What Is a Variable-Inertia Balance Wheel
Before even talking about escapements, “free” hairsprings or marketing feats, we need to return to the most vital organ of a mechanical watch—its beating heart. The variable inertia balance is…
Beaubleu “La Pièce”: When the Monnaie de Paris Meets Watchmaking
For the first time in its history, the Monnaie de Paris has applied its expertise to the world of watchmaking. Twelve centuries of mastery in minting, striking, and metalworking are…
How a Dual Time Zone Watch Works
Travelling with Time on Your Wrist: Why the Dual Time Zone Changed Watchmaking Some complications are born of aesthetic whim, others of pure necessity. The dual time zone watch…
How a Stop-Seconds Mechanism Works
Hacking Seconds: The Art of Stopping Time (Just Long Enough to Set It Better) The gesture is familiar to anyone who enjoys setting their watch with near-ceremonial care. You pull…
Why Not All Vintage Watches Have a Central Seconds Hand
The detail that changes everything: where do the seconds go? On a modern watch, the central seconds hand has become so obvious that we barely notice it. It glides,…
Orient Star M34 F8 Date Meteorite: the 75th Anniversary Limited Edition with Meteorite Dial
A fragment of space on the wrist In watchmaking, certain materials tell a story. Gold speaks of luxury, titanium of performance, ceramic of modernity. And then there is meteorite—a material…
How a Column-Wheel Chronograph Works
There are two schools in watchmaking: those who trigger a chronograph the way you hit “start” at the gym, and those who want to feel, under the fingertip, that crisp…
Why the Breitling Navitimer Is the Ultimate Pilot’s Watch
A watch born of a real need: calculating in flight In the early 1950s, civil aviation entered a golden age: transatlantic routes, celebrity pilots, cockpit instruments moving from the…
How a Striking Watch (Minute Repeater) Works
The striking watch—and, more specifically, the minute repeater—is one of watchmaking’s most poetic, and most unforgiving, complications. Poetic, because it turns time into music. Unforgiving, because inside the case nothing…
Hanhart 417 TI Desert Pilot: The Pilot’s Chronograph Goes Titanium
In the world of pilot’s chronographs, some watches make it through the decades without ever losing their purpose. The Hanhart 417 is one of those instruments born for function. From…
Ed Sheeran’s Watches
He walks on stage in an oversized sweatshirt, beat-up sneakers, a guitar slung over his shoulder. You’d expect to spot an old Casio F-91W on his wrist. And yet, tucked…
Why Some Watches Have a Sandwich Dial
A dial that plays with depth At first glance, you notice a sense of relief, an almost graphic legibility, as if the numerals and markers had been cut straight…
Why Some Watches Have Flame-Blued Hands
You notice them at first glance: that deep blue, sometimes almost electric, that catches the light and shifts in tone depending on the angle. It immediately conjures up a…
What Is a Regulator Watch?
What exactly is a regulator watch? A regulator watch is a watch whose display separates the indications of time: most often, the minutes take centre stage, while the hours…
How Does a Micro-Rotor Work in an Automatic Watch?
The micro-rotor: the mechanical elegance of the invisible For many, an automatic watch is that half-disc of metal spinning freely on the back of the movement, capturing the wrist’s…
How a Power Reserve Indicator Works
The mechanical watch’s “fuel gauge” On a mechanical watch, the power-reserve indicator has something deliciously human about it: it lets you see the mainspring’s impending fatigue, the end of…