Horolonomics

Sig.ra Resta, photo credit Audemars Piguet. News broke this week that Audemars Piguet's board has selected Sig.ra Ilaria Resta as their new CEO. The commentariat quickly went to work (literally in comments on Instagram but sometimes in story posts). I saw a flury of opinions about what this leadership change "means." Of course, when someone who is not cisgender male is hired (or even elected ) into a position of leadership there is often a ton of baggage that goes into the subsequent discussion. Without pointing fingers at anyone in particular, I regrettably think we're seeing a bit of this play out in the present discussion of AP's leadership change. And, I will be the first to admit that as a cisgender male, my own post may not be as unslanted as I would otherwise like. In order to perhaps minimize that risk, I decided to see if I could find sources where Sig.ra Resta, herself, actually described her leadership philosophy, achievements, and experienc...

I recently had a chance to discuss many things Rolex and Tudor with a man held in high regard by collectors and the industry alike. For the sake of discretion, we'll call this man Elias. As I've told him, the opportunity to visit and converse with him was a bit of a bucket list item which helped me understand much more about two legendary watchmaking brands. Despite the fact that I spent roughly eighteen months researching and writing about Rolex marketing, I remain convinced that so much of the present and past of Rolex and Tudor remain unknown, untold, and often misunderstood. Before my conversation with Elias, which took place in Geneva, I had a chance to preview a large number of watches that were up for sale at Sotheby's. A Tudor Black Bay "RaSP" which sold at Sotheby's in Geneva this month. One of those watches was the Tudor Black Bay "Platinum Jubilee RaSP" (abbeviation PJR henceforth). This watch was specially commissioned for members of...

Let's begin with that first word in the title of this post: horoloscopy. As far as I know, I made it up. It is a riff on the term "dactyloscopy," which is not a term I made up. Dactyloscopy is the study of fingerprints in order to establish identity. Most of us are familiar with this practice from crime movies and stories. A detective "lifts a print" off a crime scene, sends it to "the lab" and a "match" in some database of known fingerprints reveals the identity of a person of interest. An AI generated image of a watch with a fingerprint on the dial. So what do I mean by this made up term "horoloscopy"? Well, since I made it up, I guess I get to define it. No, it's not an unpleasant procedure recommended for your watch when it hits 50 years of age (sorry, couldn't resist). Instead, I'd define horoloscopy as the study of minute wrist watch characteristics in order to establish the identity of a wristwatch. Now, I wa...