The Cartier Tank: How a WWI Battlefield Inspired the Most Elegant Watch Ever Made
Some watches tell time. A rare few tell a story about design itself. The Cartier Tank is one of those watches — a rectangular sliver of restraint that has outlived the century that created it, an...
From Pocket to Wrist: How the Wristwatch Conquered the World
For most of horology's history, a gentleman who pulled a timepiece from his wrist rather than his waistcoat pocket would have been considered eccentric at best. The wristwatch — now the default w...
The Lume Story: How Watch Dials Learned to Glow in the Dark
A century ago, asking a watch for the time after sundown meant striking a match. Today, your dial glows for hours without a single photon of help from your nightstand. The journey from radium to ...
The McQueen Monaco: How a Square Watch Became a Cultural Icon
In the summer of 1970, a Hollywood actor with grease under his fingernails strapped on a square-cased chronograph and walked onto a film set at Le Mans. He had no idea he was about to make horo...
The Paul Newman Daytona: A $17 Million Legend
In October 2017, a stainless-steel wristwatch sold at Phillips auction in New York for $17.8 million. It was not gold. It had no diamonds. It contained roughly $30 worth of base materials. Yet a...
The Power Reserve Indicator: A Window Into the Mainspring
Most watch complications tell you something about the world — the date, the moon, the time in another city. The power reserve indicator is different. It tells you something about the watch itsel...
