The brutalist dial was subordinate to the gleaming geometries of the case, where contrasting brushed or polished finishes were assiduously hand-applied. It was streamlined, housing an ultra-thin automatic movement, and with a look dominated by a screw-laden octagonal bezel, on a case that merged seamlessly into a complex, tapering bracelet. Genta’s blueprint was an inspired synthesis of the industrial and the exotic. It sealed both his and Audemars Piguet’s future legacies, and begat the “sports-luxe” genre in one fell stroke. Tasked with matching the robustness and versatility of a steel sports watch with the crafted beauty that was Audemars Piguet’s stock-in-trade, the designer Gérald Genta came up with the Royal Oak in a single overnight session. Given both the relentless hype that attaches itself limpet-like to the Royal Oak, and the multiplicity of iterations and styles Audemars Piguet has birthed over the years, it’s easy to forget just what a formidably clever, intuitive and ground-breaking design it was back in 1972. It might not leap immediately to mind when you mention the brand name - with the Nautilus on its books, and a formidable history of perpetual calendars, split-second chronographs, worldtimers and minute repeaters, you can hardly blame fans for sometimes overlooking the humble Calatrava - but it is the bedrock upon which so much great watchmaking stands. 96 was a hit powered by a respected LeCoultre calibre it provided a blank canvas for all manner of dial designs and iterations, and remained in production for 40 years. Penney was born well after 1932 and is alive and well today.) What is more certain is that ref. 96 for the name of the original designer. (Don’t believe stories online that the Calatrava was designed by British antique watch dealer and enthusiast David Penney he was commissioned in the 1980s to illustrate an authoritative hardback book on the brand’s history, and journalists mistook his signature against drawings of the ref. It’s not even clear why it started with number 96. Details of its genesis are scant, its designer unknown the name comes from a symbol used by 12th-century Castilian knights, registered by Patek Philippe 45 years earlier but never used. Seeing the need for a simple, easily marketable watch to put the business on a stable footing (in contrast to the complicated watches that were its stock-in-trade), they introduced the first Calatrava, the reference 96 in the same year, a 31mm design that espoused Bauhaus principles. As the 1930s began, Patek, Philippe & Cie was in financial trouble, and in 1932 was acquired by the Stern family, which remains in control today. Hyperbole? Perhaps - certainly very few mega-brands owe their success to just one single watch - but there is a strong case to be made. This is the definitive list of the 50 Most Important Watches Ever. A crack team of industry experts, drawn from all corners of the watch world, from museums to retail, publishing to brand bosses, journalism to actual professors, as our voting panel.Īccept no substitutes. Happily, we had the next-best thing to Stephen Hawking to help us. Whittling the Most Important down to just 50 sometimes seemed a task akin to studying the history of time itself. There are many more categories and many, many, many more watches. And there were watches that did the exact opposite – head-spinningly bonkers and eye-wateringly expensive creations like MB&F’s HM4 Thunderbolt and Richard Mille’s RM 011 Felipe Massa. There are watches that democratised design – step forward the $3.75 Ingersoll ‘Mickey Mouse’ from 1933 take a bow the first twelve Swatches released exactly five decades later. There are the record breakers – watches that have gone deeper, higher or were more ‘complicated’ than ever before. There are the big leaguers – chronometers that changed the game for maritime travel field watches that synchronised soldiers across two World Wars space age watches that got astronauts safely back to Earth.
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