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New Watches From Audemars Piguet And More; A Visit To The Patek Philippe Museum

Published on Thu, 6 Jun 2024 16:55:00 +0000

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Synopsis

In this episode of Hodinkee Radio, host Tony Traina is joined by fellow editors James Stacy and Malaika Crawford for a wide-ranging discussion about watches and watch culture. The episode opens with a "cool stuff on our desk" segment where James discusses the new VPC Type 37 HW, a well-executed boutique brand sports watch at $2,500, while Tony mentions the Anoma, a design-driven triangular watch from a new London-based brand founded by a former Collected Man employee.

The conversation shifts to Audemars Piguet's latest releases, particularly the Remaster 02 in sand gold—a limited edition recreation of a 1961 reference with only seven original examples. The hosts debate whether AP should focus more on heritage or push forward with new designs. They also discuss AP's new Mini Royal Oaks at 23mm, which Malaika predicts will be commercially successful despite being quartz-powered. The team then explores brand exhibitions, with Tony recounting his visit to a Breitling traveling heritage exhibition in Chicago and Malaika discussing an impressive Omega "Her Time" exhibition in Madrid that showcased vintage women's watches.

The highlight of the episode is an extended discussion about Tony and Malaika's visit to the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva, guided by watch dealer Roy Davidoff. They describe the overwhelming experience of seeing hundreds of historically significant timepieces, from 18th-century automata and early pocket watches to complicated Patek Philippe Calatrava references. The hosts emphasize how much of watchmaking history predates wristwatches and how the museum serves as inspiration for contemporary watchmakers studying historical mechanisms like detent escapements and resonance watches.

Transcript

Speaker
Tony Traina Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Hodinky Radio. I'm Tony Traina, editor here at Hodinky. Today I've got two other editors with me. First of all, from the great white north, James Stacy down from the cabin. James, how you doing today? How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Yeah. Uh Friday morning. A little feeling a little dull, but we'll we'll sharpen up as we move through the show, I'm sure. That's right. We'll sharpen the knives. We'll be ready to go. Malaika Crawford is also joining us. Melica, how are you doing today? I too am feeling slightly dull, but um
Malaika Crawford I'm not sure Malek or I are mourning people. Like even a little bit. I'm glad we're on the same page there. Um but it's fine. I have a cold brew next to me
Tony Traina and I'm raring to go. There we are. Uh me as well. I thought a Friday podcast recording might make for a little bit more fun. We might be a little bit more slap happy than usual, ready to go for the weekend. But guys, I wanted to get you guys on as Melica sips that cold brew. I wanted to get you guys on to talk about a few things. Okay, so as we record on this Friday morning, AP has just released a few watches. We're gonna talk about those. I just saw a cool Brightling exhibit. It's actually here in Chicago of all places. So we're gonna talk about brand exhibits more broadly and uh you know, kind of the ultimate brand exhibit in a way, just a watchmaking exhibit is the Patek Philippe Museum. And Malaika and I went there in Geneva a month or two ago. Henav't really talked about it, but I thought it might be fun to just debrief on that experience for a little bit. We had a great tour from from Roy Davidoff of the Davidoff Brothers dealership. So a shout out to him, but he gave us a great show and we'll talk about that for a few minutes. And then we're going to do a bit of a deep dive into Hermes, uh Hermes's watchmaking and what they've been up to. They released the cut this past year was kind of their big release, an entire new model line, 36 millimeter sports watch that that we're gonna talk about for a little bit as well. So, guys, before we get to all of that though, I just wanted to touch base and see first of all, uh, it's the something cool on our desk segment, I guess. Uh, and James is gonna lead us off. James always has the coolest stuff on his desk. So I always make sure to do this segment when James is joining. James, um, why don't you show the people something cool on your desk? Watch or watch or otherwise.
James Stacy Yeah, I think this week it's going to be a watch unless you want to review um commercial invoices from FedEx. I have a stack of those. Um but uh I think we'll stick with a watch. Yeah, don't pay those. I never do. Pay them, come on. But yeah, uh this week I'm actually enjoying uh a watch that I was pretty excited about. It launched in March. I've had it for a little while now. The story should come out actually, probably around the time that this episode uh comes out, and that's the uh VPC Type 37 HW. So this is a uh you know, to use the brand's own wording, it's a uh a go anywhere, do anything, steal sports watch, just made at like a higher kind of level than your average micro brand. So this uh company was founded by Thomas Van Stratten, who writes for Fratello Watches, one of our uh good buddies in the industry and one of the great watch blogs out on the internet. And not only did he kind of create this watch and go through the process, but he wrote stories explaining how you start your own watch brand, how you go through the design process, how you do fonts, how you choose hands. It's cool to have the watch, obviously, and and it's great. I really, really am genuinely impressed by the watch. But it's extra cool for someone buying it or somebody in my position to be able to look back and see all the stages where various decisions were made and how that was communicated with an audience who like hadn't even seen the watch yet. Certainly not uh quote unquote in the metal. Uh but what what they ended up with is a really genuinely beautiful 37.5mm, about a centimeter thick, 45 millimeters lug to lug, has a absolutely fantastic bracelet. If you've ever like experienced one of these sort of more entry-level ranges from like a Grand Seiko, I think that's kind of where you're looking, maybe not into that extreme with the um the polishing on things like markers and hands, but it's it's still very, very good. The bracelet is, like I said, flat out excellent. It has a little bit of microjust. It's a really nice size. It's nice and legible. It comes in three different versions. And I they're selling it for twenty five hundred pounds, which is on the higher side of uh of like an indie brand's first or like an or a micro brand, uh a boutique brand's sort of first watch, but it definitely feels like a $2,500 watch. So uh I've been impressed with it. Uh you can look forward to that story uh probably within a day or two of whenever this comes out
Tony Traina . Yeah, that's good. I've been following along. He's probably written 15, 10, 15 articles about just the process over the past two years on Fratello. It's been cool to follow along. Anything you're probably a little bit deeper into that whole anthology right now than I am, James, but anything you took I don'
James Stacy t think anything that I never thought about simply because I've been good like micro brands, these boutique brands that kind of rose to prominence around 2010 has kind of been my bread and butter in the watch industry for a long time, brands I've been focused on. So a lot of the challenges were things I was at least loosely aware of, you know, finally finding the right suppliers, doing so much work in samples just to get to the point where you're happy with something, then you move on to the next thing on the list. It's just a very long kind of drawn out process if you want to be picky. And I think to make a watch at this level, you have to be quite picky, maybe to do something at four or five hundred dollars you can cut some corners. People will understand because of what they're paying. Um but I I think what kind of stands out for me is uh uh you know it's something that I feel is becoming more and more uh obvious in certain types of watches where you're either buying from a brand and you might be buying the watch that the brand is really good at making or the brand is known for. And other times you're buying a watch from someone who just really loves watches. And there's like little signals that show that like when they went through the process, they knew, especially like this is a watch essentially designed by someone who has our job, you know, a watch writer, a watch journalist, a watch pundit, a watch enthusiast altogether. And I think you see a lot of that in the design of this, in the decisions that were made. The bracelet's nice and thin, which I feel like isn't a corporate decision. They want a big, chunky steel bracelet that uh has a certain sort of impact. The you know you can definitely tell that the clasp was designed by someone who's owned Seiko's with maybe in more inferior clasps or or things like that, like more inexpensive sort of watches. It's nice and thin, but you get things like single-sided screws in the bracelet. I harp on this a lot in my writing on Hudinky. Is that you want like a sure sign that a brand is really dialed on what they're offering right now? Things like you can size the bracelet at home with one screwdriver and you can't mess it up. You can't scratch a link. It works. Micro adjust in the clasp is something that I think it should be on every watch that has a bracelet, uh that has a clasp that you could fit it on, like the ability to adjust that a little bit. Yeah, it's stuff like that. I think I I like the idea of buying a watch from someone who knows watches at a certain level uh rather than you know maybe knows spreadsheets or whatever
Tony Traina . Maybe I'll jump in here, James, because the watch I wanted to talk about for a little bit as well is a watch that I I packed it up. It's on its way back to FedEx this morning, but it's called Anoma. And it's this new brand from a Londoner named Mateo. He worked at a collected man for a bunch of years and now he's developing a watch and a watch brand that is very design driven. So this watch is, you'll see the photos, or you can go online at this point and see the photos. It's triangular basically, and it's kind of a it's a polished triangular pebble-shaped watch, if that makes sense. So think Gilbert Albert and things of that nature, I suppose, all these shaped watches that are kind of in vogue at the moment. But it's a it's a cool, sort of exciting new project that some enthusiasts have been very excited about, and it's going to be about fourteen hundred dollars, I think. So it's a pretty well-made that's a good price. Yeah, Salita movement. So a Swiss made movement on the inside. I saw the prototype back in Geneva when I was there. I think, you know, James, the thing I've been struggling struggling with, I mentioned this when I wrote up that Amida watch a couple of months ago, kind of that driver style watch, which is another cool entry into the small boutique brand or micro brand world. The thing that I find very exciting about these brands is perhaps the first generation of these smaller micro brands were very they were focused on drawing on heritage, specifically developing like uh, you know, these heritage-inspired dive watches that oftentimes took cues from the dive watches we all know and love, but they were doing things that were kind of almost inherently derivative, oftentimes. But it feels like these new brands are very design-driven and uh thinking about watches in different ways. And they're not really trying to compete with the big brands on their own terms. They're kind of doing their own thing and doing things that that large brands aren't doing, uh, which I f I find very exciting. But at the same time, there's a lot of them and it's be it's hard for me to sort of contextualize them if the if that makes sense.
James Stacy Yeah, for sure. I mean I I think that the the I think we largely run our course with the term microbrand. It's just difficult to to in to you know kind of derive what that is. But I think, you know, well let's call it a boutique brand. Um and whether it's something a VPC or a Mita or uh this A Noma or otherwise, I think, yeah there there's there was a playbook in the 2010s of trying to very rapidly create watches that people couldn't get from other brands. So that could be um that could be like a recreation of a watch that's not made anymore. You go back far enough, you remember a brand called Ocean Seven out of Florida. And they one of the things that they made was like uh uh essentially like a less expensive, considerably less expensive but also eminently available uh uh kind of clone of a omega Ploprof, right? So that's one that's one methodology. You had other brands that kind of were led by people usually like out of watch you seek or time zone who knew a ton about a a strata of watches, whether it let's call it chunky dive watches or something like that. And then you get things like the dreadnought, very early micro brand boutique kind of product. And then I I think that evolved pretty rapidly. You started to see brands like experience a fairly high level of notoriety despite a low level of production, which is in the watch world highly desirable from a brand standpoint. And then if you go take it a step further, I think where everything got really kind of refracted was uh Kickstarter. Suddenly, all these brands that had spent years defining uh a supply chain for their product, learning the ins and outs of of working with multiple suppliers from all over the world, there was enough of that knowledge hacked down into the first layer that you know people with no real watch knowledge or maybe no real watch knowledge in terms of watch enthusiasm um started to define and create product and put it on on Kickstarter. And then at that point some of the you know the scope was wider, but the burden was left on the audience. You know, there's lots of watches that were successful and lots that weren't. And now I think we're seeing a another wave of that boutique world where the the focus, the the the understanding, like the critical understanding of how to make the watch, that's now behind them. And they're able to really experiment with more interesting designs, more customized product. Like I think uh you go back several years, a lot of these watches were, you know, cases picked out of a a catalog, right? And a bracelet picked out a catalog that fits the case and a dial from this person that fits this case and then a movement from, and now I think it's a lot more custom. You look at stuff like the VPC, certainly like this Enoma, like the new Toledano uh watch. I think you see a very, very high level of being able to make something highly specific because all of the backwork for how to make these sorts of things is now kind of old hat. I think that was the original key was like if you knew how to do it, you could make a watch brand in 2012, 2013, 2014. If you had a group of friends on Watch, you seek, you had 50 guys plus Instagram. Once that started to pick up, you could you could sell some dive watches. Now I think the the bar is higher, the competition's much fiercer, and a a more a less sport watch interested crowd is starting to find this space, both from production and from um aud
Tony Traina ience. Yeah, I think that's a good summary. I think it captures the good and the potentially bad of the way things have developed over the past 10 or fifteen years. But I think one of the yeah, one of the net results is you get these more like the Sonoma watch, for example. It's not for everyone deliberately so, right? Uh it's triangular, it's got a cool shape and a cool design. These things are divisive. And I think it it''ss interesting to see brands small like this and even large, as we'll get into with AP in a second here, going in this way, uh, of of design-driven things that aren't for everyone. But at the end of the day, it's it's fun. So Melica, uh, something cool on your desk. W
Malaika Crawford hat do you got for us? It's AP day. So I'm wearing an AP cactus jack hat
Tony Traina . Woohoo, there you go. So this is from the merch drop from the the Cactus Jack QP that they released last year. You were able to snag some of the merch. I heard it took forever to get delivered. Is this true? Um, well I got some merch on the day off, mate. Uh okay. Were you able to like buy it on the spot or was this kind of uh you're on the you're on the flow team and you got some i'm on the flow team yeah yeah i'm on the flow
Malaika Crawford team it you know there are some perks sometimes uh but hey i'm out here advocating for AP always. what What do
Tony Traina you think of the do you think of the merch in general that came along with that that whole collaboration? Honestly
Malaika Crawford , not that great. Some of the stuff was cool. Like they had some sort of but the match was really nothing to do with AP. So we even if I say I didn't like it, it's not really shade at AP. It was just it was a little overpriced, but whatever. It was it was let's not get into that
Tony Traina . Uh yeah, it was more for the Travis or the the Cactus Jack crowd than the AP crowd. Um Yeah, they made some cool AP
Malaika Crawford print silk pajamas which I was into. There's one in my bag
Tony Traina . Someone I saw was post someone posted uh I think they got like ashtrays or something that were part of the book. Uh there was like a rolling tray. Yeah, those
Malaika Crawford were cool. I I would would have have I would have been into that. But um they had cool stuff. Whatever, it's much. It's not like it's not meant to be super high quality
Tony Traina . Well, Melica, thank you for doing my job better than I ever could have and transitioning us into AP. As you said, it's AP day. So we're recording this on a Friday. And AP has released another slate of watches. Uh and I think the sort of the headliners, if you want to call them that, are the remaster O2 in Sand Gold, as we're going to call it, and the Mini Oaks, the Mini Royal Oaks. Uh let me take a second just to set up the Remaster 2. I mean it's kind of funny, Melica, because we mentioned and we talked about uh AP and using their heritage and even specifically mentioned the remaster a few weeks ago on this very show, everyone. Yeah. And I think first of all, you and I both agreed that AP should not be a heritage brand and should not draw, you know, overly on their heritage and their new releases. And I even specifically mentioned the Remaster 01 as something they had done a few years ago and uh wondered if if and when there would be a remaster oh two truly had no inside information i swear to you i had no information that this was coming uh so it's really kind of funny that it did come uh but basically what this watch is, if you haven't seen it, go to the site obviously and check it out. It is a limited edition recreation of the what they call the reference 5159, uh a a gold watch they produced in nineteen sixty one sixty two only seven examples were ever made it's this really retro futuristic thing but here it's rendered in sand gold it's cool to see them using sand gold already again after they just introduced this new alloy that I still haven't seen in person, but it seems like it's got a quite an interesting effect in person, kind of a beige gold situation. Mark's described it on the show as well before. It sounds like it's a cool thing. But they've they've upsized it and they have made it an entirely brush case so it looks a little more sort of modern and brutalist, I would say, than the original rendering. Uh, but it it, you know, it really f follows on this shaped watch trend, if you want to call it that, that we've been talking about on this show and that we've seen kind of just developing on the pages of Hodinki in the past couple of years. Limited edition, 250 pieces, so I don't want too much of it. Around $50,000, $4,700, I suppose, or $47,000. Uh, Malaika, maybe I'll start with you since you are, of course, dying the AP hat and you were the one that came out a few weeks ago and you said uh we don't want to see heritage watches AP and they've they've done it for us with the remaster O2. What are your thoughts on this new watch? Too big. Too big, m
Malaika Crawford ate. Sorry. Like I just, it's a no from me. I don't understand. I guess it's an LE. How many did you say? 250.
Tony Traina 250. Yeah. I mean It's a lot. It's kind of a lot for limited edition AP, especially such a such a niche proposition. I mean, there's a reason only seven were made, I would, I would assume, in the 60s. Uh it's actually kind of cool.
Malaika Crawford The original one's kind of cool. Like it's the right size. I like it in the gold, the yellow gold. This feels a little bit out of my wheelhouse design-wise. It's sort of badging. Yeah, go on. I was just gonna say
James Stacy , like how unfair is it for me to say that this is kind of like a P's Ventura? Oh yeah. It's kind of it's a kind let's be fair. It's it it is kind of unfair for me to say that because uh especially in the that they're only making two hundred and fifty but like it kind of gives me that vibe.
Tony Traina Yeah I mean who else is comparing AP to Hamilton right now? So I love that
James Stacy sure no but actually you're right. Sorry. Like I think it would appeal to a similar person. It's a different it's different it's an entirely different proposition in terms of product and execution and materials and and all of it. And I think that the Ventura has a way more recognizable history as Alvis's watch. But this strikes me a little bit like the what was the one they remade for like Men in Black, maybe? Men in Black 2? I don't remember or something like that. Where it was a little bit bigger, it was a little bit modernized, but it still had that charm. Do you think Ventura has a charm? I think it's quite ugly. It doesn't speak to me at all. Okay. Um, it's it's it in for me,'s like the wrong type of mid-century. And and to to AP's credit, much like they say that this is something like a tribute to brutalism, it is definitely a more brutalist design than it is, than the ventura is, which is a little bit more swoopy, feels a little bit more like the fin on an old Cadillac or something. Um, you know, this has a different sort of proposition. I think it's a very cool-looking thing, and I think for I think if I put myself in the mindset of someone who enjoys watches such as these, this I think would work really well. It isn't I can't say that it's my aesthetic or that it would feel at home on my wrist, but I d I mean I I kind of dig it. Can either of you kind of like summarize why you think this is something that's an LE and not just a product that they would offer for a while? Like why not just run it for a year and see how many you sell? Do an LE to finish it at the end or something like
Malaika Crawford that? But I feel like it would be a weird business decision to add this into your sort of lineup because it st sticks out
Tony Traina like a sore thumb. It is totally disconnected from the rest of the AP catalogue for sure. Which is mainly, I mean, to be fair, is mainly 1159 and Royal Oak. Um Yeah, I mean this could be
James Stacy AP's um this could you know this could be AP's what what's the 1908
Tony Traina . Yeah, you know, James, to your point, I do like Cartier does this every year, right? They give us a watch. They don't say it's a limited edition, but they have they have a name for it in you know, Cartier Speak. Uh other brands do this as well, where they'll release a watch and we kind of all know it's gonna be just for a year, like limited production, but they're not saying specifically the number. Uh, I do like when brands do that. I, you know, practically is it much of a difference as far as how many are going to be sold and how how accessible it's going to be? Probably not, but for some reason, the communication of that just strikes it it hits my ear a little bit better and feels at least a little more accessible than hey, here's our limited edition uh watch
James Stacy . I mean it is it is also the brand makes fifty thousand watches a year and have no intention of making at least the last time that I was spoken to more watches than that. So maybe when they try something, they just try a few, see you like maybe this takes hold, or maybe in five years, keep in mind that the Royal Oak took years for people to really get it dialed in on it. And I'm not saying that's what's gonna happen here, but this might have a different crowd in four or five years than it has today. I would really I would be shocked.
Malaika Crawford There you go. I think it's just quite a difficult design. Like it's very, very um sort of divisive in that way. Like it's getting a lot of comparisons to cyber truck. Cybertrack. Yeah. It's not palatable. It it's absolutely not palatable. Like you have to really be into that kind of thing
James Stacy . But I mean there's also there's an element where I think we're seeing more and more appeal in the watch space for niche moves after a decade of people largely buying quote unquote similar things, maybe maybe more brands, brands that are willing to take a chance. I've granted 250 people is a real niche even for a brand that makes fifty thousand watches. So
Tony Traina yeah. The thing is, first of all, they have I did an article about non-royal oak vintage AP at the beginning of the year. And something that their heritage director, Sebastian Vivas, said to me actually was we want to explore more of the asymmetrical watches we made in the early 60s. Obviously, he was probably telegraphing this now, now that we know. Uh, they did they made like 300 or 4 of these watches or something but there's dozen two does two dozen different sort of shapes so they could if they wanted to there's almost a a a product plan or a product roadmap for the next decade if they wanted to keep doing this, if not more. Uh which would be fun, I suppose, to explore the heritage catalog of AP in that way. I suppose it's potentially interesting and exciting to learn about the history of AP in that way, but I think the thing that would be more exciting is if they uh just did new shapes. Um I think it's cool to learn about these old asymmetrical watches, but why not bring in a designer and say, hey, make something totally crazy for us. Uh you know, you don't have to be weighed down by our heritage or our archives or any of that type of stuff. It's there if you want it to make oblique reference to, but I'd love to see them explore shapes and do something new instead of relying so deliberately on their history. I even pulled up this quote that Sebastian Sebastian said to me that that rang kind of it's something I immediately thought of when I saw this. He said the experimentation with design and shapes often connected with complications, but not always, has been a constant at AP. So, you know, they were doing these types of things before the Royal Oak, but I don't think they need to stop and just look back at the historical ones. Now I think they need to continue to push it forward. I mean they did all of these types of weird shapes and stuff and eventually it landed on the Royal Oak as the one that that was a breakthrough commercial success eventually and the one that became their icon, but like they need to keep doing that instead of only looking back
Malaika Crawford . I think we also need to see this watch in person. Yeah. It it's like you can't you just can't you can't tell from the phone it's too different.
James Stacy Yeah. It's too different. There's only four or five photos that they shared. Granted, they're fine photos. AP always does a good job with the renders, the rest of it. But yeah, I agree. This is I think this is one that might be very different in person, should be because it's not a conventional. Like if you see a new royal oak, pretty much know. Um, and if you're not sure, you can go to a uh AP store theoretically and try on a royal oak, and then you'll know. Um, but yeah, I think I think the first thing that I thought, and this is could be just pure craziness, watch like this kind of needs a bracelet, like a cool angular AP style bracelet, I think would have made a big impact on this uh in my mind. Just like uh just feel like there's something about the way uh a royal oak sits on your wrist because of that bracelet. And it just kind of drapes and wraps around and it can be heavy and made out of some fancy metal or gold, whatever. Um, and they're just so comfortable once they're sized and they fit. And I think this one would this would have been a cool opportunity to take all the various case finishing and angles and also include a bracelet that kind of captured some of that while giving it a little bit of that uh royal oak ergonomic appeal.
Tony Traina Yeah, this thing would be wild on a base on a bracelet. That'd be true, true Cybertruck energy. Let's leave the remaster two discussion there now. Uh do you want to say anything about the mini oaks that they released besides like it seems as though these will be a sort of massive commercial success? I I can't imagine how they wouldn't be. It just seems like a l a ladies a ladies date just, but you know for sort of the next level up in spending power, I is like the way I kind of think of it. I don't actually see it
Malaika Crawford as a lady date just at all. Okay. Um, I think it's like a different breed of watch. This is them coming towards Cartier, right? This is them just giving the consumer what the consumer's been asking for. Uh and it's like this whole, I know that people hate when I say this word, but it's like this whole fluid thing, right? I mean, I know they market it as a ladies' watch, but I think in the same way that Cartier is just making everything for everyone because they're riding so high. Why wouldn't you expand your catalogue and include every sort of dimension that you can for as much profit as you can get? It just seems to make sense. Um, and yeah, I I suppose it's like a similar approach to Cartier. But I would say the lady date just is kind of like a different category, not just price-wise, but like they've really put thought into this mini royal oak. I don't even really like small watches, to be honest with you. Um, it's not my thing. But they've sort of done it carefully, right? Like they've done the frosted gold that they know was a success given like Carolina Bucci's frosted gold, however many years ago that was. Like they haven't put diamonds on it. They've sort of kept it modern in a sense. Like they haven't just shrunken down a broiler like obviously it's miniaturized but they've like really thought about what they're doing with it um and that's co
James Stacy ol 23 millimeters in the three metals all with the frosted finish. really I what the thing that struck me just looking at the images is they've rebalanced the dial, specifically the handset. And it has it has the kind of visual punch of like an offshore diver. The handsets are n the hands are kinda nice and thick. I really like the way they look. I think this is a I don't maybe doesn't matter to the odd to the audience, to the the the buying population for a watch like this. Malika do you think it's that it's quartz or doesn't matter. There's no second hand. I did who cares? Like,
Malaika Crawford I mean, I get it. There's no seconds hand, so it's not gonna bother me. It it's fine to right. Um it's fine to care. But like at the end of the day, it's like somebody buying this watch probably doesn't care about probably, yeah. And so like cool, it's a tiny watch, yeah. It's really rad, and honestly, when watches get to this size, it's not really about the watch anymore. It's just like wearing a bracelet
James Stacy . Um and like we you know, we we did the the Met Gala coverage and there were plenty of uh people of any any you, know, gender, uh wearing very small watches. So I think I think this makes sense. It might be a trend. It might be a a drop in the pan, but with a royal oak, even when they hit on something, let's say this is just a a short term trend, it's still a royal oak. And you can go back and find w what's uh what's the smallest QP, a thirty three millimeter Royal Oak QP, something like that. And they are the coolest. They're so much fun. And I think that yeah, maybe maybe this is a four. I can't remember. Maybe thir
Malaika Crawford ty four. I don't remember either. Um but this is like yeah, this is totally that and it's kind of a cool thing to have in the catalogue. It's like an updated version. I mean, they had in ninety-seven, I think, they released a twenty millimeter. That's the smallest one they've ever had, which is kinda cool. Um, twenty-three is tiny though, but it's like, you know, it's not for everybody, but I think it'll be massively, massively popular
Tony Traina . Oh, totally. So we've got three more millimeters to go before we've totally filled out the royal oak at every size, it sounds like. But we're almost there. We're almost there, which is exciting. Next, I I wanted to talk about something that actually came to Chicago guys, but for those who aren't based in Chicago, it's actually kind of doing a worldwide tour. And this is a brightling traveling heritage exhibition, basically. I don't know if it has a official name, but basically what Brightling is doing, as they explained to me, their their heritage director actually visited Chicago to kick off the tour. Uh, Gianfranco, shout out to him for for sort of taking the time to come to Chicago. Gave me a little presentation walkthrough of the watches they had, and then a presentation to local collector group and Brightling clients. But they had a collection of I want to say 15 to 17 heritage watches on display at the Brightling Boutique here in Chicago. And it's in celebration of the brand's 140th anniversary. The watches are going to be uh kind of traveling throughout Brightling Boutiques in the States for the rest of the year. And the way they did it, they've got a package here in the states, and then they've got three others dispersed throughout the world. So they've got one in Europe, traveling throughout Europe, and then two in various parts of Asia and the Middle East, uh kind of very similar kits of watches that kind of tell the history of of Brightling, mainly obviously chronographs and its importance in chronographs over the past uh, what did I say, 140 years, however long the brand has been around. Really cool to see in person to be able to have Gem Franco kind of walk me through the history of the brand. Uh and I just it's one of a number of watch exhibits that I've seen over the past couple of years. Uh I like that they a couple of things I like about this. First of all, they had the 15 to 17 vintage watches just very up close and they would even take them out of the case for us. You couldn't try them on, but at least you could get up close and personal with them. Sometimes if you have these larger exhibits, they're sitting pretty far behind a case and it feels pretty impersonal. And watches are these kind of small and intimate objects, I suppose, that that you need to get up close with to really appreciate. But they had a lot of great watches, Nava timers, the super ocean slow chronograph, one of my favorite vintage watches. Cool to see one of those. And then, of course, other later chronographs. One that really stuck out to me was this gold brightling premiere they had. I I wrote up a whole little thing on our website, just a quick write-up of the watches and some of the photographs of the things that I was able to see. But you know, it's one of a number of these historical focused exhibits I think I've seen personally. And I like that they were they did it in a traveling way. But guys, I want to kick it over to you because I've been talking for a minute now. But Google watch exhibits you've seen recently, Melica, we're going to get to our favorite, obviously. It's not it not even an exhibit, it's a museum in a moment. But besides besides the one I'm teasing, are there other exhibits that you guys have seen that that really made an impression with you
James Stacy ? Outside of heritage museums, I'd need to think for a sec. Yeah, I'm not sure I've been to an exhibit in a while. I d I I remember when when Brightling launched the the Avi line uh several years ago, I say twenty eighteen, maybe it was the spring of twenty nineteen. They did a great uh sort of collectory event. Watch Fred was there, brought a ton of watches out. You could actually like touch and handle and take photos and the rest of it. And that stuff is is amazing. I think what's a little different about Tony, like the ones you're describing that are you know led by boutiques is anyone can walk in and check them out. But you ha you also have to know that they're happening, um which can be a bit of a a struggle depending on on what the communication is and if it's a brand you have a relationship or not. I uh yeah, I I think it's a a really smart thing that brands do. My guess is it's it's difficult logistically uh to move watches around. You know, Oris does it by putting them all in like an airstream and and then parking up places and you can go check out the Oris Airstream. Um, which I guess is a little bit different than a historical exhibition, but it does it does kind of uh remind me of, you know, uh this ability to put the right watches in the right space and hopefully have the right audience to check it out. And um yeah, I haven't I haven't been to one uh recently. I mean uh you know being up up up north and not in New York I I would probably assign or or ask some of you guys to check that stuff out when it's available. So I'm glad there was some in Chicago. That's great. But maybe Malaica's been to uh been to something more recently
Malaika Crawford . Well actually it wasn't in New York. It was in Madrid. Oh there you go. Um there was an Omega exhibition a couple of years ago called Her Time, and it was sort of like a ladies' women's watches vintage kind of retrospective, and it was really cool. Like I'd always thought about Omega in this very kind of I'd put it in a box and um you know Speedmaster, Seamaster, constellation, maybe a little sprinkling of Cindy Crawford in the 90s, but looking at all the sort of Giles Bar Albert and all of the like weird vintage stuff from the 70s, but then it went all the way back to early 19th century and like it was really impressive and it does help you forge a connection with the brand in a way that um you probably wouldn't forge you know just do looking at modern watches in a boutique and you sort of see the evolution of like the design language and where things come from. And especially when there's sort of like a heritage director who can give you a nice long sort of you know, soothing speech about about design over the years. But it's really impressive and it and it kind of gets you thinking, what is possible? Um, but like you said, Tony, I don't know if we always want to see kind of things being rehashed, but it is possible to take inspiration, I think, without just sort of redoing something from the archive. Coolish vintage Omega you saw when you were there? There was so much cool vintage Omega, I like could not believe it. In fact, I think I wrote an article that may have got me in a bit of trouble. Where I s sortort of I of said Omega for women today is terrible. Why not look at these vintage designs for inspiration? Uh that's I remember that article actually. Yeah. It's like they had these weird yin yang watches from like the seventies. I don't know. And it was like it wasn't I wasn't totally knocking modern uh mega for women, but sometimes I think these big brands, sort of, you know, the women's watches are an afterthought. Um, and me, it just shows you that there's sort of like there was so much attention on sort of women's design back then in sort of like mid century. It's a shame that that's sort of been like a
Tony Traina Yeah, I remember this now. So I pulled it up. A lot of it fell under the Deville line, besides some of the sort of the Grimma stuff that you may show there up there
Malaika Crawford . I didn't realize that Deville was like kind of lit and there were all these like different types of DeVils. Like there was one shaped like a tennis racket that was really cool. They just had all this weird cool stuff and you were like, oh
Tony Traina didn't even know they were making that. Yeah, so I mean they did this in the seventies and eighties and I think they were literally just doing anything they could to survive at this point, probably. I think that's probably part of it. But hey, you know, sort of uh desperation leads to I don't know, innovation or something like that. Surely there's a a phrase there. Even Necessity is the mother of invention. That's it. I was so close
Malaika Crawford . Correct. But even pre-70s, like when you look at all the kind of jewelry and cocktail watches, it was just like way more thoughtful. Um, so that's what I got from that. And it was very educational experience, such as our museum visit to where did we go? The Patek Museum. That was also informative and educational to any
Tony Traina Melica, maybe you should just host the podcast because you are the master of transitions. Uh yeah, that's the the reason I set this up is because I wanted to talk about the paddock museum that we went to for a little bit. Because honestly, when we were in Geneva for Watches and Wonders, we had a free day, Melica and I and one of our colleagues, Jeff Hilliard. So and we we decided to make an appointment, uh, not even an appointment, but we decided to take a few hours out of our afternoon to go to the Patek Fleet Museum. I had not been able to go yet. So we took some time to do that. Uh as I mentioned, Roy Davidoff was nice enough to sort of give us a guided unofficial walking tour, I will say, but but a great one nonetheless and probably honestly better than the official one. Uh but he uh he's a wealth of knowledge. He's been doing this for quite a while. His shop is just down the street in in old town Geneva too. So so it's cool to visit his shop afterwards. But you you mentioned it there, Malika, what are what was just a high level takeaway before we talk about any specific watches uh of of the the museum experience
Malaika Crawford . Honestly, one of the coolest museums I've ever been to. I cannot believe how much product they managed to get in there. Um, and it was like I could have spent three days at in that museum and it wouldn't have been enough. And what was really cool is that there was an entire floor just dedicated to like the history of watchmaking, nothing to do with Patek. And it was like having Roy there was obviously super helpful. But I think Tony, we spent actually most of our time on that floor because by the time we got down to Patek, we'd been there for ho
Tony Traina urs. We'd been there for hours and we'd been looking at nothing but watches for an entire week. But just to set the stage for people who haven't been there, the way it works, you walk into this museum and on the first floor after you get through security, they have these cool old washmakers benches from I don't know, probably the eighteen hundreds that Paddock has acquired. They're kind of set up as if someone's working there. And I think they even still have someone on sort of weekdays works at one of those booths and does some restoration kind of behind glass so you can kind of watch people kind of doing some of the old school craftsmanship type of things. But then the floor has or the the museum has a few floors. The top floor as Melica mentioned, you kind of you start at the top and you work your way down chronologically. The top floor, at least the top two floors maybe, have literally nothing to do with paddock almost. The top floor is these antique pocket watches and desk clocks and amazing things like that. Think early Abraham Louis Brighes and his peers and English clocks from the golden age of English watchmaking, stuff like that. And you could you you go there and then you get to sort of the Swiss watch making on the next floor. I want to say that's more of the the when the Swiss really got into making their pocket watches, and Attic came onto the scene and all of their peers, many of them still modern watch companies, and then the final floor, you finally get to paddock's wristwatches. And you know, first of all, it makes you zoom out and realize that wristwatches themselves are a very small uh, you know, fragments of timekeeping devices over the past 500, 600 years, however long we've been keeping time mechanically. And like you said, I think we spent probably three hours in the museum and we probably got to the wristwatch portion in the last like 40 minutes and we were exhausted at that point already. But you're just overwhelmed because it's a lot of these watches that you hear about and uh dream about, I suppose, even if you're a real sicko, uh, but things that have popped up at things that have popped up at auction, things that we write about here on the site, but don't get to see in in person too much. 2499s, 1518s, Gilbert Albert designs, uh, and you kind of just work your way chronologically through it. But I think I I will, you know, try to go back again next time I'm there and uh spend uh more time on the wristwatch portion of the the programming because I feel as though I was already exhausted by then my feet were tired and I didn't get to fully just appreciate and like think about and even realize all of the wristwatches that they had there and all of the important ones. Uh like I don't even remember seeing Duke Ellington's chronograph for example, something like that. I just like breezed past it because at that point I was exhausted, you know. So I need to go back again and reappreciate some of these
Malaika Crawford we'd been in the Palaxbo for God knows how many days. So well, right.. No sunlight in there There's no sunlight. There's no joy, no sunlight, no anything. I think I sat in the on the floor in the museum at one point because I was so tired
Tony Traina . Do you have any standouts that you remember, Malaika? Like specific watches that you had always uh maybe you'd always thought about, oh I really want to see that in person or this is such a historical watch that you finally were able to see there and you're like, oh wow, this is the coolest thing ever.
Malaika Crawford Do you know the Patek floor is sort of a blur to me, but what I do really remember is the floor with kind of like all the sort of you know decorative eighteenth century stuff. And I remember looking at all those crystal watches. Do you remember those? And realizing that they were sort of like the predecessor to sapphire cases. And just like making links like that, it sort of blows your mind, right? Because you're like, uh, these things have kind of existed forever. Um, just like how ornately decorated everything was, how anything today is actually not a new idea. Um, but it was just it was so so so cool to be guided through it as well and to just see like the automatons and like you know what was that clock with the guy Roy showed us the weirdest clocks didn't
Tony Traina he they've got uh one of the things is yeah the automatons are super cool. Obviously none of them are really running, but they've got some videos that show I mean some of these things are some of these things are entire scenes like there's a waterfall that uh activates and it's kind of going past these women that are like picking water up out of pockets and stuff like that. It's insane. And then there's random birds that are chirping and singing. It's absolutely insane. Uh, the stuff that people were doing, like how ornate these th
Malaika Crawford ings were 300't it like the most it was one of the most magical things I'd seen to see all of this kind of because it's so much crammed into one floor and everything is in like pristine condition and it's like, you know all, this like gem setting and like, you know, all this like enamel work and you're just kind of like, what do I look at? It's so much to look at
Tony Traina . Yeah, sensory overload. To your point about sort of nothing new or people going to the paddock museum taking inspiration. There are all kinds of little things you can certainly point to. Uh the two that are coming to mind for me right now are more mechanical in nature. Uh they've got early resonance watches there, uh, and obviously that served as inspiration for for the modern resonance for Jorn but one of the other ones is they have these cool uh detent escapements from uh must be from English watchmakers I suppose from you know whatever that is a few hundred years ago. And obviously that's made a comeback with Raul Pages who won that Louis Vuitton prize with his de tent escapement watch uh a few months ago. Uh but you hear stories about people that will literally these young watchmakers who will literally go to the the museum and sit there and like look at the tent escapement for example. I'm not saying Raul Pages did this. I don't know. Uh but they'll literally look at some of the the mechanisms there and be like, oh, that's how they got that to work. Uh or in some cases, right? Some of these folks were lucky enough to work in the restoration department and actually got hands-on with these things, but they'll just stroll the halls looking for inspiration or figuring out how these old watchmakers solved this specific problem. And some of the stuff was for for clocks or for pocket watches and now people are translating into the wristwatch. So there's still sort of innovation or steps are being being made forward. Um, but it's cool to see sort of the heart of it all, I suppose. And so much of it is on display at
Malaika Crawford at the Paddock Museum. It was cool to learn that um the 96 used leftover
Tony Traina ladies' watch movements. I didn't know that. Yeah, you know what's funny? I was thinking about this just the other day because our friends at Sotheby's have a super early paddock 96, a beautiful watch. Uh, it's a steel sector dial 96 that it dates to the early 30s, but they cataloged it and they mentioned that it's a very early one, and you can tell because it uses a JLC eBaush that they had originally ordered to your point for pendant watches. And uh yeah, so this is like one of the earliest 96s and it'll be at it'll have sold at at this point, I suppose, uh by the time this publishes. But uh yeah, it's something I I guess I hadn't realized either.
Malaika Crawford No, cool. Little nuggets of information given to us by Roy Davidoff.
Tony Traina Some of the coolest watches I think that I remember, at least for at the you know, off the top of my head, some of the coolest watches were paddock 96s that they had that were like they're complicated ones. So they did triple calendars that they would put in there. If you think of the Lost Emperor's watch that came to auction last year and sold for like six million dollars, they've got a couple of those basically watches in the museum as well. And then they've got basically, I think they've got a minute repeater uh there as well. It's basically in a 96 size. It's just amazing the the tiny complicated movements that they were fitting into these watches in the early 30s when they were just kind of starting to do complicated watch making. So so all this to say the paddock museum is uh one of the best sort of watch watch making experience or just one of the best experiences in all of watches, I would say. Uh glad I was finally able to do it, learned a ton and uh still feel as though I've I've only scratched the surface of of everything that there is to see there. Those triple Cal ninety sixes are very cool. Some of my favorite watches of all time. And yeah, it was cool to see. They had more than more than one of them as well. Some in steel, some in precious metal.
Malaika Crawford I'm looking at pictures of them on my face. They're like insane. Like Tony and I were just like we were so tired, but we were so exc
James Stacy ited at the same time. Well, Tony, you put out a you put out a great story in March of last year about these watches. We should put that in the show notes
Tony Traina . Hey, thanks for the shout-out. Yeah, that's right. When the one from the Emperor, from the Lost Emperor kind of came to auction, I think I found all the ones that had previously sort of sold because they're some of the most beautiful watches of of all time, in my opinion. But you know, just kind of a logistical note, Paddock only recently allowed you to start taking cell phone photos at the museum. You can't take videos, but you can take photos. But also like halfway through or a quarter of the way through, I think we just kind of put our phones away when we were like, why even try? First of all, the photos suck. Second of all, you can't even come close to capturing uh everything that's in this museum. So why even try? Um, but that was kind of my experience as far as just trying to take photos of these things. Roy was like, put your phone away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're like, Yeah, you're you're right, you're right. So crazy. I know I promised Hermes today, but we ended up talking about first of all AP and then the paddock museum for longer than I thought we would. So if you tune in just to hear about Hermes and the history of Hermes watchmaking, consider this the cliffhanger for the next episode that I have these folks on to talk about Hermes and the cut and everything else that's happening with Hermes's watchmaking. Hopefully you enjoyed this episode though, a little bit different, but fun discussion nonetheless. Thank you to James and Melicah for joining me. Thanks to Vic Autumnelli for editing as always. And we'll see you all again next week for another episode of Hodinky Radio.