The Paul Forrest Heart’s Passion collection features a patented Magnificent Motion complication that causes the small heart motif on the pendant to “beat.” The high-carat kinetic jewelry incorporates a high-tech complication—much like the mechanical movement of a watch—inside a piece of jewelry.
Heart’s Passion, model HR-01, from Paul Forrest. The gem-encrusted heart appears to beat thanks to a mechanical movement inside.
Paul Forrest places an exclusive 145-piece movement, which is crafted in Fleurier, Switzerland, inside the case. The movement offers eight hours of power reserve and is wound by a small key that also serves as part of the pendant chain’s clasp. Paul Forrest refers to the one-way ratcheting winding system as the “key to your heart.”
It took nearly two years to develop this movement, which is built completely for Paul Forrest from the ground up.
“Many women are becoming increasingly aware of mechanical complications as seen on many high level watches in recent times,” says company founder and CEO Paul Forrest Hartzband, who is based in Connecticut. “Heart’s Passion is for women who appreciate beautiful and elegant jewelry, as well as its sophisticated inner life.”
There are currently two Heart’s Passion collections, Heart and Medallion, and each is presented in 18-karat white, rose or yellow gold embellished with various gemstone options including diamonds, rubies and sapphires. Pictured is model HR-01. Price: $46,000.
Specifications: Paul Forrest Heart’s Passion HR-01 (above)
Movement: Caliber PF-001, made in Fleurier, manual winding, eight-hour power reserve,145 total parts. Winding clasp in rose gold with fused titanium mechanical winding system.
Case: 18-karat rose gold, pendant set with 248 white brilliant-cut diamonds (2.406 carats), heart set with 27 pink brilliant-cut diamonds (0.351 carats), pavè dial set with 341 white brilliant-cut diamonds (0.962 Carats). Total carat weight: 3.719. Double curved sapphire crystal. Water resistant to 50 meters.
A Paul Forrest pendant from the Medallion collection.
In case you missed the unveiling last month, Doxa has added white to the six existing colors within the Swiss dive-watch maker’s classic SUB 200 collection.
The new Doxa Whitepearl.
The new Doxa Whitepearl will be the only all-white model throughout the SUB family, which also includes the SUB 300 and SUB 1500T collections. Existing options range from classic black dial (Sharkhunter) to silver (Searambler) and even Aquamarine, to the original emblematic orange dial, which Doxa first launched in 1967.
The Doxa Whitepearl retains the SUB 200’s 42mm steel case with its handsome domed ‘glass box’ sapphire crystal, unidirectional rotating bezel and screw-down crown.
As you might expect, the SUB 200 is water-resistant to 200 meters and features a generous dollop of white SuperLuminova coating on all dive-related displays. Equipped with an ETA automatic movement, the SUB 200 offers a power reserve of approximately 38 hours.
Doxa offers the SUB 200 Whitepearl either with its excellent stainless steel ‘rice bead’ mesh bracelet with folding clasp, or with a sporty white rubber strap. Doxa now offers the strap in two sizes, standard and small, perhaps to underscore a unisex vibe for this fashionable and technically proficient dive watch.
With this edition of BackStory we’re flipping the column’s conceit on its head.
The Marco Lang Zweigesicht-1 (the watch’s name means ‘two-faced’ in German) allows the wearer to easily flip the watch as desired. Below, you’re looking at the watch’s handcrafted movement. While this view of the watch can remain pressed against your wrist to instead expose a beautiful, classic three-hand dial, Marco Lang understands that many enthusiasts prefer to gaze at their watch’s caliber.
The Marco Lang Zweigesicht-1, in steel.
Lang’s very clever system means the watch’s owner can pull both sides of the strap away from the case, vertically flip the case (keeping the crown at the right side) and snap it back into place.
As you can see, Lang’s movement also includes a dial with a Grand Feu enamel minute hand and hour hand on a skeletonized silver dial. This sits atop dual barrels, a stunning gold-hued mainplate and three steel floating bridges that define the movement’s layout and essentially tie together all the necessary components. Lang plays with his materials, alternating polished, ground or blued steel with red rubies and wheels made of a solid 14-karat gold alloy.
The movement, showing the traditional back view.
Unusual Indicator
Among these nicely finished components, note the ‘four-legged’ balance shaped to resemble a Gothic church window. If you missed this flourish at first glance, perhaps you’re eyes first lit on the odd series of blued hands at the movement’s 9 o’clock position.
This component is a shock indicator. Any impacts on the watch are essentially recorded and displayed with the quite visible handspring mechanism loaded with four blue hands. A small weight ensures the deflection of two forks, which in turn move two hands each. These are held in their deflected position at their tips by exposed teeth, which lock the hands into place. The wearer can reset the system at any time using a corrector.
A view of the watch’s shock indicator components.
This unusual invention means the wearer can note physical shocks to the movement and then adjust his actions as needed or desired.
This is just one example of Lang’s vow to personalize his designs to each Zweigesicht-1 owner. He offers the watch is any of three case materials (steel, rose gold and platinum) and will customize the shapes and materials of the hands, the engravings in the movement and case, and will even offer a choice of polishes.
The Marco Lang Zweigesicht-1, showing traditional dial view, rose gold edition
The Essentials:
Case: 40mm by 12.5mm steel, rose gold or platinum, sapphire crystals, device to remove the strap and wear the watch movement side up.
Movement: Marco Lang Caliber ml-01, 34mm by 4.4mm, 21,600 bph, 70-hour power reserve, set with 27 rubies and 1 diamond. Balance/escapement: Free four-leg balance with ex-center regulation, blued Breguet hairspring, lever escapement (20.5) with one-armed balance lever, second hand stop, and resettable shock indication in 4 directions. Plate can be engraved as requested.
Price: Starting at 50,000 euros, or about $58,000.
Seiko’s partnership with the U.S.-based sports clothing and accessories brand Rowing Blazers, announced earlier this summer, resulted in three colorful automatic Seiko 5 Sports watch designs. Two of the watches are limited editions and one model is an ongoing ‘special edition.’
The Seiko 5 Sport-Rowing Blazers trio.
The collaboration offers three distinctive bezels on a 42.5mm steel case with a black Seiko 5 Sports day-date dial with its crown at 4 o’clock. The collaboration includes an unusual red and white seconds hand alongside the Seiko 5’s characteristic wide hour and minute hands.
Also new here is the Rowing Blazers logo on the dial. Inside Seiko fits its ultra-reliable automatic Caliber 4R36 with 41-hour power reserve.
The collection, developed in collaboration with Rowing Blazers founder and creative director Jack Carlson and Seiko’s product development team, features three unidirectional bezel designs: a checkered rally pattern (SRPG49), a red zigzag Rowing Blazers motif (SRPG51) and a four-color red, blue, yellow and green design (SRPG53).
(See our interview with Carlson below for insight into how and why he designed the Seiko-Rowing Blazers collection.)
The latter design is on the special edition model that is not limited in number. Seiko includes a rainbow, green or black nylon strap with each steel bracelet watch.
“Collaborating with Seiko is a dream come true,” says Rowing Blazers founder Jack Carlson. “I have a small collection of both new and vintage Seikos, and I’m obsessed with the brand. This is our first real foray into the world of watches — though we often sell vintage Seikos on our site — and I couldn’t imagine a better partnership.”
As a bonus, each watch is emblazoned on its caseback with a skeleton as a reminder that time flies (a memento mori). Price: $495.
Seiko’s Seismic Shift
By James Henderson
By the time you will read this, what has been perhaps one of the most seismic shifts in the ever-growing watch subculture that is the Seiko 5 Sport series will have already happened. In fairness, there have been and will continue to be Seiko 5 Sports models put out in limited edition series. That being said, the majority of them are targeted to a decidedly wider, easier to sell-to demographic.
More to the point, Rowing Blazers has built its fan base (I am a proud member) by decidedly swimming against the current of the obvious. So while it would have been easy to take a basic watch and throw the Rowing Blazers name on it, the Rowing Blazers Seiko 5 capsule did something more.
Rowing Blazers founder Jack Carlson and vintage watch expert Eric Wind rolled up their sleeves and came up with not one, not two, but three unique watches that got watch fans in North America and beyond so worked up that they sold out faster than Wonka bars when everyone was looking for golden tickets.
Although your best chance to get one of these nifty time machines is to scour the various secondary market places, the powers that be here at Isochron Media thought you might enjoy a bit of background on what has proven to be the Seiko 5 equivalent of what happened when the guy said “What if we sliced the bread before we sold it?”
Not unlike when Smith met Wesson, you and Eric Wind have a bit of a story. How did you two meet?
Jack Carlson – Eric and I met on the first day of our freshman year in college, at Georgetown in 2005. We became fast friends. I even persuaded Eric to try out for the rowing team. Eric’s rowing career was brief, but we remained great friends. We were both in the School of Foreign Service; Eric was studying Farsi, and I was studying Chinese.
After Georgetown, I did a PhD at Oxford in archaeology, and while I was there, Eric popped over for a year to do a one-year MBA. I was honored to be the best man at Eric’s wedding to his amazing wife Christine. Aside from being a great friend, Eric has also been my watch consigliere and a great supporter of the Rowing Blazers brand since we launched four years ago. Eric sources and curates many of the vintage watches we sell at Rowing Blazers, and, of course, we also worked together on the Seiko collaboration!
What was the inspiration for the capsule?
I love Seiko, and I’ve been a vintage Seiko collector for a while now. So, it was an honor to have the opportunity to work together. I wanted everything we created to feel timeless, classic, and wearable. But I also wanted them to be fun, a little unexpected, and a little irreverent.
Color and pattern are very important to Rowing Blazers as a brand; and I wanted the capsule to reflect that. The four-color bezel was just something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. It’s so simple, but also fun and unique. It’s a very ‘90s vibe, very nostalgic, like a lot of what we do at Rowing Blazers.
The Rally bezel is inspired by some of my favorite vintage Seikos. Whenever we collaborate with a brand with a rich history and heritage like Seiko, I always try to tap into that history, and to bring some aspects of it that might not be getting a lot of love or attention currently to the surface. And the zig-zag artillery stripe is one of our brand codes. We’ve never rendered it in a circular format before, but it came out brilliantly.
Why the Seiko 5?
The Seiko 5 Sports are a great canvas to work on. We can do a lot of fun things, and the result is still classic, wearable, and a relatively accessible price point, which I think is great for our first watch collaboration.
Are there possible future collaborations?
Yes! Several exciting things in the works! Stay tuned!
Specifications: Seiko 5 Sports Rowing Blazers
(Limited Edition of 500 pieces (SRPG49/SRPG51) and Special Edition (SRPG53)
Movement: Automatic Caliber 4R36, 21,600 vph, power reserve of approximately 41 hours.
Case: 42.5mm steel with limited edition screw-down see-through caseback, water-resistant to 100 meters.
Dial: Black with day-date, LumiBrite hands and markers, red-striped seconds hand, limited edition screw down see-through caseback.
Bracelet and strap: Stainless steel with tri-fold push-button release clasp. Additional green nylon strap included with SRPG49, additional multi-color nylon strap included with SRPG53 and additional black nylon strap included with SRPG53.
Shinola has teamed with another high-profile Detroit-based company, luxury automaker Lincoln, to create the Lincoln Aviator SUV Shinola concept, an automotive design that blends Lincoln signature luxury hues with Shinola’s modernistic aesthetic.
The Lincoln Aviator Shinola Concept
The Lincoln Aviator concept, which will be on display at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on August 15, has Lincoln exploring the use of different colors and new materials in designing vehicles, while also expanding its use of leather as exemplified by Shinola.
“Shinola opened up their showroom to us as a playground – allowing us to explore how their brand’s lifestyle ethos could be woven into a new theme for one of our vehicles,” said Kemal Curic, design director, Lincoln.
“Our designers were handed a rare gift, and they made the most of it. The fresh insights our team gained studying popular design motifs make this new Aviator concept a true celebration of craftsmanship.”
Designers from both companies created a new luxury vehicle that “still embodies Shinola’s aesthetic of approachable luxury with thoughtful details,” explains Shannon Washburn, Shinola CEO. “You can see this in the touches of copper inspired by our bike seats and the brand strip incorporated into the leather seats.”
The new Lincoln Aviator Shinola concept features a soft white exterior that echoes Shinola’s mother-of pearl stone watch dials, with hints of blue. In addition, hints of Shinola’s copper accents, as seen in the Shinola Runwell bicycle collection, gleam with a rose-gold hue.
Shinola’s watchstraps and bracelets are also echoed in the car’s woven metal mesh second-row console, displaying the same copper accents seen on the car’s exterior. Lincoln also took cues from Shinola’s brand stripe by weaving a similar textile pattern into the seats in three rows.
The Shinola Canfield chronograph.
“The goal is to impress occupants with our very own expression of craftsmanship, showcasing our meticulous attention to detail,” said Liam Butler, Lincoln color and material designer. “This stripe is unlike anything I’ve ever seen sewn into a vehicle, so we wanted to make sure it was done with care.”
Also new here is the Rowing Blazers logo on the dial. Inside Seiko fits its ultra-reliable automatic Caliber 4R36 with 41-hour power reserve.
