We were sitting just off the edge of a cliff that stuck out over the Baia de Setubal having lunch in what was normally a surfer hangout. We questioned the financial intelligence of a surf shack so far above the rolling seas below and linked only by a rutted rocky pass. Our hosts smiled, and said yes, well they were the rich type of surfers and they all had big SUVs anyway. So we all fit right in, visually if not financially, as we drove up with around twenty brand new Porsche Cayennes.Calibre was in Portugal to try out the new Cayenne GTS, the latest variant of the Porsche four by four that has spent its life annoying the purists. Many enthusiasts, ourselves included, have questioned the world in which Porsche needs to make a truck. But the Stuttgart bosses had made their decision, and put on the market a model line that has now become the source of at least one third of all of Porsche’s sales.
FOR Ballon Bleu de Cartier Charles BurnsBorn in 1955 in Washington, USA . Now lives and works in Philadelphia.
BALL WATCHES TAKE TO THE SKY. When Webb C. Ball set about to create a standard measure of timekeeping for the railroad industry that stretched across the American continent, manned flight was still more than a decade away. In 1891, Ball had just been appointed as chief inspector for Lake Shore Lines and in the aftermath of the Kipton train wreck, a devastating train collision that rocked the railroad community and highlighted the need for greater accuracy in timing. Webster Clay Ball began to implement sweeping reforms in the way time was kept by men who worked up and down the train tracks and he was able to devise a uniform and highly accurate means of time telling which eventually became the industry Standard. One important factor that weighed heavily in favor of the successful adaptation of this Standard was the strict requirement that Ball issued to all watch manufacturers that supplied timepieces used by all of his railroad workers.
FOR Ballon Bleu de Cartier François SchuitenBorn in 1956 in Brussels, Belgium. Now lives and works in Brussels.
One of the nice things about the development and growth of the watch industry and horological enlightenment and education is that new avenues have opened up. Besides the technological advances in fields such as materials and production that allow the existence of watches like our cover timepiece, the market conditions are such that it becomes a marketable and financially viable endeavour. This only serves to excite the market more. Many will of course question the intelligence or usefulness of the type of watch like the Titanic DNA, but there is little doubt that such pieces are being talked about. Romain Jerome’s first watch was a golf-inspired counter that was probably done mainly on a one-off whim, incidentally just as this magazine was. However, they have found, as have we, that there was a demand that hadn’t exactly been forecast and they chose to try and satisfy some of that demand. They also chose to do it in a manner very different from everyone else.
FOR Ballon Bleu de Cartier Glen Baxter Born in 1944 in Leeds, Great Britain. Now lives and works in London.
FOR Ballon Bleu de Cartier Lorenzo MattotiBorn in 1954 in Brescia, Italy. Now lives and works in Paris.
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. In 1998 he resigned from Mauboussin as President of the Watch Company and CEO of their Jewelry Company to found his own company, Richard Mille.For three years he labored, fine-tuning his designs and testing them for reliability and precision. His initial release was the RM -001, and he has followed that up with models up to the RM 016, in his mission to create “a performance timepiece... an efficient, relentless watch.”.
This story begins decades ago in a bungalow with squeaky wooden flooring and military surplus desks; my grandfather’s office. It was by no means grand. It looked out into a veritable junkyard he called a machine shop, but to us, his grandchildren, it was a playground and adventure land. Step into his office and on his desk in a special desktop holder sat two glossy black pens with gold tipped ends. They were slim; modern yet reminiscent of those styluses used by scribes in the Middle Ages. A 2006 Conway-Stewart Maki-e Collection Karyoubinga Celestial Maiden Neither the style nor the elegance was what drew me to these pens of his. Rather it was the way they painted the letters onto the page.
ORIS DIZZY GILLESPIE LIMITED EDITION He wore black, horn-rimmed spectacles and a beret. He used an odd, bent trumpet for his gigs, and his puffy cheeks morphed into strange, unimaginable shapes whenever he played bebop. His name was John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie, and he’s bopping wrists with Oris for 2007.Jazz legend John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie inspired Oris’s Dizzy Gillespie Limited Edition timepiece. His portrait is seen on its caseback.