Sky High Farm Takes Fashion Upstate

There are certain things the fashion industry will always love: The young and beautiful. Art and money. Nostalgia. A comeback. From time to time, it also loves to throw itself behind a cause. By those metrics, Dan Colen is giving fashion a lot to love right now. A blue-chip artist represented by the mega-gallery Gagosian,…

An Idea Man and an Artisan Join Forces

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…

Rock Crystal Is Back in (Watch) Style

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…

Watch Fair’s Welcome Grows Even Bigger

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…