Richard Mille gives volume to his passion.If watchmaker Richard Mille were to say that he was making something unusual, people would probably do well to pay attention.The Richard Mille watchmaking company officially came into existence in 2001, as its founder wanted to create a watch company that would extend from roots in the Swiss villages of the industry's birth to the latest possibilities of high technology and materials. Richard Mille had been in the watchmaking industry since 1973. He joined the prestigious Mauboussin house in 1994.

A black-themed party was held at the Hublot boutique on Nanjing West Road, Shanghai. The event presented the King Power Black Mamba Chronograph watch, and was attended by none other than NBA legend Kobe Bryant.As the newest brand ambassador of Hublot, Kobe Bryant’s signature timepiece—the King Power Black Mamba Chronograph—was first launched in Los Angeles. The collection is limited to only 250 pieces worldwide. On August 7, 2013, the basketball superstar attended the event at Shanghai, much to the delight of the local NBA fans. There,

Early in 1942, just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. War Department acquired around 50 Milus Snow Star Instant Date watches for classified purposes. These watches are now being discovered in the sealed survival kits issued to American and Allied pilots during World War II. Were these kits thought to be essential gear for pilots as they sortied near islands in the Pacific where primitive headhunters still dwelled? Or,

References to the super Irish rock band aside, the first thing you notice about your average U-Boat watch is its diminutive size…all 50mm of it on the average model! Yes, your typical U-Boat timepiece is not for the weak of disposition: conservative types need not apply. Indeed, the alpha male types of Hollywood royalty grace several pages of the manufactures’ equally oversized brochures and press kits. In case you haven’t figured it out, U-Boat watches, just like their original submarine namesake, are bold, aggressive and oversized. One model, the FLIGHTDECK ECLIPSE, is so masculine,

THE SOUL OF A NEW MANUFACTURE There is an interesting constant at Baselworld. No pun intended, as it’ll be made clear. There is something I have seen since the very first time I attended that wonderful, chaotic horological meeting place almost a decade ago, and in spite of all the change and relative chaos of this year’s event I saw it again.The days before Baselworld opens, all the brands are putting the final touches on their booths. Everything from million-dollar watches to priceless antiques to vintage cars to chairs and drinking water is brought in. In the middle of all that,

Blancpain Villeret Traditional Chinese Calendar The year is 2012, auspicious year of the Water Dragon, occasion of the first Olympics after the one in Beijing, and the year when China overtook the United States as the world’s top haute horlogerie market. This year, Blancpain presents the Traditional Chinese Calendar from its Villeret collection: the first wristwatch, the Manufacture asserts, to ever feature a Chinese calendar. It is a painstakingly crafted statement, honouring an ancient culture, and recognizing modern China’s place in the present.On first blush,

MB&F REINVENTS THE DAYS OF FUTURE PAST Maximilian Busser is the First among Friends at Maximilian Busser & Friends, otherwise known as MB&F. He and the people that he gathers to him have given us four of their Horological Machines, the unconventional and free-fancy watches that turn the ideas of watchmaking on their head. He is free to roam where his imagination takes him. Many of his watches don’t even make sense… until you see them in person, in action. Once you see how they work, they become not only sensible but… almost inevitable.

Editor-in-Chief Carl Cunanan takes a stroll through old Geneva with the MB&F Legacy Machine No. 2 perched proudly on his wrist. With him on loan from the MB&F showroom in Geneva, Carl felt compelled to document his fleeting moment with the LM2--short, but so very sweet.

Christian Redl’s next challenge and the Edox Iceman II For a man, the irony of it will be excruciating, and for his timepiece, the extremes, mollifying. Extreme free diver Christian Redl who set the world record for diving under ice last year, now joins the Gokyo Project at Nepal’s Mount Everest National Park to challenge the glacial lakes of the Gokyo wetlands.On February 12, 2011, Redl dove 200 feet down into the frigid waters of Lake Weissensee in the Austrian Alps. The dive saw Redl descending at a rate of almost five feet per second and touching down after 42 seconds,

It’s new, smaller than its closest sibling, agile as a cat, and oh so powerful. The new Macan is Porsche’s first ever compact SUV--it’s flagship for a whole new class of vehicles. It’s not a matter of introducing a compact SUV to Porsche’s stable, but of putting a Porsche among compact SUVs. Bear with me, you’ll see.To start with, where the Macan S has an already impressive 3.0 litre V6 biturbo that hides 340bhp under the hood, the top-of-the-line Macan Turbo just can’t help declaring itself with a never-before-used 3.6 litre V6 biturbo that, with 400bhp of rated output,

There are many castles in Germany, but Linderhof in the deep Bavarian south ranks among the most famous and is certainly a fascinating gem to visit.Linderhof was built by Ludwig II, the king of Bavaria from 1864 to his mysterious death by drowning in a mountain lake in 1886. He was also called the “fairy-tale king”, because for much of his life he personified a romantic figure that might have emerged from a distant, primeval mythology. Linderhof is the only one he was able to complete during his lifetime.It is patterned after French prototypes of the preceding century,

Last September, Editor-in-Chief Carl Cunanan flew north to dive deep into waters off Hong Kong, without any life support. Carl was invited to join a handful of alumnos to be instructed by freedive record holder and Oris brand ambassador Carlos Coste. The experience was both an ordeal and a revelation. Diving deep into darker waters and mounting pressure, Carl had to awaken his body's latent adaptations for hoarding finite air while being crushed at depth. Here is his story. Part 1: So Deep It's Dark