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“Fine Watchmaking Celebrates Sport”
History & Masterpieces

“Fine Watchmaking Celebrates Sport”

Sunday, 06 April 2008
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Christophe Roulet
Editor-in-chief, HH Journal

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6 min read

Exceptional watches are the reflection of human genius in “Fine Watchmaking Celebrates Sport,” the exhibition which the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie is staging at the SIHH 2008. A tribute to the shared values of sport and the watchmaker’s art.

“A people without sport is never truly happy.” If this ancient Byzantine maxim can be believed, the majority of today’s societies should be wallowing in perfect bliss, given the omnipresence of sport in this modern world. And while we may not feel these are perfect times, the truth is there have never been so few armed conflicts on Planet Earth as now. Is sport somehow to thank for this? A hasty conclusion no doubt, but as the watch historian and expert Dominique Fléchon reveals, “as civilisations have evolved, sport has grown into an almost universal phenomenon across boundaries and eras, alongside the measurement of time.” This intrinsic relationship is captured in the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie’s exhibition at the 2008 Salon de la Haute Horlogerie, whose theme is “Fine Watchmaking Celebrates Sport.”

While the measurement of time appeared with the civilisations of Asia Minor, it was only in the second half of the nineteenth century that the first sporting contests, in the modern sense of the term, appeared in England and the countries of northern Europe marked by the Industrial Revolution. “From a confrontation between individuals, sport embraced the notion of performance, thereby paving the way for chronometry,” writes Dominique Fléchon in the catalogue to the exhibition which he has curated. Since then, it has measured the efforts made by athletes who must “strive for ever-greater achievement.” In other words, says the author, “the art of sport and the art of watchmaking are each a form of expression governed by precise, considered but also adaptable rules.”

The challenge of the first wristwatches

The first “sporting” exploits of the early twentieth century, such as flights in airships, dirigible balloons and biplanes, the great Antarctic and Arctic explorations, the first solo crossing of the Atlantic by Charles Lindbergh, and Mercedes Gleitze’s pioneering cross-Channel swim, laid the foundations for modern watchmaking whose functions answered very specific needs for safety, water-resistance, legibility and localisation. Not that these overshadowed the watch’s essential role of giving and measuring time, which it did with greater and greater precision. Manufacturers imagined no end of ingenious ways first to take watches out of the pocket and onto the wrist, then to fit them with the technical devises which these exploits – which already drew enthusiastic crowds – required.

In these early years of modern watchmaking, long-established names were already at the forefront of this race to innovate, among them Vacheron Constantin, Cartier, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Lange & Söhne, Longines, Breitling and Rolex. They put their talent to use to satisfy the demands that came with these first great achievements. Take just one example, that of explorers and the technically sophisticated watches made for them, many of which included a barometer, altimeter, thermometer or compass and whose essential quality was to be insensitive to the earth’s magnetic field. The first wristwatches that could be synchronised to the nearest second with a radio time signal, without moving the hands, appeared in 1927: essential for pilots calculating longitude in flight.

From steel to space

The late 1920s brought a new breed of watches that could withstand all manner of rough treatment, with the introduction of shockproof sapphire crystals in 1929, aperture watches by Audemars Piguet and Cartier, and the legendary Reverso by Jaeger-LeCoultre (1931). In the years between the Wall Street Crash (1929) and the Second World War, the majority of watches were made from steel. Their elegant forms were designed to please the gentlemen-athletes who shone on the green and the slopes, with tennis racket or polo mallet. War ended, and with military orders no longer monopolising production, companies were again free to make watches for civilian use. Chronographs were now destined for track and field, such as the Breitling Navitimer which replaced the Chronomat in 1952.

The post-war years also saw the return of ambitious expeditions, conjured up by names such as the Kon-Tiki, Alain Bombard or Jacques Cousteau. After the conquest of Annapurna, man would venture into space in the 1960s. In Dominique Fléchon’s words, “sport, taken to its ultimate limits, made the watch its own (…) Manufacturers rose to the challenge with practical, reliable, legible and robust watches that would withstand the demands of a hostile physical environment, such as substantial fluctuations in temperature.” Emblematic models of this period include the Bivouac by Favre-Leuba, the Fifty Fathoms by Blancpain, the Memovox Deep Sea by Jaeger-LeCoultre, El Primero by Zenith, the Omega Speedmaster and the Monaco chronograph by Heuer which broke with traditional forms to turn a new page in the history of sports watches.

A new audience

From the 1970s, notes Dominique Fléchon, “sport became a show for mass viewing, coinciding with society’s appetite for images, success and modern events. A new clientele emerged of well-off individuals who were already won over to a life of challenges and constant activity. Manufacturers now faced the task of inventing watches that could accompany these men of action in their daily life, both professional and sporting.” The work of designer Gérald Genta, with his Royal Oak (1972) for Audemars Piguet, Nautilus (1976) for Patek Philippe, and Bulgari-Bulgari (1977) for Bulgari, is a perfect example. The key creations of this time, many of which have amply inspired today’s watches, stand out for the bold dimensions of their case and bracelet, more often than not in steel. In watchmaking circles, an elegant watch was one that housed a mechanical movement inside a sports-style case. By the 1980s, a distinction began to be made between high-level athletics and sport for the multitudes, and between watches crafted by talented artists and those made for a vast consumer market. The sports watch left behind its original vocation to become a symbol of social status, worn for its dynamic and contemporary styling.

The major innovation in sports watches over recent years has been their size, which has become considerably more imposing since Panerai took centre-stage in this particular field, inspiring many other manufacturers along the way. Companies have also thrown themselves into reviving, or forging, links in very different fields to time measurement, such as IWC with the Cousteau Society or Jaeger-LeCoultre and Aston Martin. As Dominique Fléchon observes, a new defining feature has emerged: “Unlike their counterparts in the 1980s and 1990s, today’s watches demonstrate a logical harmony in the functions they propose.” In this respect, certain watchmakers have explored the furthest recesses of their art, as Parmigiani Fleurier’s Bugatti Type 370 shows. Dominique Fléchon concludes with these words: “In Sport as in Fine Watchmaking, no achievement is set in stone. Precision, perfection, distinction and quality are the values these two worlds share, each constantly inspiring and influencing the other.”

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