events, alongside a new YouTube series highlighting the foundation’s extraordinary work – from undercover investigations to community-led conservation.

Team BRIT take on America – with Christopher Ward cheering them on

Driving change in the US

Team BRIT, the world’s rst all-disabled motor-racing team, competed in their rst-ever US race weekend – the 12-hour Veterans Race of Remembrance at VIR, Virginia. And ttingly, they did so with backing from Christopher Ward, whose Virginia showroom in nearby Falls Church played host to a special preview evening on November 3rd.

The team, sponsored by Christopher Ward, joined forces with American veterans’ charity Resilience Racing, with support from the Skip Barber Racing School. Together, the teams shared an Aston Martin GT4 tted with Team BRIT’s bespoke hand controls, which allow disabled drivers to pilot their cars.

At the Falls Church event, CW fans met drivers including Aaron Morgan, British GT race winner and paraplegic, and Paul Fullick, a veteran and amputee who’s also topped the Britcar podium. Team principal Mike Scudamore spoke about the team’s journey, their technological breakthroughs and how the partnership with Christopher Ward is helping make their dream of competing in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race a reality.

The kids are alright!

Christopher Ward is helping nurture the engineering talent of tomorrow by sponsoring Primary Engineer, a not-for-pro t that encourages children to engage with engineering and technology.

In November, the country’s young engineering talent was present at the Draper’s Hall in London for Primary Engineer’s MacRobert Medal awards ceremony. UK school pupils ages of 3-19 were tasked with interviewing an engineer, before being asked to identify a problem in the world around them and coming up with a creative, engineered solution to that problem. The medal celebrates the achievements of the young engineers who have worked together to create prototypes based on the pupils’ engineering ideas.

These included a trampoline that generates electricity, an energy-saving heat sensor system that illuminates when doors or windows are left open, and a green energy-generator featuring a wind turbine and solar panels that can be tted to the side of a house.

Paul Wright, CW supply chain director, says: “It was brilliant to see how creative children can be. The medal encourages critical thinking skills which supports the future of STEM in the UK. And as a company that depends on innovation and engineering, it’s very enouraging to see.”

Dr Susan Scurlock MBE, founder and CEO of Primary Engineer, says: “The Primary Engineer MacRobert Medal is where we see a small number of the 70,000+ ideas from the ‘If you were an engineer what would you do?’ competition actually realised by engineers. The medal recognises, not only the innovation but, the journey from a pupil’s drawing to a working prototype, resulting in things of beauty and wonder!"

What the press say!

Christopher Ward’s latest releases have been getting a ton of praise from the watch press, social media accounts and YouTube channels

The C1 Bel Canto Lumière has been lauded for its neon-like blocks of Globolight® and glow-in-the-dark sci- design. Top Tier Ticker says the watch is “very, very ambitious”, while Watch Yourself, Jorge says: “This is so cool. It's the Bel Canto on steroids. It's the Tron watch.” The nal word goes to Watch Chris, who claims it’s “insanity… bonkers… like a mad scientist,” and that he was “able to tell time for many hours in the dark”

Another lume-heavy release is the C63 Sealander Extreme GMT: Just One More Watch loves the “chamfer of the leading edge of all of those lume blocks… The proportions are fantastic,” while Oracle Time says you get “a lot more watch for not more money”

The sapphire-heavy C1 Jump Hour sees the return of one of Christopher Ward’s favourite complications. Watch Chris is a big fan. “There are a lot of details on this watch that you need to get up close to see,” he says. “This is something very special… The use of sapphire on this dial is very impressive.”

Over the last few years, Christopher Ward has established a set of collections –such as Atelier, Sealander or Twelve – that deliver everything the modern watch-lover could want.

But that doesn’t mean we can stand still. Which is why the company’s design and engineering teams are now working on a reinvention of one of our most popular collections.

“We’re going to elevate the watches by taking what we’ve learned about nishing and materials in the Atelier collection – and applying it here,” says senior designer Will Brack eld. While we’re not allowed to go into too much detail, this a wholesale rejuvenation.

Release: 2026

“Every aspect of the collection – whether it’s the polishing, cases, indexes and dials – has been reconsidered,” says Will. “And we’re even talking about doing something extraordinary with the bracelet, too. But that’s top secret for now.”

Looks like 2026 is shaping up to be a very interesting year at Christopher Ward!

When James Bond heads to Jamaica in the 007 lm Dr No, it’s on a Pan Am Boeing 707. When Indiana Jones’s route is marked by a snaking red line, that’s a Pan Am Clipper he’s ying. And when Heywood Floyd is rushed to the moon to view an alien monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey, it’s Pan Am’s ‘spaceplane’ he catches to get there.

From Catch Me if You Can to Flying Down to Rio, from Help! to Bullitt, when the movies wanted the glamour of the jet age, they turned to Pan American World Airways. There was a glamour to Pan Am – ‘the world’s most experienced airline’ –that few could match, America’s uno cial ag carrier for ying’s greatest decades. And, closer to home, Pan Am has serious watch-industry kudos too: the mid-’50s Rolex GMT-Master, which popularised the dual time zone watch, was developed in collaboration with the airline.

Meet Christopher Ward’s contribution to the myth: the C60 Clipper GMT, a limited run of 707 42mm GMT watches (see if you can guess how they picked the production number!) powered by Sellita’s SW330-2 and given world-timer functionality thanks to a bi-directional rotating bezel sporting destinations around the globe. It’s a handsome, dynamic piece that mixes modern quality and functionality with mid-century cool.

The story behind the C60 Clipper GMT begins with breakfast in New York – because of course it does – last spring. Christopher Ward co-founders Peter Ellis and Mike France were in town, and dining at the Balthazar restaurant on Spring Street with Mike Pearson, the company’s North America brand director. When conversation turned to Pan Am – which wound down its remaining ight routes in the late-2010s, but rumours had just started circulating that it might y again – Mike P said: “And wouldn’t it make for an amazing GMT watch?” Well, there was no arguing with that.

“Pan Am’s look and feel was so considered and powerful that I almost got lost in it”

“It’s a no-brainer, isn't it?” says Mike France now. “And the watch we’ve come up with is so evocative of the ’60s jet age, the massive expansion of commercial travel – and the important role Pan Am played in all that. It’s easy to forget what an event long-distance air travel was back then, and how stylish and con dent everything about Pan Am had to be. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the airline used some of the best design creatives of the age.”

Indeed, Pan Am’s one of those rare companies with not one but two iconic logos – the so-called ‘Blue Meatball’, a stylised globe usually seen on the tail ns – and the word mark itself, using ‘wind-swept’ capital letters in a strange but enticing serif font. Rich meat for Christopher Ward’s own designers to chew on, but – since any complete font from the period is lost to history – also responsible for a whole heap of headaches.

Taking lead on this project was a new face to Loupe, CW’s junior product designer Michele Pozzi, a young Milan trained Italian. “Pan Am’s look and feel was so considered and powerful that I almost got lost in it,” he says. “I was researching their early days ying out of a Key West beach and the heyday of the Clipper ying boats just before the war.”

But even more inspiring to Michele was Pan Am’s ongoing wrestle with TWA for passengers across the Atlantic, and later role as spearhead of the jet age, ying Boeing 707s and Douglas DC-8s out of New York Idlewild. “They were the launch customers for the 747, and broke all sorts of ground in unexpected areas,” he says. “Their powerful computer reservation system, for instance, was so large it took up the entire fourth oor of their New York HQ, then the largest commercial o ce building in the world.”

Quite the rabbit hole to burrow down, but there was always going to be one period this watch focussed on: the 1960s, when a succession of innovative Boeings enabled air travel’s peak period. “Once we’d settled on a concept,” Michele says, “my biggest job was ne-tuning the proportions and focusing on the detail, which involved choosing which airports to highlight on the bezel. Ideally, they’d all be ones Pan Am ew to, but – despite its globe-covering nature – that brought a few problems.”

Indeed, the rst location to highlight wouldn’t be an actual airport at all, but rather their rst base – that beach in Florida. “I cheated a bit using Dubai, as they only ever ew cargo there, while one of the last ones we picked was GOH for Greenland,” Michele says. Pan Am never operated

a passenger service to Greenland, but in the 1930s the island formed part of its Arctic exploration programme as a potential refuelling stop. Those plans were scaled back as larger ying boats entered service before World War II, and abandoned altogether after the war with the arrival of long-range land-based airliners.

The watch itself revolves around a soft eggshell dial, with the word mark above 6 o’clock and the Blue Meatball taking pride of place on the closed caseback – “we tried it on the dial, but it was too cramped” –allowing Michele’s recreation of the Pan Am font to shine all around the bezel. “We were wary of going overboard with the vintage aspects,” he says. “This is the watch Christopher Ward might have made if we’d been around at the dawn of the jet age, and should be thought of as a contemporary rather than retro piece – while at the same time celebrating travel history.”

Further details include a little 707 counterbalance on the seconds hand, with that most vital of planes also referenced on the enclosed free cleaning cloth – which shows a blueprint diagram from a Pan Am ight manual – and, most unusually, on the secondary strap. All C60 Clipper GMTs come on a Bader bracelet, but included in the box is a woven alternative, inspired by the 707’s seat belts. “We wanted to use material from a real Boeing, but these have mostly perished or been scrapped,” Michele says. “So we worked with one of our suppliers to recreate it, incorporating the same faint vertical striping. It's a single pass strap, and having the buckle sewn in feels premium. Naturally, swapping between the two is easy.”

The end result, Mike says, is a lot of fun –but at the same time, a serious tool watch for a serious airline. “It’s beautiful, uplifting, and incredibly cool,” he says. “And also the rst worldtimer we’ve had in the catalogue for a while – just the thing to get the year o to a ying start.” Oh, and Pan Am itself? Well, Pan Am Flight is on the relaunch case, so watch this space.

The C60 Clipper GMT, a 707-piece special edition, is available now.

Clipper chronicles

Pan Am’s history

What was the most celebrated Pan Am ight?

Perhaps that of one ying boat, California Clipper, which departed San Francisco for New Zealand just as the United States declared war on Japan. Ordered to abandon their scheduled return home – too dangerous, with the Japanese navy everywhere – they were instead to head for New York, in doing so completing what’s considered the rst commercial circumnavigation of the globe, skirting assorted combat hot spots along the way (at least one Japanese sub took pot shots at them). It took them two months and 20,000 miles of short hops through Asia, Africa and the Middle East, scrounging fuel along the way – and saw the plane renamed ‘Paci c Clipper’ on arrival.

What went wrong for Pan Am?

Vulnerable to rising fuel prices following the 1973 oil crisis, with higher overheads than rivals and no reliable domestic US routes (rivals blocked its attempts to merge with domestic operators until deregulation in 1978), it had entered a downward spiral by the ’80s. Assets were sold, eets restructured – and then the Lockerbie disaster happened, followed by the rst Gulf War. At the start of 1991, Pan Am was ling for bankruptcy and reducing its ight routes; by December it was all over, the third major American airline to cease operations that year. The Airline's successors continued its legacy of excellence, operating domestic routes out of the Northeast through the late 2010's, and luxury private jet tours under its Pan Am Journeys brand as recently as this summer.

To learn more about Pan Am's latest o erings, visit panam.com. Pan Am and the "Blue Meatball" globe design are registered trademarks of Pan American World Airways, LLC. All rights reserved.

Jacket required

Meet Roger Bennett: Scouser, Evertonian and the host of the most successful independent soccer podcast in the US

The Men in Blazers podcast and network has transformed the coverage of soccer in the USA. Founded by Everton fan Roger Bennett, it’s helped spread the popularity of the beautiful game in its last unconquered territory. Thanks to Christopher Ward’s sponsorship of Everton Football Club, Men in Blazers has also been working with CW on video content as well as co-hosting Blues events in the US. Now, with North America gearing up to host the 2026 World Cup – and on the back of a MiB show with comedian Trevor Noah – we asked Roger about the country’s soccer revolution.

Hi Roger! First up, tell us about yourself I grew up in 1980s Liverpool, dreaming of the United States. It was a tough time. Liverpool felt close to America because of the port and it was a time when the city was talking about seceding from the rest of England and becoming a republic. I certainly felt closer to America.

Did you think you’d ever get there?

No, I didn’t know many people who’d even been on a plane! But the rst opportunity, I moved to Chicago after university. It was amazing – and was everything I’d ever imagined after watching the Chicago Bears, listening to Public Enemy and watching John Hughes movies. The one thing that wasn’t here was football. And I missed it terribly. When I moved here there were 370 channels on cable, but when Everton were in the FA Cup semi- nal I couldn’t get it on TV. I had to ring up my dad and he held the headset to the commentary on Radio Merseyside!

What e ect did the US World Cup in 1994 have?

It was meant to put America at the top football-wise. But instead it’s been a slow and steady rise: the English Premier League only took o in 2013 when

NBC started to broadcast it. Then EA Sports’ FIFA game brought in an entire generation to the characters, teams and players – ie, how Messi is di erent to control than Ronaldo. A young audience became incredibly knowledgeable about football through a video game!

What about the internet?

The internet changed everything: you could follow the transfers, the rumours, the intrigue from An eld – as closely in Los Angeles as in Liverpool. When we travel around America doing live shows, I’ll ask who people support. And they’ll say: “I used to hate football, now I have a Tottenham Hotspur tattoo on my forearm.” American fans are obsessed with football in every guise –men’s, women’s, domestic, international and club. This is super-served by the biggest clubs, and half of the Premier League is American-owned.

How did Men in Blazers begin?

In 2006, the World Cup was broadcast here and was doing large numbers, but the coverage was terrible. The thing that changed my life was hearing a commentator saying, “The world’s most famous soccer player Charlie Beckham takes the eld.” And I thought, “God, if only they had people who knew what they were talking about.”

In 2010 we started a podcast which wired together a community of diehard football-lovers across America. We now have a network where we do three to four shows a day, covering men’s and women’s football, plus a new show for second- and third generation Hispanic football fans called ¡Vamos!. The likes of transfer insider Fabrizio Romano has a show, the captain of the US men’s team Tyler Adams has a podcast.

An

Who are the most popular teams?

America is obsessed with the Premier League, they love its history and authentic fan culture. They also support multiple clubs: fans will have a German team, an English team – there’s room in their heart for multiple clubs. It’s funny, with Manchester United, many US fans have never seen them win anything. Liverpool are massive, Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea too – and Everton punch above their weight, because they’re such a traditional team with a history of American players. The fact that we cheer for them helps, too!

What sort of people come on the show?

We’ve had the likes of Arne Slot, Virgil van Dyke, Pep Guardiola, Jack Grealish – the biggest names want to speak to America via our platform. The coverage we’re trying to create is about their experience being an elite athlete. How

they think, how they feel. How they process. We just shot with Bukayo Saka in London. To hear what goes through his mind when he takes possession of the ball in the nal third is why we do this.

Christopher Ward is the O cial Timing Partner for Men in Blazers. How did that come about?

We’ve been working with Everton for years. When Christopher Ward became the sleeve sponsor, I met [CW CEO] Mike France – and we got on so well, it was like I’d grown up with him. I love the watches because of the company’s Liverpool connection, because of the quality, because of the storytelling. We shot a lm together about leaving Goodison for the nal Merseyside derby, at which I received the most beautiful accidental punch of my life when James Tarkowski scored the equaliser to make it 2-2!

“American fans are obsessed with football in every guise”

What about CW’s Goodison watch?

The Goodison is the bomb! The storytelling, the detail, the aesthetic, the turnstile in the case back. When you look at the watch you see a connection to place. Goodison Park was a vessel of memory. This move to Hill Dickinson Stadium is a transformational moment, like a caterpillar going into a chrysalis and coming out as something beautiful. Watching Christopher Ward come in and partner with the club and us has been a dream come true.

Speaking of Evertonians, you did some shows with Wayne Rooney…

When Wayne came over to play for DC United, we did a show with him where he talked about his life, his career and his journey. He’s amazing – an incredibly sweet, incredibly thoughtful human being. He talked often in poetry. I asked him what it was like to score that overhead kick against Manchester City. He said he’d had a terrible game, and that he’d actually caught it badly. He said, “When you’re a footballer, it’s like swimming underwater until that second when you score a goal and present yourself to the fans. In that second, you feel like you’re that swimmer breaking through to the surface and you hear everything.”

Finally, how is it looking for Men In Blazers in 2026?

Our coverage is gearing up for the World Cup. We’re doing live shows in every city, with the likes of singer Noah Kahan and JJ Watt, the NFL star. The World Cup will change the sport. The sky’s the limit!

Christopher Ward is the O cial Timing Partner for Men in Blazers. You can listen to the podcast at meninblazers.com

It’s major, Tom

A book of images by David Bowie’s o cial tour photographer is every bit as mesmerising as you’d imagine

There’s a common internet meme: that everything went bad after David Bowie died.

While things going bad has been a factor throughout human history – ask the neanderthals – this rings true.

Bowie’s death in 2016 wasn’t sad just because we lost a musical genius, but because his death signalled the end of pop music as the primary driving force for social change. When he left us – and having yourself made into a crystal and shot into space was a very ‘Bowie’ way to go – we had to accept that things had moved on.

While you can’t replace Bowie, you can still admire him, and the writers, lm-makers and photographers who documented his work. And nobody captured David Bowie better than Denis O’Regan, Bowie’s o cial tour photographer, who accompanied him on two world tours and over 200 concerts.

Now O’Regan’s favourite images have been collated in a new book, David Bowie. In it, you’ll nd everything from a pensive portrait of Bowie in a hotel room, to wild

images of the great man on stage at a Milton Keynes mega-gig and onto a joyful snap of him with Mick Jagger.

The book covers over two decades, so you can witness Bowie’s endless cycle of transformation. One minute, he’s the shifty eternal outsider at London’s Olympic Studios, the next, looking like the owner of an Australian vineyard for the Serious Moonlight tour of 1983.

What all these images show is that Bowie was both extraordinary and surprisingly approachable: there’s a reason his old mates still called him ‘Bromely Dave’. But there’s also a feeling of melancholy that the man at the centre of this joyful, crazed pop-culture storm is gone. And that our world is a lesser place for his departure.

Not that Bowie would have much truck with this. He’d be onto the next thing. Head in the clouds, eyes xed rmly forward.

David Bowie by Denis O’Regan is published by ACC Art Books, out now

Big

Bigdeal

Christopher Ward’s Trident series of dive watches welcomes a new 44mm version, proving that rigid rules about case size are breaking down

If you’re under the age of 40, the concept of ‘trouser wars’ won’t be one you’re familiar with. But they were all too real, as anyone who fought in their trenches will tell you. From the late 1960s to 1977, everyone – from nightclub singers to trade union bosses – wore ared trousers. Usually made of nylon. Often brown. Always ammable.

Then punk-rock happened and ares were, over what seemed like the space of weekend, ‘out’. One minute, it was perfectly acceptable to dress like the Bee Gees when you went to school, the next, even the slimmest trousers were dismissed as ‘ ares’ by the local psychopath, the ridicule compounded by a punch to the stomach. Ah, the joys of youth!

It doesn’t work like that any more. Trouser width no longer de nes you: you can dress like you’re going to Woodstock on a Wednesday and playing with The Ramones the day after.

The same, thankfully, is also true of watches. For years, having a watch the size of a satellite dish was a measure of success – especially if you were a professional sportsman. In recent times, there’s been a move toward smaller sizes such as the 36mm version of Christopher Ward’s Sealander and Twelve watches. What’s clear is when it comes to watches – though sadly not other things – size doesn’t matter.

Which leads us to the release of the new 44mm version of the Trident Pro 300, Christopher Ward’s bestselling dive watch. “I think people are more independent-minded when it comes to watch size,” says CW CEO Mike France. “This time last year it was all about smaller watches – and it still is – but customers are more eclectic in their tastes: they’re braver and more curious about wearing new things. Small or large – it’s about what works on the day.”

“The reaction to the Trident Reef was so phenomenal, it gave us permission to create a 44mm Trident”

The 44mm Trident Pro is easy to love. As with the original version, the watch is powered by Sellita’s SW200-1 automatic movement, which can be viewed through the sapphire case back. Despite the increased size, the Light-catcher™ case is still just 11.5mm thick – so it feels wide rather than deep. And thanks to the extra real estate on the dial, the lume- lled indexes and Trident handset have more room to breathe. It’s a bestseller for a reason.

Ever since the release of the original Trident Pro 300 in 2022, there’s been requests from fans for a bigger remix. But it was the success of last year’s 44mm Trident Reef that persuaded the company to pull the trigger on a plus-size Trident.

“While the watch industry has gone all-in on smaller watches recently, they forgot that there’s always a demand for bigger pieces,” says product director, Jörg Bader Junior. “The reaction to the 44mm Trident Reef was so phenomenal, it gave us permission to create a 44mm Trident.”

Much, but certainly not all, of the demand for a larger Trident has come from the USA, where bigger watches – like bigger cars – seem to t with the American mindset, as our North America brand director Mike Pearson explains.

“When I hold the 44mm Trident, it captures that balance of presence and comfort that our fans appreciate,” he says. “As in the rest of the world, the success of the 44mm Trident Reef here was a sign that there was a market for a bigger watch, especially as it felt so light on the wrist. The new Trident feels the same.”

The expansion into 44mm takes in most of the Trident range, from the steel Pro 300 to the Bronze Chronometer with only the Trident Lumière and Sapphire Edge not joining the party. The result is a range of incredible variety and choice.

“Trident is the most obvious choice to expand into 44mm,” says Jörg. “Classic dress watches shouldn’t be too big, whereas dive watches, with their focus on visibility in low light, justi es the bigger size. Look at Audemars Piguet’s Royal Oak O shore –the big size magni es the watch’s masculine look and construction. We’re seeing the same with Trident.”

For Mike, the launch of the plus-size Trident represents a loosening of the rules about what people wear, though he’s curious about the ‘why’ as much as the ‘what’.

“Often, the popularity of larger watches is put down to wrist size, but I don’t know if that’s always the case,” says Mike. “It’s not clear, but I’d love to understand why people choose the size of watches they do, so we’ll be commissioning a survey to do just that. In the meantime, I’m enjoying wearing a 44mm Trident one day and a 38mm Dune the next. As The Kinks said in Lola – and which I rst heard in my 32in loon ares – ‘It's a mixed up, muddled-up, shook-up world!’”

The new 44mm Tridents are now available on the Christopher Ward website

Watch retailers in the US and UK have their di erences, but their future success depends on the most universal basic retail concept – putting customer service rst, as WatchPro’s Rob Corder explains

Stores in their eyes

This edition of Loupe, themed loosely around watch culture in the United States, is an opportunity to look at the di erent ways watch-lovers shop in the US and UK – and how they’re served by the biggest retailers.

There are obvious similarities. A Rolex showroom will feature the same Verde Alpi green marble hewn from the Aosta Valley

of northern Italy; Omega’s stores will be overly-bright with startling white walls and scarlet red carpets; and Breitling will make you feel like you’ve stepped into an artfully styled New York loft apartment.

You will nd examples of these cookie-cutter stores everywhere from Leeds, London and Glasgow to Los Angeles, Long Island and Boston.

However, despite the rigid rules around how Swiss watches are presented and sold, there are signi cant di erences between the client experience in the two countries, which comes down to two factors: space and money. America has more – much more – of both. I’ve been writing about the watch business in the UK and US for almost 15 years; attempting to put the pieces of a puzzle together that show a complete picture of how the industry works.

I’ve reported on two great boomtimes for watchmakers and their retailers in the

past decade. The rst was in the UK after the nation voted to leave the European Union in 2016. That referendum caused the pound to crash, making expensive watches signi cantly cheaper in Britain for visitors from overseas.

The UK imported Swiss watches worth CHF 2.5 billion between 2016 and 2017, more than any other country except China, Hong Kong and the United States. The second boom was in the US, which more than doubled imports of Swiss watches between 2000 and 2024 to almost CHF 4.4 billion per year.

On both occasions, the spike in income triggered a gold rush of investment in retail real estate, with giants like Watches of Switzerland Group and Bucherer pouring money into spectacular showrooms in London, New York and Las Vegas. Independent retailers responded with their own property upgrades, leading to a space race to build the biggest stores in the most prestigious locations.

Wealthy clients now want intimacy, privacy and memorable moments

In 2025, we saw the opening of Europe’s biggest Rolex boutique on London’s Bond Street and a vast AP House – a joint venture between Watches of Switzerland and Audemars Piguet – in Manchester. An even bigger AP House will open in Mayfair soon.

These are impressive projects unless you measure them against what’s been built in the United States in recent years. For reference, the biggest luxury watch and jewellery showroom in the UK is Watches of Switzerland’s Regent Street agship, at around 17,000 square feet.

This would not make the top 10 in America. Ti any & Co’s, New York City home is 100,000 square feet. A few blocks down 5th Avenue is Cartier’s 44,000 sqft empire. Bucherer’s biggest New York store, known as the Time Machine, is 19,000 sqft and its Las Vegas outpost, the Time Dome, is 18,848 sqft.

Family jewellers have also built vast temples for the worship of high horology and ne jewellery. Hing Wa Lee in Greater Los Angeles is expanding its agship store to 30,000 sqft. London Jewellers on Long Island, NY, is refurbishing and growing to 27,000 sqft, while Zadok Jewelers’ Houston store is already 28,000 sqft.

All of these examples are multibrand showrooms o ering a rich mix of the nest watch brands alongside bridal and branded jewellery. What they lack in intimacy, they make up for in jaw-dropping scale.

This space race may be reaching a natural limit. Ultra-wealthy clients today are less interested, and may even be turned-o , by showrooms designed to accommodate scores of people at a time. They want intimacy, privacy and memora-

ble moments that only their wealth or fame can command. The AP House concept is a response to this, where clients are welcomed to private lounges and dining rooms that would not look out of place in a vestar boutique hotel. Every luxury showroom now has hospitality at its heart. Most have bars, commercial kitchens and VIP rooms to cater to the uber-rich.

Customer experience (CX) is the new buzz term in retail, and this concept goes far beyond impressive boutiques. It is about people: building relationships with loyal customers while at the same time being welcoming to anybody new coming into a store; skills that aloof and arrogant luxury watch shop sta all too often lack.

To keep selling ve- or six- gure watches, retailers will need to keep raising their game with their bricks and mortar presence, but they must not neglect investing in their people. Family jewellers have an edge here, because they often have skills developed over generations and customer relationships that go back decades.

Big brands running their own stores and national chains with dozens of stores, have to nd a way to replicate this level of service. Valuing their best front-line sta in the same way that an NFL team values a star quarterback would be a good start.

And that’s the same on both sides of the Atlantic.

Culture that’s worthy of your time

The album Dave Brubeck – Time Out

While Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue is the de nitive jazz album of the mid 20th century (sorry Coltrane fans), Dave Brubeck’s 1959 LP Time Out is the most joyous: music made for hepcats in Manhattan basements getting high and waiting for Bob Dylan to invent hating your parents.

The most famous track, Take Five still feels impossibly cool. With Paul Desmond’s instantly recognisable alto line providing the hook, the 5/4 time signature adds an o -kilter frame that’s pushed to the limit thanks to Joe Morello’s ultra-syncopated drum work.

Then there’s Blue Rondo à la Turk, which provides a wild, swinging counter-point to Take Five without descending into the sort of indulgence that gives jazz a bad name. Dave Brubeck was in uenced by the music

he encountered in Eurasia while in the army – and that’s especially evident on Blue Rondo.

The rest of the album is a snapshot of subtle, upbeat jazz with catchy melodies working with Morello’s drumming, the bass of Eugene Wright and the ‘blocky’ piano chords of Brubeck – witness Three to Get Ready and Kathy’s Waltz for proof.

Sixty-seven years later, Time Out is still an exhilarating listen, adding accessible sophistication to any gathering. With 44mm views for Take Five on YouTube, it seems that the hep cats are still with us, even if they’re more concerned with their pension than waiting for Bob Dylan’s revolution.

Time Out is available on all streaming platforms

The books Confessions of an Advertising Man; Remember Those Great Volkswagen Ads?; The Real Mad Men

At Christopher Ward, we’re very particular about our print advertising. Each one follows the same simple combination of headline, photo and some – hopefully – pithy copy underneath. A template inspired by the classic VW ads of the 1960s and the golden age of 20th century advertising.

If you’re fascinated by this period, a trio of books sheds more light on how designers and copywriters created not just adverts, but beautiful pieces of art that also happened to sell products.

The rst is Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy, the most famous ad executive of them all. Part memoir, part guidebook, Ogilvy demysti es advertising

as a craft combining inspiration with meticulous research and hard work. He stresses honesty, believing “the consumer is not a moron; she is your wife”. While some of his language and outlook seem outdated, if you’re interested in advertising, running a business and the science of selling, it’s a great place to start.

Ever since the famous ‘Lemon’ and ‘Think small’ ads of the early ’60s, Volkswagen’s adverts have been known for their humour, clean design and use of irony to sell cars. If you’d like to see the best of these, look out for Remember Those Great Volkswagen Ads? by Alfredo Marcantonio, David Abbott and John O’Driscoll, all of whom were involved in Volkswagen adver-

tising at some point. If you love wordplay and humour as much as German engineering – eg: ‘They said it couldn’t be done. It couldn’t’ – it’s essential.

The TV drama Mad Men weaved stories around the life of ctional Madison Avenue ad executive/womaniser Don Draper from 2007 to 2015. For an account of how the real ‘mad men’ (and women) used the counter-culture to revolutionise advertising, Andrew Cracknell’s The Real Mad Men is a must. Charting advertising’s golden age, Cracknell uses interviews with the era’s main players to tell a story of short copy, long lunches and decade-long hangovers. What a place to work!

A new photobook shows that the transformation of 20th century motels into chic hotels is delivering for both guests and design fans alike

If you’re not from the USA, the ‘motel’ is something you rst encounter watching TV or lm. A place that resembles a hotel, but is somehow more drab and dangerous. From No Country For Old Men to Psycho, bad things – bad things involving guns and bathrooms – seem to happen in motels.

the candy-coloured Pearl Hotel in San Diego with its over size pink sign to the kitsch Dive in Nashville, this is a book that pays tribute both to the original buildings – and the improvements that have given them a new lease of life.

Of course, this is inaccurate. Motels serve the needs of millions of people in the US, providing truckers, sales people, families and on-the-run assassins with a place to rest their head while navigating the country’s highways. And because motels are a 20th century invention – the rst ‘motor hotel’ opened in California in 1925 – they’ve become an object of desire for fans of mid-century modern design.

Which is where Vintage Motels, a photo book by Brighton journalist Ellie Seymour, comes in. In it, she pro les 40 motels which have been transformed into boutique hotels in the most sympathetic and stylish way possible. From

“What makes these motels special is originality – my favourites carrying the ngerprints of their owners and their geography,” says Ellie.

In a world of unimaginative, you-could-be-anywhere ‘luxury’ hotels, Ellie’s book isn’t just eye candy, but a perfect primer for this year’s summer holiday destinations.

Vintage Motels: America’s Most Inspiring Motels Beautifully Restored with Respect For History by Ellie Seymour is published by Luster Publishing, £35, accartbooks.com

Taking licence

For more than a century, watch brands have been involved in commercial tie-ins with non-horological concerns. As Christopher Ward releases a watch in conjunction to Pan Am, Ken Kessler unravels the art of licensing

In the frequently ba ing world of watch collecting, you never quite know what is going to increase the value of a wristwatch. Like collectors of die-cast model cars who pay as much for a mint original box as for the miniature inside, watch collectors also have their abstract peccadillos. How else do you explain a watch with a discoloured or faded dial or bezel being worth more than a pristine example? Perhaps slightly more explicable or justi able is the addition of a second name on the dial. Collaborations, licensing arrangements and even the name-checking of top retailers can result in a doublebarrel soubriquet for a wristwatch. Find ‘Serpico y Laino’ or ‘Cartier’ on a Rolex or a Patek Philippe dial and you can almost add a zero to the value for what are known to collectors as ‘double-signed’. If it’s a Ti any-signed ‘Paul Newman’ Rolex Cosmograph, you’ve hit the trifecta (or ‘tricast’ in the UK).

Arguably the two most successful licensing arrangements belong to one brand. Since 1932, Omega has been producing watches o cially for the Olympics, now exclusively though there have been exceptions. I cherish my Longines Conquest chronograph produced for the tragic 1972 Munich event, while Seiko, Swatch and others also created watches for the competitions. Many feature ‘Olympics’ ‘rings’ logos on their dials, while others were content to restrict the logo to the caseback.

Domino’s Pizza

Rolexes are worth more than unadorned versions

Sharing dial space with a retailer is a courtesy manufacturers occasionally extended to exceptional dealers, whereas licensing is a formal relationship between a watch company and any unrelated entity which has a logo and a story to tell. It’s a two-way street, usually the watch brand paying the licensor, but often brands will commission watches, such as the legendary ‘Domino’s Pizza’ Rolexes gifted to the pizza maker’s exceptional employees. Although these were basic steel Oysters, Domino’s Pizza Rolexes are worth more than unadorned versions.

A licensed rm can be a car manufacturer, airline, race course, rock band or any other brand which could 1) inspire a suitable timepiece, 2) evoke marketing presence, 3) celebrate an anniversary, 4) serve as a basis for a limited edition (always a strong selling point) or a combination of these attributes. When the subject rather than the watch brand is paying the fee, as with Domino’s, it might want its own special edition for gifting, or – if for sale to the public –to mark an anniversary.

More famously, Omega has produced watches for the James Bond lm franchise for the past 30 years. One might assume that whatever it cost the company, the publicity has been worth it. It has provided Omega with the opportunity – determined by the erratic lm scheduling – to produce cool models which never fail to prove covetable. And if you can nd one actually worn in the lms, think mid-to-high ve gures on up to six if you just gotta have it.

Licensing can be a variable proposition, with no guarantees that interest will be generated however popular a brand, company, car or performer. It's a tricky balancing act, and such co-productions only work when the licensed brand is of a similar mind-set, quality level or target audience as the watch wearing the logo.

You’d think common sense would prevail and that an airline company, for example, would suit a brand with aviators’ or dual-time/world-timer watches, while a yacht brand would be an ideal licence for a company making either diving watches or yacht timers. Motorsport has generated so many watches that books should be written about it, but there’s a caveat: care must be taken not to connect, say, a supercar with a piece of battery-powered plastic junk.

I am reminded of a particularly colossal failure involving a speci c car in the (shall we say) BMW 3-Series category but de nitely not the popular BMW: this was a ga e made by a rival. Although targeting up-and-coming

high-earners with a bit of taste, this brand paired with a cheesy quartz watch instead of the sort of timepiece that its customers would have aspired to, such as sport Rolexes or IWC pilots’ watches. Unfortunately, the licensing team at the car company knew little about which watches were appropriate for its demographic, so these risible timepieces are now forgotten.

On the other hand, one car/watch nuptial was hugely successful: the decades-long ‘Breitling For Bentley’ range of watches. Inexplicably, others of similarly matching qualities weren't quite as fruitful. Indeed, Breitling For Bentley may be the only time a range of watches perfectly-suited to speci c automobiles was a huge hit, lasting for almost two decades from 2002/3. It was a rare case of watches appealing to customers who didn’t own the cars, when you’d imagine car ownership would be a pre-requisite: why announce that you don’t own the car belonging to the logo on your wrist? But the watches were so desirable that it didn't matter.

Alas, I can name a dozen brands which tried but failed to emulate the Breitling For Bentley but I’d rather not embarrass either the car or watch manufacturers which couldn’t capitalise on their co-branding. Sadly, this accounts for a host of truly superb watches – now, of course, collectible because the numbers were inherently low and their scarcity is paramount – but none can predict when licensing will work.

‘Clippers’ but those in the know appreciate Pan Am’s contribution to horology.

A similar collaboration to the Pan Am/Rolex teamwork which did, however, result in a logo on the dial, and which began in 1952, again involved Breitling. Their perennial Navitimer was co-developed in part with the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, aka AOPA. Starting in 1954, this famous ‘slide rule’ chronograph was o ered with a choice of a Breitling logo or AOPA’s ‘shield’ logo, the latter now worth slightly more than the standard version.

Sometimes a name is shared just because of a familial relationship. Porsche never had to devise watches to celebrate its much-loved cars because Porsche Design – then independent from the automobile company – produced superlative watches with IWC from 1978 to 1995, followed by a spell with Eterna. Although they bore the legend ‘Porsche Design’ in a slightly di erent font, there was no mistaking the connection. Now Porsche Design Group, which owns Porsche Watches, is part of Porsche AG, so it doesn’t get any more o cial.

Those in the know appreciate Pan Am’s contribution to horology

Often a relationship is subtle and doesn’t involve licensing but collaboration. Although Rolex’s GMT-Master has been around for 71 years, countless owners may not know that Pan American Airlines inspired and co-operated with Rolex in de ning the original model for its pilots. There are no logos which reveal this. A lifetime later, PanAm’s role in establishing watches with two time zones (and, yes, ‘Pepsi Cola’ bezels) is celebrated this year with its nostalgic, historic logo on the dial of Christopher Ward’s o cially-licensed GMT. It pays homage to the mid-century ‘golden age of jet travel’ and Pan Am’s Boeing 707 Jet

Licensing makes for strange bedfellows. In 2003, Prada’s logo could be found on a cool IWC GST chronograph, a limited-edition of 2,000 to celebrate Prada’s participation in the 2003 America’s Cup. Raymond Weil produced a family of watches honouring rock stars, including David Bowie, Buddy Holly, The Beatles, AC/DC, Bob Marley and others.

All lead to one conclusion for collectors in general, but which doesn’t apply to those who love the watches primarily because of the subject matter. For collectors, the heightened value of licensed watches is down to the inherent worth of being part of a numbered, limited edition. But if you adore David Bowie, Prada, 007 or even Domino’s pizzas, you’ll never part with the associated watch.

There was a time when England were untouchable in world football. As inventors of the sport, they had a decades-long head start on most other nations and assumed their superiority would last, like the empire, in perpetuity. And when the World Cup began in 1930 in Uruguay they refused to take part: why travel to South America to prove they were the best team on the planet?

By the 1950 tournament, held in Brazil, that mindset had changed, and England needed to prove they were still masters of the beautiful game. Placed in Group 2 with Spain, Chile and the USA, England arrived with a squad packed with stars such as Stan Mortensen, Tom Finney and Billy Wright.

After beating Chile 2-0 in their opening match they faced the USA in Belo Horizonte, whose squad was made of part-timers, including a teacher, postman and dishwasher (not the domestic appliance). The Daily Express, always the voice of reason, suggested England give the US a 3-0 head start.

In what would become the standard England match formula for the decades ahead, the Three Lions bombarded the USA goal, but to no avail. Then at 37 minutes, the Americans launched a rare counterattack, which led to a speculative, glancing header from Joe Gaetjens to put the USA 1-0 up. England, despite their domination, couldn’t nd an answer, with US goalie Frank Borghi stopping everything the English forward line threw at him.

Back in England, the defeat was considered so implausible that some newspapers assumed it was a misprint, reversing the score to 10-1 in England’s favour. But the truth stood rm: the underdogs had toppled the so-called kings of football. The crown would never feel secure again.

When Johannes Janke (JJ to us) designed our rst jumping hour (September 2011) it was a horological leap. It didn’t jump moments before, or after, the minute hand’s completed rotation. But precisely on the hour. Our C1 Jump Hour Mk V’s ‘stepped’, mostly sapphire glass-made hand accentuates this functionality. And being part- lled with luminescence, like the jump hour disc itself, it’s highly visible at night. Jjoy, eh?

Do your research

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