Watches: Hublot takes "Giants" NFL step

ith yet another professional sports team partnership!  Looking for something new and interesting fromHublot in the way of promotion?  Well this ain't it. 

Have you ever desperately wanted to see something interesting, daring, challenging or just plain different in terms of a partnership?  Well, don't worry, this isn't it ; )


So drop everything pals & gals, here's the latest "cutting edge" pr move from the folks in Nyon -

Courtesy of Hublot

Hublot announced a marketing partnership with the New York Giants making the Swiss luxury watch brand the Official Watch and Timekeeper of America’s famed football team. In celebration of the partnership, Jean-François Sberro, Managing Director, Hublot of America, alongside New York Giants wide receiver and fashion icon, Victor Cruz, hostedManhattan’s first luxury “tailgate”, and unveiled the Classic Fusion Aerofusion timepieces inspired by the New York Giants and which Cruz co-designed.

Courtesy of Hublot

A luxury tailgate?  

Clearly, Hublot is not making watches for most of us.  Maybe that could be a new marketing slogan - 

Hublot, not for most of you!  

But as I've learned over these past years, watch brands are not required to do things that necessarily make sense or resonate with me, or most of the potential buying public for that matter.

Having said that, Hublot seems very excited to have written a check and made some watches.  And they splashed out a ton of money on a ridiculously over-priced cocktail party to allow the rich and famous to imagine what it might be like to be "average Joe's" in the parking lot of the "Met Life" Stadium.  Of course the average Joe is drinking beer, burning hotdogs on a portable Webber grill, and has to drag his ass to work on Monday, but Hublot was able to give some poor rich folks the opportunity to imagine what it might be like...

Giants wide receiver and fashion icon, Victor Cruz, hosted Manhattan’s first luxury “tailgate”, and unveiled the Classic Fusion Aerofusion timepieces inspired by the New York Giants and which Cruz co-designed.

the event took place on a lot nestled between iconic New York City streets, Fifth Avenue and Broadway, with a stellar view of the Empire State Building rising above the skyline, where Hublot hosted friends of the brand, fans of the team, and media. The night offered an elevated take on tailgate traditions, from champagne, Hennessy cocktails, and fine craft beers from AnheuserBusch InBev served from the trunks of classic convertibles, “cornhole” beanbag toss tables, some attendees in Giants jerseys, and a makeshift yet formal bar atop Persian rugs holding flutes of champagne. The food leant itself to the elevated nature of the tailgate, with catering by award-winning Executive Chef Jean-Paul Bourgeois of Danny Meyer’s Blue Smoke barbecue, with grilled menu items including roasted oysters, lobster rolls, shrimp and vegetable skewers, in addition to a selection of smoked items including the chef’s acclaimed baby back ribs, pork shoulder, and whole smoked hog. Music was provided by native New York DJ and Giants fan Paul Sevigny, while guests enjoyed the party under brilliant “Hublot Loves Football” marquee lettering in true New York fashion.

Yes, just like a "real" football fan ; ) 

So as this is supposed to be a blog about watches, here are the details on the actual watch -

ABOUT THE CLASSIC FUSION AEROFUSION TITANIUM LIMITED NEW YORK EDITION 

Reference:
525.NX.0123.VR.NYG16

Limitation:
XX/40

Diameter:
45 mm

Thickness:
13.40 mm

Water Resistant:
5 ATM (50m)

Case:
Satin-finished and polished titanium

Bezel:
Satin-finished and polished titanium

Bezel Lug:
Blue composite resin

Screws:
Polished titanium

Glass:
Sapphire with anti-reflective treatment

Crown:
Polished titanium with engraved Hublot logo

Pushers:
Polished titanium

Case back:
Satin-finished titanium engraved with "SPECIAL" + "EDITION" + "XX/40"

Case back Glass:
Sapphire with interior anti-reflective treatment + vintage imagery

Dial:
Sapphire with anti-reflective treatment; Blue lacquered appliqués

Hands:

Blue lacquered hands; Blue and red lacquered second hands

Movement:

Caliber Hublot HUB1155

Type:

Self-winding skeleton Chronograph

Dimensions:

Dia. 30 mm (131/4’’’); Thickness 7.10 mm

Date:

Skeleton day-disc, window at 6.008

No of Components:

207

Jewels:

60

Frequency:

4 Hz (28'800 A/h)

Power reserve:
42 Hours

Strap:
Blue rubber and blue calf with blue stitching 

Buckle:

Stainless steel deployant buckle clasp 

Watches: How Omega Does Rio

- from A Timely Perspective


This year marks the 28th year that Omega acts as the Official Timekeeper of the Olympics. As an Olympic Partner, the brand’s vital role is to provide such precise timing and imaging of every event so that there is no question to the athletes and judges about who the winners are. To do this, Omega continually evolves its state-of-the-art technology.

This year alone, the brand has developed a host of new, innovative scanners, scoreboards and timing solutions.   Among them:

Omega Scan’O’Vision Myria camera: A combination of time detector and a chronograph. It takes up to 10,000 digital images per second at the critical finish of track and field races.

Omega Photocell Technology: A high-tech photocell reader with four cells instead of two to detect more body movement and patterns.

Omega Electric Photocells system.

Omega Scoreboards: New scoreboards that display timing and line up faster and bolder. There is also a new scoreboard developed for the golf and archery games.

In fact, Omega brings with it to Rio 2016, 450 tons of equipment including 355 scoreboards, hundreds of cameras, thousands of sensors and timing that measures to 1/10,000th of a second. More than 500 trained professionals accompany this effort, and another near 1,000 people are employed on site to assist.

Omega Seamaster Diver 300M Rio 2016 watch

Naturally, to celebrate its role in timing the Olympics, Omega also has brand ambassadors participating in the Olympic Games – including golfing great Sergio Garcia. Finally, the brand unveils a line of Rio 2016 Official watches.

Omega Seamaster Bullhead Rio 2016 watch

watches: "Watching" Rio

riday marked the official opening of Rio 2016 and despite the city not being ready—the start has come. With it, come a host of athletes – many of whom are also brand ambassadors for a variety of watch companies (including, Hublot, Montblanc, Rolex, Richard Mille, etc.), and we will have our eyes on them over the coming weeks. Omega is, of course, the official timekeeper of the event – as it has been for decades. We will bring you more about that this week. In the meantime, we bring you a quick look at the Olympic Games and its far reach.

Bubba Watson

So many more athletes come to the Games this year than in previous years, especially with golf making its return after more than a century. With golf teams from around the world attending, it means that stars such Omega brand ambassador and golf great Sergio Garcia, and Bubba Watson – who wears an nearly $1 million Richard Mille watch – will be seen by more than 3.6 billion global television viewers.

Richard Mille RM055 Bubba Watson watch

In the track and field realm, Yohan Blake, who sprinted to the silver medal in the London Games 100 meters run, is also a Richard Mille brand ambassador and is contending in Rio 2016.

Yohan Blake wearing his Richard Mille watch

He will most likely be sporting the Richard Mille watch that bears his name. (Yes he, like the other Mille brand ambassadors, wears his watch during “play.”)

Richard Mille RM059=01 Tourbillon Yohan Blake

Topping Blake in the London Olympic Games with a gold medal in the 100 meters, and heading to Rio to try to do it again, is Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, a Hublot ambassador.

Usain Bolt is a Hublot brand ambassador

Bolt  also has a watch named after him and co-designed by him. In fact, the most recently unveiled Hublot Big Bang Unico Usain Bolt watch is the second round of timepieces he has worked on with the brand.

Hublot Big Bang Unico Usain Bolt watch

Chinese badminton player, Lin Dan – a super star – will also be in the Games. He wears a specially made Montblanc TimeWalker Pythagore Ultra-Light Concept watch, which you can read about here.

Montblanc Timewalker Pythagore Ultra-Light Concept watch made for Lin Dan

There are others, as well,vying for the Gold. That Gold medal, by the way, is not entirely made of gold. It is gold-plated silver and is valued at approximately $560 dollars (according the a $43.75 per-gram pricing of gold).  With 11,000 athletes competing in 28 sports, the Mint of Brazil had to produce 812 gold medals, 812 silver medals and more than 860 bronze medals.

Let’s see where and how those medals are distributed. As the Games unfold, we will bring you the news of who’s winning for the sports, the countries and the watch brands. Stay Tuned.

Brands/Watches: Turning Back the Clock?

By 

MICHAEL CLERIZO

Q: I’ve heard that the prices of Swiss mechanical watches are falling. Is now a good time to buy?

A: You’ve got excellent intel. Prices for Swiss watches are, indeed, slipping, which makes it easier to contemplate a big-ticket purchase. It is happening for a reason: Sales are down.

According to the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, 2015 was the first year since 2009 that exports dropped. More recently the Federation reported that in April of this year, “the trend of Swiss watch exports remained sharply negative.” Exports were down 11.1% in value compared with April 2015, and “over the first four months of this year, the downturn stands at 9.5%.”

What’s behind the drop? The strong Swiss franc has kept prices high, while anemic economic growth in Europe has kept demand lower than expected. Meanwhile, the low price of oil has corresponded to decreased spending in Russia and the Middle East. InAsia, the weak Chinese yuan, coupled with an official crackdown on corruption and a shift in tastes away from conspicuous luxury, has depressed sales in China and Hong Kong.

As a result, inventories are bulging and some brands are quietly cutting prices by 5% to 7%. (Believe me, in Switzerland nobody shouts about these things.) That sounds like good news for buyers—and it is. But is a $15,000 watch that now costs roughly $1,000 less really a bargain?

Some watch brands are quietly cutting prices by 5% to 7%—but discounting won’t last.ILLUSTRATION: MICHAEL SLOAN

The industry realizes that discounting may not be enough of an impetus to buy a luxury watch these days. So some brands have managed to generate interest by adding traditionally pricey features to unusually “affordable” watches, thanks to cost-saving production innovations. What to look for:

Chronograph/Tourbillons

The most controversial watch introduced this year is the TAG Heuer Carrera Heuer-02T, which boasts a chronograph (stopwatch function) and a tourbillon (a device that improves accuracy) in a 45-mm titanium case. Prices for similar watches often start at $40,000 to $50,000; the 02T (this is the controversial part) costs $15,950.

Other executives accused TAG Heuer of horological treason for selling a chronograph/tourbillon at so low a price. At Baselworld, Thierry Stern, president of Patek Philippe, commented on the 02T to Bloomberg Pursuits: “If they’re willing to try to kill the quality of the Swiss product, they’re on a very good track.”

Jean-Claude Biver, TAG Heuer CEO and president of the LVMH Watch Division, explained the motivation: “When sales drop, there is a crisis, but you make the crisis your friend.” The brand simplified the production for the 02T, greatly reducing costs.

Perpetual Calendars

People who obsess about timepieces appreciate perpetual calendar watches, which display the day, date, month, year and phases of the moon, making adjustments for leap years. This spring, Geneva-based Frédérique Constant (acquired last month by Japan’s Citizen Watch Company) introduced a Manufacture Perpetual Calendar watch with an easy-to-read dial and a 42-mm stainless steel case. Peter Stas, CEO of Frédérique Constant, touted his brand’s “lean manufacturing processes,” which kept the price to $8,995, well below the $13,000 to $500,000 similar models fetch.

Complications

Watch lovers know that a complication (any function or design flourish beyond a simple time display) can drive costs up. So in January, when Cartier unveiled the Drive de Cartier, I was surprised by its price—$8,750, so much less than the $20,000 figure I had guesstimated.

An elegant asymmetry rules on this watch, which has a date window at 12, a second time zone dial at 10, a day/night indicator at half-past 3 and a small seconds dial at 6. The dial also has delicate engraved patterns called guilloché. All that Cartier chic is in a 40-mm stainless steel case.

These three watches arguably offer excellent value for the money. But with most watch executives predicting the present doldrums will last two more years, the quandary for consumers is: Do we buy now or wait in the hope that prices will drop even further? 

Brands/Watches; Blancpain goes with "The Bull"

From the watches. tv

http://www.thewatches.tv/en/editorial/blancpain-competes-on-le-castellet-racing-circuit-with-lamborghini/

In 2009, Blancpain introduced a new collection of watches in its portfolio, the L-Evolution, a much sportier line of timepieces. The “L” stands for Leman which is a more traditional line of the brand, but it could also stand for Lamborghini since Blancpain immediately set up a partnership with the Italian super car manufacturer to help promote this new collection. 

This partnership first started with the creation of the Blancpain Lamborghini Super Troffeo, a series of races held in Europe with the same car base for all the participants, the Gagliardo. This alliance soon developed much further with the extension of these races in the US and in Asia as well as the creation of the Blancpain Endurance series where more than 60 cars have to compete for 6-Hour or the first to cross the 1’000 Km mark. 

Well that was the program for this edition of race held at Le Castellet, a famous race circuit in the South of France, but it can go way beyond that with for instance a 24H version at the legendary Belgian Spa circuit. Blancpain’s involvement in motorsport is therefore a very serious one and has kept increasing over time and the parallel between the world of quantic mechanics of watchmaking and the relativity dimension of car mechanics is a rather natural one.

Watches: A "Citizen" with a hefty appetitie

 Citizen Watch Co., Ltd (photo at left is of the Citizen manufacture) has wholly acquired the Frédérique Constant Group, including its namesake brand as well as its subsidiary watch brands, the sporty and affordable Alpina, and the high-end and very limited-production Ateliers DeMonaco.

Citizen already owns Bulova as well as Swiss movement manufacturer La Joux-Perret SA that includes the Angelus and Arnold & Son high-end watch brands under La Joux-Perret. With Frédérique Constant and Alpina, Citizen says it "will be able to augment its portfolio of brands and occupy the space in the markets where some of our competitors operate and further expand the presence of the Citizen brand in the market." To put that corporate speech into context: by acquiring Frédérique Constant and Alpina, Citizen clearly aims to go into battle against other competitively priced Swiss watch brands, which should include the likes of Longines, Hamilton, Baume & Mercier, and perhaps even Montblanc, Tudor, or TAG Heuer.

From Citizen's side, it is easy to understand why this acquisition makes sense: it helps them strengthen their position in the Swiss watch industry and get a slice of the highly competitive two- to eight-thousand-dollar segment largely dominated by the aforementioned (and a fair number of other) brands. You see, for the last decade or so, Frédérique Constant has been heavily investing into developing and manufacturing its own in-house movements; and the resulting know-how and manufacturing capacity of this caliber (see what I did there?) remains very rare and a huge asset to its owners.

Both Frédérique Constant and Alpina are established brands at this point, but when you add to the mix Citizen's arguably much larger distribution network, as well as all the possibilities of exchanging technologies between the two groups, you end up with a very powerful recipe. Although Citizen does have its own high-end, Swiss-made range of watches with Citizen Campanola (hands-on here), these two freshly acquired brands have an incomparably stronger international presence as well as a much more established product range.

The brand was established in 1988 by Aletta and Peter Stas, and through over 25 years of constant growth, the group has reached its current state where it manufactures around 150,000 watches a year and employs 170 people in six countries. While Frédérique Constant had been one of the last wholly family-owned Swiss watch manufactures, apparently there was no one in the family with the interest to take the baton and carry on managing the brand. While the present management personnel and staff are said to continue to hold their positions following this acquisition, we also know that Peter and Aletta will remain in their executive roles for the next five years.


- from aablogtowatch.com

Watches: Swiss time and Silicon Valley tech go all the way

Peter Stas of Frederique Constant

Coming this May, the promise of full integration between conventional Swiss form and mechanical function, with cutting edge info-delivery will be realized in a single watch (or range) when watchmaker Frederique Constant/Alpina unveils its Swiss Horological Smartwatches, now in production.

Powered by MotionX, the new Swiss Horological Smartwatches are capable of bi-directional communication with iPhone and Android apps. Discoverwatches by clicking on “read more”…

“Frédérique Constant and Alpina, the Swiss Horological Smartwatches, retain their natural classic beauty and can deliver the benefits of the quantified self, all without ever having to recharge a battery”, said Peter Stas, the co-founder and CEO of the Frédérique Constant group and continued his introduction by saying: “The Swiss Horological Smartwatch is the synthesis of high-tech innovation and traditional Swiss watch craftsmanship; it is the link (no pun intended) between modern and classic, and the bridge between Silicon Valley and Switzerland. There is no digital screen on our Swiss Horological Smartwatch. Instead, the beautiful laser cut hands on the watch dial display information in analog form.”

The MotionX patented sensor-fusion engine tracks activity and sleep patterns with high accuracy. Activity and sleep information is presented in real-time on the Swiss Horological Smartwatch using traditional analog dials. The Swiss Horological Smartwatch synchronizes automatically with applications on Apple and Androidsmartphones. On the iOS and Android apps, simple and easy-to-understand graphics highlight how much one has moved and slept during the day, week, or month.

Brands: "Watching the Oscars"

The results may have been less predictable than the Grammys (Birman won, but Bradley Cooper lost), but we were keeping an eye out for the well-dressed wrists at last night’s 87th Annual Academy Awards? I was pleased to note many red carpet stars paid as much attention to the watches they were wearing as the other details of their well-styled appearances. With some help from our friends at The Hollywood Reporter, here are just some of the wrists that stood out last night.

Various models of IWC Schaffhausen’s Portugieser were evident on Best Actor Nominee Bradley Cooper (“American Sniper”), Best Supporting Actor Nominee Edward Norton (“Birdman”), and presenter and star of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” star Chris Evans. Good choice, gentlemen.

Host of the Awards ceremony Neil Patrick Harris wore a Tudor 41mm Style watch with a black dial on a bracelet during his Red Carpet appearance, while actor and director Justin Theroux was seen escorting Jennifer Aniston wearing a Royal Oak. “Whiplash” editor Tom Cross, who received the Academy Award for Best Film Editing, was spotted wearing a Jaeger-LeCoultre Grande Reverso Ultra Thin Tribute to 1930.

Mark Ruffalo, nominee for Best Actor in a supporting role in “Foxcatcher” wore the Montblanc Heritage Chronometrie Dual Time. Miles Teller chose the Perpetual Calendar timepiece and nominee director Dan Gilroy who wrote the screenplay for “Nightcrawler,”  was seen in a Montblanc Timewalker Automatic Dual Time Special Edition. Nominee for Best Director Morten Tyldum sported a Montblanc Star Classique.