Entering the atelier of the watchmaker Julien Tixier in Switzerland’s Vallée de Joux, one must navigate carefully past high benches filled to the brim with equipment such as decades-old lathes, drilling machines, grinders, cutters and high-tech devices, plus spaces dedicated to heat treatment, galvanization, decoration and assembly. Despite being only about 270 square feet, this…
Decorative gems have adorned watches for centuries. But, beyond diamonds and the classic trinity of rubies, emeralds and sapphires, a colorless variety of quartz called rock crystal actually is the stone used most often in horology. Yet, “as a material, not a lot of people know about it,” said Tom Heap, deputy director and head…
Until last year, the Watches and Wonders Geneva watch fair was closed to the public. Brands, retailers, media and some V.V.I.P. s were granted entry, but regular watch buyers? Would-be watch enthusiasts? It seemed like Switzerland’s reputation for behind-closed-doors dealings was dictating watch show policy, too. But that all changed last year when a new…
In fashion, the next thing is the best thing. But the backbone of the Swiss watch industry is heritage, which explains why vintage reissues make up the bulk of new releases. What’s tried and true becomes new again with fresh materials and state-of-the-art movements. Think of it not as a rehash, but as a continuation…
In 1995, O.J. Simpson pleaded not guilty to murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. He was acquitted by a jury. But a little more than a decade later, he more or less confessed to the crimes. Mr. Simpson did so in a bizarre 2007 book, titled “If I Did It:…
When the writer and professor Amitava Kumar invited the book scout Erin Edmison to his reading at McNally Jackson Books’ Seaport location in February, Ms. Edmison penciled it into her calendar and “didn’t think twice about it,” she said, “because I am old, and that’s the way things used to work.” On the night of…
On Tuesday night, as joggers wove down Eastern Parkway toward Prospect Park, art world fixtures stepped out of black cars and filed past blossoming trees into the Brooklyn Museum. Inside, the institution was hosting the Brooklyn Artists Ball, its largest annual fund-raiser. The evening honored Titus Kaphar, the American painter, whose work is currently in…
30-Across: “___ and dry food (categories I will now be using to describe human food. Oh, so suddenly it’s weird?)” 31-Across: “TikTok videos of ‘Family Guy’ clips accompanied by Subway Surfers gameplay, e.g.” 26-Down: “Lili ___, one of the first trans women to receive gender-affirming surgery” Who’s this “I” cracking jokes about WET food in…
On a bright morning in early March, about 100 people waited patiently outside a grand Edwardian building near Victoria Station, waiting to be the first to enter British Watchmakers’ Day, a fair dedicated entirely to showcasing a few dozen brands based in Britain. Inside, there were displays of timepieces from labels that have received international…
Neil Duckworth, a veteran of the British watch industry, started his own brand, Duckworth Prestex, just three years ago. But the company’s roots can be traced to 1869, with the opening of Prestons of Bolton, an English jewelry and watch retailer that introduced its own brand of timepieces, called Prestex, some 50 years later. Prestons…