OK, before we get to the watch, which is a great watch, I want to take this opportunity to talk about Marc A. Hayek. It was made clear to the journalists, retailers and collectors present a month ago in Cannes, during the press conference celebrating 10 Years of Blancpain’s Ocean Commitment initiative, that Hayek is an anomaly in the luxury watch world. Instead of climbing to the top of a proverbial Mount Olympus to hurl marketing messages like lightning bolts at consumers worldwide, he harks back to an old-school paradigm — a man who prefers to let his actions speak for him. And over the last decade, he has consistently and militantly supported raising awareness of the need to preserve the oceans, because mankind has, in its avarice, screwed the oceans almost to the point of oblivion. But Hayek is asserting that there’s still time to turn things around.
He explains, “Since I was a boy, I’ve loved the water and been drawn to the extraordinary world below the surface. But whether we like it or not, it is my generation that first became truly aware of the destruction brought on by pollution, overfishing and general misuse of the world’s most important resource. But the point is, it is not too late. If we raise awareness, if we prevent mistreatment of the ocean, it can heal itself, because one thing we’ve learned is that it is remarkably resilient. As a
