Jack Forster

POSTS BY Jack Forster

I LOVE NEW YORK: THE DEWITT TWENTY-8-EIGHT REGULATOR A.S.W. HORIZONS

If you haven’t yet heard of Montres DeWitt, allow us to introduce you to a small company that makes some of the most beautifully different and intriguingly ingenious watches in the world. This boutique haute horlogerie Geneva based firm was founded in 2002 by Jérôme DeWitt, who comes by his fascination with watchmaking honestly –the son of a White Russian nobleman who fled Russian in 1919, he’s descended on his mother’s side from Jérôme Bonaparte, Napoléon Bonaparte’s youngest brother, who amassed a distinguished collection of watches a part of which is still owned by his descendant. Since the firm’s founding, READ MORE

PIECES OF TIME: THE HARRY WINSTON OPUS XI

If you’re a hardcore watch lover, the most exciting time of the year is its beginning –not because the dew of spring is fresh on a world reborn, but because it’s when the two watchapaloozas known as the Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie, and BaselWorld, take place in Geneva and Basel –bringing us all the latest and greatest timepieces as watchmakers vie for the attention and dollars of their clients. One of the most eagerly awaited announcements of the season is always the latest in the “Opus” series of watches from Harry Winston. The Opus watches, now in their READ MORE

ZEN AND THE ART OF WATCHMAKING: THE SEIKO CREDOR SPRING DRIVE MINUTE REPEATER

For someone who’s learning to love fine watches for the first time, it often comes as a surprise to find out that Seiko –a company many associate only with democratically priced quartz watches –is, in connoisseur’s circles, admired for its luxury mechanical watches as well. Seiko is, in fact, virtually the only watchmaking company that makes everything from entry-level consumer quartz watches to ultra-luxury watches all under the same brand name. The Grand Seiko, Grand Seiko Spring Drive, Ananta, and Credor lines are gradually starting to become better known outside Japan, however, and one of the most remarkable Seiko watches READ MORE

BRIDGE TO TOMORROW: THE CORUM GOLDEN BRIDGE TOURBILLON WITH SAPPHIRE BRIDGE

One of the biggest news items for watch fans last year was about something small: the Corum Golden Bridge turned 30. Introduced in 1980, the Corum Golden Bridge was then and is now a design that plays against conventional expectations of a watch. The Golden Bridge begins with an unusually shaped mechanism: it’s what’s known as a “baguette” style movement, resembling the elongated loaf of the same name, and instead of putting the gears in a circular arrangement, as is normally the case, they’re placed in a straight line, so that the mainspring barrel is at one end and the READ MORE

MORNING IN MONACO: THE ROGER DUBUIS CHRONOGRAPH LA MONEGASQUE

If you love a comeback story (and who doesn’t) Roger Dubuis is a watchmaking house that’s probably already on your radar. Founded in 1995, the company has never been excessively weighed down by its own history, which left it free to innovate, and innovate it did –by the mid-2000s, Roger Dubuis had a huge manufactory in Geneva, dozens of in-house movements to its name, and a plethora of simple and complicated watches in a bewildering variety of designs. There were also some connoisseurs, however, who were muttering the word “hubris” and with an eye towards clarifying the company’s identity (with READ MORE

SPEAK OF THE DEVIL: THE ULYSSE NARDIN FREAK DIAVOLO

It’s often said that painting was never the same after Picasso; the same could be said of the art of watchmaking, and the watch known as the Ulysse Nardin Freak. The Freak was launched in its first version at the start of the new century, and it was one of the very few watches of the last century that can really be called “revolutionary.” The Freak did away with almost every feature of a normal watch –instead of hands, the entire movement rotates once per hour under its gigantic sapphire crystal, acting as the minute hand of the watch (an READ MORE