The most complex issue of WOW Singapore 2024 lives up to its own billing, giving the team the chance to take up a vigorous technical challenge: breaking down the perpetual calendar. This high complication anchors the Autumn issue as we try to do a proper explainer on it. We are certainly not the first, as the credits for that section clearly demonstrate. Nevertheless, this is important work for specialist magazines: you will not find in-depth explainers anywhere else. Without tooting our own horn, or horns as it happens since I am speaking for all specialists, we really do go all the way. This is as far removed from fire-and-forget opinionated reviews as space-time is from the aether. Basically, if you make some point or other about a feature of nature, you can get it right or wrong – and it does not do to err.
This is why we dedicated so much time and effort to our maximalist 20-plus page perpetual calendar special. Speaking of which, the gorilla of a main feature of this issue reminded me of a point I missed out on in last year’s chronograph special. It is a general thing that works for all mechanical systems. In every case that some mechanical function sparks your curiosity, try to focus on the hows rather than the whats – meaning understanding how a watch works is much more rewarding than working out what every component is or does. The advantage is this: once you know how something works, you can figure out the details. This is not advice from me, but from the watchmakers who teach watchmaking to those who will take up the craft. It is also the advice we received from the bosses at Panerai, Parmigiani Fleurier, Rado, TAG Heuer and Tissot.
On that note, we did the bulk of these interviews earlier in the year, and events happened to overtake our interview with Julien Tornare, who was the CEO of TAG Heuer when we spoke; he is now the CEO of Hublot. Nevertheless, Tornare’s nature should speak to how he will approach his role at Hublot, and we think we did a reasonable job at painting a portrait of him.
Read More: New Frontiers: What to Expect from Julien Tornare at Hublot
This digression aside, it allows us to segue into the cover watch, which is the first forged carbon PRX, and the first Tissot with such a dial and case. The story itself concerns a number of new PRX models, including the popular Grendizer model. Just before the issue was sent off to print, news broke of the first new forged carbon case from the pioneer itself, Audemars Piguet. The relevance has to do with the Nivachron hairspring that features in the PRX collection (not the forged carbon one though). This was a joint development between Swatch Group and none other than Audemars Piguet. This makes us wonder if the re-emergence of forged carbon has its roots in broader industrial cooperation.
We add this bit of purely fact-free conjecture, which is not in the issue, because it allowed us to have some fun with connecting the dots. While this one is not serious at all, it could only have been done by a specialist. We make our own sort of fun, which we hope you will find to be true across the Autumn issue, especially in the Conversation, which is back, as usual. The discussion between the editors of Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand is also a bit more technical than usual, although still slightly silly. This time, the subject is watchmaking complications and how to do them right. Fitting.
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