Issue 30

REVOLUTION DIGITAL

Celebrating the Machine with a Heartbeat

REVOLUTION DIGITAL4 min read
Founder’s Note
If you’ve made a mistake, the first step toward fixing it is to recognise that you’ve made a mistake and that you need to take responsibility for it. Which I am not entirely certain was something that Baselworld’s organisers were completely aware of.
REVOLUTION DIGITAL3 min read
Editor’s Note
Stepping into Messe Basel hall on the eve of the press preview of the fair made me realise just how dramatically the fair has changed in the last couple of years since I’ve skipped out on it, in part because there were others more deserving among my
REVOLUTION DIGITAL1 min read
Montblanc Opens A New Flagship Store At The Shoppes At Marine Bay Sands
Montblanc integrates the three main pillars of its craftsmanship – leather goods, writing instruments, and timepieces in a new dual space retail concept at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. Before going through the black framed doors, a permanent pop-up s
REVOLUTION DIGITAL1 min read
Breguet Rides The Waves With The New Marine Collection
Earlier this year, Montres Breguet celebrated its Marine Collection in Singapore in true nautical fashion. Overlooking the Marina Bay lagoon and situated across the Marina Bay Sands skyline, the Fullerton Pavilion was home to Breguet’s Marine timepie
REVOLUTION DIGITAL1 min read
Benedict Cumberbatch And Jaeger-lecoultre In London
Since Benedict Cumberbatch joined the cast of Jaeger-LeCoultre as one of its ambassadors last year, he’s visited the manufacture in Le Sentier and seen up close how its artisans spend hours perfecting each watch, assembling each complication and move
REVOLUTION DIGITAL4 min readAutomotive
Running Free
I know what you are thinking.Does the world really need a 641 horsepower super sport utility vehicle? To be fair, if anyone has the legitimacy to do so, it’s Lamborghini as they are the ones that originated the super sports utility vehicle with the d
REVOLUTION DIGITAL2 min readFashion
Maurice Lacroix Ventures Into Southeast Asia With The Aikon Collection
In the spirit of adventure, Maurice Lacroix unveiled their latest Aikon collection on a worldwide tour. The Southeast Asia contingent was hosted at the luxurious Shangri-La’s Tanjung Aru Resort & Spa in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. For three days, press
REVOLUTION DIGITAL3 min readAutomotive
Everything But The Watch
The 911 is one of the longest-produced sport coupés in motoring history, with over a million built by the German marque since its release in 1963. It’s also one of the most lauded, with a haul of competition trophies over its 56 years that spans ever
REVOLUTION DIGITAL6 min readAutomotive
A Volkswagen Fit For A Rolex President
You are pairing a Rolex with a Volkswagen — how dare you! But this is not just any VW, this is the Karmann Ghia, a piece of design that exists in a category all of its own. One of the pioneers of industrial design was an American called Walter Dorwin
REVOLUTION DIGITAL18 min readFashion
Reinventing Patek Philippe For The Next Generation
We frequently think of history as events in the past, but in fact history is being made, every hour and every minute. The leaders of history, through their daily decisions, both big and small, have made a conscious effort to shape the world around th
REVOLUTION DIGITAL14 min readFashion
Best Of Basel: Well, It Wasn’t The Sausages
You ever watch those YouTube videos where children, invariably male children, find it funny to kick themselves or each other in the balls? As if they think the resulting comedic effect will far more than compensate for the physical pain. Well, it doe
REVOLUTION DIGITAL5 min readFashion
Spectrum Of Possibilities
Growing up, I was brought up on a diet of monochromatic menswear, one that was stylish but sober and formal. That lens of formality was what I perceived watchmaking through and, two decades ago, was pretty much the staple of the industry. Today, in a
REVOLUTION DIGITAL4 min readDesign
Stone Savvy
In the early ’60s, a generation found expression for their growing nonchalance in colour and individualism. We have them and Piaget to thank for the growing popularity of stone dials. Towards the end of the decade, Piaget led the way in a splash of c
REVOLUTION DIGITAL3 min readFashion
Works Of Art
It is in our human nature to be drawn to beautiful things. Timepieces stir something in our souls because they’re beautiful. Sometimes, this is due to the appeal in the composition of the movement, the architecture of the case; other times, it is the
REVOLUTION DIGITAL5 min readFashion
For All Kinds
For most of history, wristwatches measured in the desirable 30s, where minimal time-only watches ruled supreme underneath French cuffs for the men and alongside glittering jewellery for the women. As time crept further, watches grew bigger and louder
REVOLUTION DIGITAL4 min read
Mixed Metal Forms
It is easy to laugh at alchemy — a deluded wizard stares at a cauldron of bubbling metal as he tries to turn scrap into gold. This search for never-ending treasure was a failure, but the experiments began to show how materials react together under va
REVOLUTION DIGITAL3 min readFashion
Going To Thin Places
In recent years, we have witnessed the growth of a very interesting branch in fine watchmaking: ultra-thin or extra-flat watches. But far from being a 21st-century development, ultra-thin watches have been created and worn for generations. One of the
REVOLUTION DIGITAL3 min read
Introducing The Urwerk Ur-t8 Skull, Engraved By King Nerd
Our latest collaboration with URWERK and engraver Johnny ‘King Nerd’ Dowell is a five-piece limited edition run of Felix and Martin’s UR-T8 timepiece paired with Johnny’s work to create a skull and scrolls pattern on the watch’s transformer case. Whe
REVOLUTION DIGITAL2 min read
Brand New Panerai Submersible Bronzo
I had the opportunity to play with the Panerai Submersible in brushed steel earlier this winter for a review on the ski slopes and fell immediately in love with this model. So, when a photo of this new Panerai Submersible Bronzo popped up in my inbox
REVOLUTION DIGITAL3 min read
Chiming In
Last month, Jaeger-LeCoultre unveiled a new minute repeater with perpetual calendar that the company says “brings new levels of excellence to its mastery of chiming watches”. The Master Grande Tradition Répétition Minutes Perpétuelle has entirely red
REVOLUTION DIGITAL6 min read
Nicolas Baretzki
Three years ago, as the Richemont Group underwent a massive restructuring in leadership, Montblanc’s then-CEO, Jérôme Lambert, took on a new role as chief operating officer (he’s now CEO of the group). Nicolas Baretzki, then vice president of sales a
REVOLUTION DIGITAL4 min read
Summer Breeze
CO-FOUNDER OF GREUBEL FORSEY “Generally, I’m more interested in non-fiction. I’ve read Bill Bryson’s Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe, who was an American living outside of America. He wrote the book in the ’70s when he did interrailing arou
REVOLUTION DIGITAL5 min read
It’s So Fly
The Swiss watchmaking industry wasn’t built in a day. But one can say it was saved in one, by force of vision and the mighty plastic Swatch. Nothing is easier than going with the flow; basking in the security of having ideas and thoughts in the accep
REVOLUTION DIGITAL9 min readFashion
Keeping Track Of Time — Automatic Chronographs Of The 21st Century
In 1969, the race to develop the first automatic chronograph came to a conclusion when three great calibres were introduced to great fanfare. The watch industry’s revival in the ’80s and ’90s, while at a steady pace, emphasised movement development t
REVOLUTION DIGITAL9 min readFashion
Roger Dubuis: Horology For The Future
Since its creation in 1995, Roger Dubuis has continuously sought to conquer the pinnacles of watchmaking, focused on an exponential development of horological design. It’s one of a handful of maisons that has its watches certified with the Geneva Sea
REVOLUTION DIGITAL12 min read
The Holy Trinity (part 2) The Rule Breakers Of The Swiss Watch Industry
FOUNDER, RICHARD MILLE * ** WATCH SALES (2017, IN CHF MILLION) 260 CHANGE (2017, COMPARED WITH 2016) +16% WATCH SALES SHARE 100% WORLDWIDE MARKET SHARE 0.7% When God made Richard Mille he broke the mould. Because what Mille has achieved since foundin
REVOLUTION DIGITAL10 min readFashion
Moving On
Until earlier this year, The Swatch Group had kept everyone wondering just what its plans were to showcase its novelties for the year after Mr Hayek had made the decision to pull the group out of the Baselworld fair last year. The break with the fair
REVOLUTION DIGITAL21 min readFashion
The Entire History Of Patek Philippe’s Perpetual Calendars
While my penchant for mid ’90s New York grime-style rap is well documented, there is one other musical genre which has unexpectedly intrigued me. And that is Victorian-era comic opera, specifically the works of master of the libretti W.S. Gilbert and
REVOLUTION DIGITAL12 min readFashion
Call Collect: John Goldberger A.k.a. Auro Montanari
There is something about Auro Montanari, otherwise known by his watch-collecting nom de plume, John Goldberger, that tells you immediately that you are in the presence of greatness. And though he is a tall man whose generous demeanour displays a genu
REVOLUTION DIGITAL3 min readFashion
The Dive Master
Whenever a new trend emerges it is hard to resist the temptation to accuse the watch brands of some form of “collusion”. When we remind ourselves how long it takes the molasses-slow organism that is the Swiss watch industry to put things into product

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