Founded in 1898, Rapport London has a long history of hand-crafting superb watch winders as well as elegant watch cases and rolls for home and travel. This third-generation family-owned business specializes in fine leather, warm full grain woods, high-gloss lacquer finishes and beveled glass designs. All of which are calling cards that highlight the small-batch manufacturing of Rapport’s design.
The Rapport Romer (featured here) has a tactile full-grain leather exterior capped by solid metal corner bolsters and studded trim creating a retro-robust look and feel. Able to house and wind up to six wristwatches at a time, the Romer’s individually programmable and fully adjustable winding capsules allow for a custom fit for large and small watches.
The ability to set customized winding programs, including direction and number of rotations, allow the owner to select a routine to best suit a particular movement’s needs. A fingerprint touchpad on the side releases the lock and opens the door to access the watches and the touchscreen control panel inside the velveteen-lined case.
Worth noting is that Rapport London stands behind their winders with not only warranty coverage, but also a 30-day return policy.
Like the designs, the fit and the finish, Rapport London’s winders are top-notch and will create a fine home for your fine timepieces.
Throughout history watches and clocks have been designed to show the passage of time in a variety of ways beyond the current time. Think of the various functions for elapsed time, moon phase, sunrise, sunset, dual time, world time, countdown timers and tides. These movements and mechanisms have evolved to frenetically slice time into thinner and thinner segments striving for split-second accuracy.
With his own perspective, Israel-based Itay Noy uses modern mechanical technology to slow us down. With a longer view of the time continuum, Noy’s latest watch, Seven-Day Cycle, encourages us to visualize where each day resides in the longer scope of the week and in your own daily progression through time. Two companion models in the collection, Rest Day and Shabbat, fill out the full Seven-Day Cycle series with equally intriguing approaches to traditional timekeeping.
Three watches in the Itay Noy Seven Day Cycle series. At top is Shabbat, with Seven-Day Cycle (left) and Rest Day (right).
I first met Itay Noy many years ago at the Basel Fair. His small and unassuming display at the back of Hall 5 was nothing impressive – merely a vitrine with his early models that looked nothing like watches I had seen before.
I stopped and met with Itay and was as impressed by his enthusiasm and belief in his own vision as I was of his unusual take on timekeeping. While I’m typically skeptical of success for most new brands, his firm belief in himself and his designs led me to consider that Itay Noy had a better-than-average chance of surviving in the challenging and crowded field of watch brands.
More than twenty years later Itay Noy has not only survived but continues to thrive by evoking his own timekeeping designs hand-built in Israel in very small volumes – with dials and functions inspired by both secular and religious dogma.
The Seven-Day Cycle watch (below) reveals the weekdays on the dial with the seventh day as Sunday.
The Rest Day model.
“Instead of a single window revealing the traditional names of weekdays, I skeletonized all weekdays on the dial as numeric values (first day, second day and so on) and the seventh day as a rest day,” Itay Noy says of Rest Day.
“Each day will be highlighted in turn. Each watch can be personalized to the owner’s faith or preferences simply by choosing any day of the week as his (or her) rest day.”
The Shabbat watch from the Seven-Day Cycle series.
On the Shabbat watch, find the Hebrew weekdays on the dial and the seventh day is Shabbat. Each day will be highlighted in turn. In addition, each day a new Hebrew letter will appear in the small window at 6 o’clock and together complete the sentence: “God finished the work he has done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had; (Genesis 2:2).
Franck Muller’s Las Vegas Racing Watch celebrates the inaugural Formula One race hosted by the Sin City as it hits the apex of watchmaking design and accelerates onto the Las Vegas Strip.
The Franck Muller Las Vegas Racing Watch.
The compressed carbon chassis is cast in this sport-driven Vanguard design, this time with new coach works inspired by the fastest track cars in the world coming to Las Vegas for the first time.
Under the hood is the in-house designed and manufactured Franck Muller custom engine, enhanced with a roulette wheel function as it performs late-breaking maneuvers into the exclusive point of sale at the Las Vegas Neiman Marcus.
Issued in a very limited edition, the Franck Muller Las Vegas Racing is the perfect racing partner for those who live life in the fast lane. Price: $45,000.
It will come as no surprise to any fashionista that the retro-chic design of the Briston Clubmaster is a child of a Franco-Italian collaboration – in this case with a bit of Brit influence mixed in for good measure.
The Briston Clubmaster Sport
Crafted in cellulose acetate supplied by the sixth-generation-owned Italian manufacturer Mazzucchelli 1849, the watch has Briston making a case for a watch case in the form of a “squircle”. What’s a squircle you say? It’s actually a portmanteau of “square” and “circle” and really best describes the softened corners and flowing lines of this Briston case out of round.
Emulating the style of both luxury eyewear and fine writing instruments originally crafted in tortoise shell (a misnomer as most often sea turtle shell was used), the main body of the Briston Clubmaster case is sensually smooth and soft to the touch, hypo-allergenic, and even recyclable.
Variegated patterns evoke the tortoise-shell effect of its biological predecessor, and like natural shell, the man-made acetate versions will vary with no two cases being exactly alike. Unlike the original shell, the cellulose acetate can be brought to life in an amazing array of colors beyond the amber and cognacs of the original – including solid tone colors crafted in the same material.
In our Ice Blue Briston Clubmaster sample, the steel lugs spaced 20mm apart seamlessly emerge from the semi translucent case, while a threaded steel back and domed sapphire crystal protect the inner workings and lume-enhanced dial and hands.
Various colors are available in a 40mm x 40mm three-hand model as well as a 42mm x 42mm chronograph with day/night indicator at 3 o’clock. All are water resistant to 10atm and powered by Miyota quartz movements.
For smaller wrists there are also options in 36mm and 24mm in a variety of cool case colors and matching dials.
Lightweight and stylish, Briston watches are an easy purchase with prices ranging from $195 to $440 at www.briston-watches.com
Since it first launched, Zenith’s Chronomaster Sport has seen a variety of cases, dials, sizes and colors. Today, Zenith is releasing a collaboration on a new Chronomaster Sport with brand ambassador Aaron Rodgers, four-time NFL MVP and future football Hall of Fame quarterback.
The new Zenith Chronometer Sport developed with Aaron Rodgers.
Taking on the New York Jets team color, “Gotham” Green (pantone – PMS 7484 C), Zenith’s newest member of the Chronomaster Sport series keeps all the quality points and construction of its 41mm predecessors – this time in the affiliated garb of the brand’s favorite pigskin protagonist.
The El Primero Striking Tenth, which Zenith debuted in 2011, elevated the chronograph function to a logical zenith in human-actuated interval timekeeping. Zenith did this by taking the already high-speed El Primero movement beating at ten beats per second and adding a center chronograph seconds hand that moves along in 1/10th seconds intervals when actuated.
This finite timing, which breaks the second into tenths, is really at the very peak of human reaction time and represents both technical prowess and logical functionality. Of course there are mechanical watches that divide the second into hundredths, or even thousands, but when the best human reaction times to stimuli are at about .15 seconds, dividing the second into such small increments is more an example of technical achievement than actual useful functionality.
In addition to sporting the Gotham Green dial and bezel, this limited edition also has Aaron Rodgers’ logo engraved on the sapphire crystal back. Price: $12,800.
Various colors are available in a 40mm x 40mm three-hand model as well as a 42mm x 42mm chronograph with day/night indicator at 3 o’clock. All are water resistant to 10atm and powered by Miyota quartz movements.
