Loupe. Issue 03. Winter 2016

Loupe.

The Magazine of Christopher Ward.

Issue 03. Winter 2016

Grand Tour Inside the new C1 Grand Malvern Power Reserve, the flagship of our dress collection, and a vision of the future

Christmas 2016 Gift Guide Stuck for a present?

Not any more‌

Discover the new breed of watchmaker...

christopherward.co.uk

The modernity of Swiss watchmaking blends with retro styling in the C65 Trident Classic Vintage Edition. The ‘glass box’ sapphire crystal recalls the chunky aesthetic of the ’70s, while the ‘Old Radium’ luminescent paint on the hands and dial add all-important visibility.

The Vintage Edition is a watch that goes back to the future. £539

Swiss movement English heart

Loupe.

The Magazine of Christopher Ward.

Rarely have I struggled less for a Christmas present idea than this year, thanks to the extensive Gift Guide that forms the centrepiece of this issue of Loupe – and comes on a pleasingly different paper stock – but it turns out Christopher Ward has a yet-moreimportant gift for us lined up this year, too. It takes the form of a new, more sensually curved watch case, a fresh high-end dress watch line – the C1 Grand Malvern Collection – and a new finish for (and emphasis on) our in-house movement, Calibre SH21.

Put together, they all point to a new direction and approach for Christopher Ward: more techically exciting, more distinctive, and yet more quintessentially English too. The story of this potent company just entered a new phase…

Matt Bielby

Editor: Matt Bielby Art Director: Jamie Gallagher Designer: Sam Burn Photography: Damon Charles, Peter Canning Contributor: Anthony Teasdale Cover image: C1 Grand Malvern Power Reserve 1 Park St, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 1SL christopherward.co.uk

Powering ahead…

It’s perhaps no great surprise that a fair chunk of this edition of Loupe is devoted to the new C1 Grand Malvern Power Reserve. After all, it is arguably the most influential watch we have ever launched – at least, the most influential since our very first, the C5 Malvern Automatic, in 2005.

In itself, the new C1 is a magnificent watch, representing the pinnacle of our watchmaking achievement to date – demonstrated by Adrian Buchmann’s inspiring design and Johannes Jahnke’s remarkable new Calibre SH21 complication – and the C1 Collection will ultimately replace the C9 Collection as our premium dress watch range, incorporating all the JJ and SH21 calibres.

However, the extent of the C1’s influence will only be fully understood over time, as its design codes and level of refinement are subtly translated across the entire Christopher Ward range, starting with a brilliant new interpretation of our Malvern Collection next spring, and the reinvention of our Motorsport Collection in Autumn 2017.

So, as ever at Christopher Ward, there’s no shortage of interest and excitement ahead – but before all this comes to pass, everyone here at Christopher Ward would like to thank you for your continuing support, and wish you and yours a very happy festive season and a peaceful and prosperous 2017.

Enjoy the read.

Chris, Mike and Peter

Contents Features 10 – 17

A Grand ain’t free

36 – 39

Sing stars

But it’s worth the effort. Inside the creation of the C1 Grand Malvern Power Reserve, our new range-topping dress watch – and a pathfinder for the next generation of Christopher Wards…

19 – 34

The greatest British female singers, from Bassey to Winehouse, and taking in some rather unexpected stops in between…

Christmas Gift Guide 2016

C1 Grand Malvern 10 — 17

Christmas is a-coming, and with it all those usual “what to buy?” questions. Well, wonder no more…

Gift Guide 19 — 34

Regulars 06 – 09

The Brief

41 – 50

Insight What we do, and how we do it.

Adrian talks C1 Grand Malverns; Johannes on power reserve complications; and we meet up with Marco Lang, one of the great modern watchmakers

The freshest news, the coolest collaborations, and more stuff that matters. This issue: a new look for our motorsport watches and one of our Challengers returns, and he’s carrying a gold…

People’s voice 36 — 39

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Back home, and Will Satch shows off his gold

News, reports & innovations.

Pace Olympic rower Will Satch, a member of the Christopher Ward Challenger Programme, just got back from Rio. He brought something with him, too…

Though we enjoy supporting people who share our underdog spirit – that’s what the Challenger Programme is all about, after all – it’s become hard to consider anyone associated with Team GB as underdogs, exactly. We supported a number of British competitors at the Olympics and Paralympics in Brazil this year, including rower Will Satch, a bronze medal winner at London 2012 who was also part of the gold medal winning eight at the World Rowing Championships 2014 in Amsterdam.

Oh yes, and he just rowed stroke for the British eight to gold at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, too. High time, we thought, we caught up with him…

setter

How was Rio compared to London 2012?

The total opposite! It was samba. London was clean cut, in that everything was set up in good time. Rio was different, and things were always only going to be ready on the night. But if you don’t take the Olympics away from the usual western cultures occasionally, you’d end up just competing in the States, the UK and Europe. All in all, I loved it. Then again, it’s easy for me to say that with a gold medal on my neck…

What was it like when you first arrived?

It’s the heat that hits you straight away.

It was their winter, but the humidity is still 6

intense. As a rowing team, we headed out together with staff from Team GB – we didn’t want to be taken out of that ‘cotton wool’ environment, though it does seem like you’re being segregated from reality sometimes. Still, you need to be in that situation if you want to get the kind of performance you need. You’re looking for an edge wherever you can get it.

You did well in the heats, then had to wait ages for the next round…

It was a hard one to get your head around, because you’ve almost got to take your foot off the gas to get yourself back up to

What happened after you’d won?

When we crossed the line, it was almost relief. I turned around to Matt [Langridge] and said, ‘We’ve done it!’ It doesn’t really get better than that.

a simmer again. Personally, I found that the hardest situation to be in.

You were rowing stroke in the boat. Was that something you were told about years in advance, or fairly late on?

It wasn’t last minute, although you’re not really told. I have a strong relationship with Jürgen Gröbler [the Team GB coach], but you have to put a lot of trust in him too – he’s the boss. There will be confrontations at times: at the World Championships in 2014, I didn’t stroke the eight, but he had his reasons and we got the win.

To have him say, ‘I want you to do it’ in Rio, then, must have been great…

It was a nice feeling. If he’d put me anywhere else in the boat, then – if only subconsciously – maybe I’d have been upset, because I like rowing that seat. It’s the hot seat.

I’m at the top of my game, age 27.

Why wouldn’t I carry on?

Why’s that?

I look at it as a rev limiter for the boat. We had a lot of horsepower, so you could rev a bit lower. The stroke rate had to be a little lower, but not too low, so I could get all the power out of each person, every time.

So, you were nervous?

When we got to the venue, I was playing the goat, as usual. It helped calm everyone else down, and was my way of having a bit of a release and being myself. But you’re not yourself, of course, as you’re full of hormones, and you’ve got a nervous sweat on, waiting for this performance to come. You’re right on the edge; but that’s exactly where you need to be. Then the race began. We got on the start line, and the first stroke wasn’t great.

After that, though, everything began to click, and we had the race of our lives.

You were leading from the start…

To have a lead like that in the Olympics is something very special; we had nearly a length. The job was almost done by 1km in, and with 400m left we just needed to carry the momentum. Personally, I wanted to wind the stroke rate up at the end, but it would’ve been a lot closer. In the past, Phelan [the cox] has called something tough halfway, and everybody has seized up and the boat speed drops. This time around, tactically we decided that he wouldn’t actually say anything at all.

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Then there was the ceremony…

Once you get out of the boat, you have to linger around like a bad smell. We had to get changed into tracksuits for the podium, then do media. We worked our way around the media centre, before making our way to the podium where we met our families, wives and girlfriends.

That’s when it started to hit home.

Did you celebrate?

Behind the Lagoa venue there was a place called Parque Lage, with a pool in the middle. They put a glass floor over it, and lit it from underneath. Those celebrations continued for the next 11 nights!

So, what’s next?

I’m an Olympic champion, at the top of my game, aged 27. Why wouldn’t I carry on? The bug’s still there – and it keeps me out of trouble! christopherward.co.uk/challengers

times

Fast

Christopher Ward’s motorsport line gets a 2017 relaunch, with new cases, new iconography and a whole new attitude

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A major part of the ongoing reinvention of the Christopher Ward range – of which the new C1 Grand Malvern Power Reserve, featured on this issue’s cover, is an important landmark – will be the introduction of a new Motorsport Collection, planned for autumn 2017.

This will be a complete top-to-tail revamp, the first since we began making motorsport watches in the mid-2000s, and will feature everything from entry-level quartz models through to automatic chronographs. For the first time, for instance, there will be a three-hand automatic.

Highlights of the new collection include a new case – a dynamic variation on the C1 Grand Malvern case, as befits a range of watches that are all about speed – and new dials and hands, too. There may be an enhanced role for the new CW twin-flags device too, which – as well as symbolising the Anglo-Swiss marriage at the heart of

Best in show

At the UK’s biggest watch event, SalonQP, we’ll introduce the new C1 Grand Malvern, and make further exciting announcements

Each year we attend SalonQP – the UK’s major watch show, held at London’s Saatchi Gallery (pictured) on November 3-5 – but the 2016 event is particularly special for us. Not only will we have one of our most impressive stands yet, but we’ll also be making some exciting new announcements, and showing off the incredible new C1 Grand Malvern Power Reserve for the very first time.

But that’s not all. This year we’ll also be taking part in two of the show’s big

walk-through exhibitions too, Travels in Time (which will feature the C8 UTC Worldtimer, of course) and Deep Time, showcasing one of the Trident range of diver’s watches.

“We’ve been looking forward to seeing our supporters there for some time,” says company co-founder Chris Ward, “and we’re especially keen to see the reaction to the new C1 Grand Malvern.”

For more, salonqp.com

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Christopher Ward – visually refers to the look of motor-racing chequered flags.

Co-founder Chris Ward is keen to point out the ongoing history the brand has with motorsport. “The company and the sport have been intrinsically linked since the introduction of our second watch, the C3 Malvern Chronograph, back in 2005,” he says, “and several of our most memorable designs have been inspired by iconic race cars. We’re incredibly excited to be developing our first comprehensive revamp of the collection since 2007, and we look forward to unveiling some exciting new designs in due course, too.”

We’ll have more, of course, on the development of this collection in future issues, but in the meantime these pre-production sketches give intriguing hints as to the direction in which it’s going – and at some speed, naturally.

D

Grand 10

C1 Grand Malvern Power Reserve

Designs

d

The new C1 Grand Malvern range launches in an intriguing Power Reserve version, the first time our in-house movement, Calibre SH21, has been seen in a PR iteration that’s an automatic too.

But that’s just the start of the story here.

It boasts a new case, a new name, a new reassertion of SH21 – and a new level of ambition for Christopher Ward

By Matt Bielby

incarnations don’t pretend to do very much beyond tell the time – allowing our everpresent iPhones and Samsung Galaxies to do the complicated stuff involving timezones and such, thank you very much – and so operate in a different way to a tool watch. From one angle, they’re the universally acceptable face of male jewellery. From another, they’re the least pretentious watches you can buy, doing their core job in the cleanest possible way.

Dress watches are often easy to underestimate, but you do so at your peril.

After all, the designs tend to be simple, the lines clean, the tone elegant and restrained – and so, to an uninitiated eye, a £35,000 Patek Philippe Calatrava and a £400 Tissot Visodate can look pretty similar at first glance.

Yet dress watches are one of the mainstays of the industry, and one of the purest expressions of horological art that there is. These are watches that in most 11

Christopher Ward has long had an extensive dress watch range – there’s the premium C9 line, of course, and the entry-level Malvern collection, which comes in C3, C5, C30 and C50 forms. Indeed, Christopher Ward’s very first model was a dress watch – the C5 Malvern of 2005, a classy design exhibiting surprising quality at a modest price, and so, in many ways, the bedrock on which the company’s success has been built.

One of the best things about the new design is that it can’t be mistaken for anything but a Christopher Ward

Or, at least, that’s the way it’s been until now.

This winter, the brand is reinventing its dress watch offering through the introduction of a quietly radical new range-topping design, the C1 Grand Malvern, which will replace the C9 Collection entirely over time, and which promises to help define the entire Christopher Ward range in much the same way as the C5 Malvern once did.

Styling cues and design approaches introduced here will filter down into a redesigned Malvern range next year, and into all future Christopher Ward offerings too, from the the dive watches right through to the aviation collection. What you see here, then, is actually the future of the Christopher Ward brand and range.

Let’s see how, shall we?

First up, a word about the name.

Although the C1 nomenclature will be unfamiliar to most of us – though it makes perfect sense as both the label for a

high-end range, and a model from which everything else will spring – it’s not actually the first time Christopher Ward has used the term.

That would be with the C1 Russell, an early quartz watch from the company that has the distinction of being one of the worst-selling models that Christopher Ward ever made. Named for Thomas Russell – not the Irish revolutionary, but the Liverpool watchmaker who had a royal warrant from Queen Victoria – it had a face with vintage pocket watch styling cues, and now enjoys something of a small cult following; at the time, though, it was little short of a minor disaster, and saw the C1 name disappear almost as quickly as it had arrived.

C1 is only part of the name of this range, however, and it’s worth pausing for a moment to consider the ‘Grand Malvern’ bit, too. This was actually suggested by an enthusiast as part of an online competition on the Christopher Ward forum to name the new collection, and is a nice tribute to the company’s original line – as well as

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a reference to the industry tradition for ‘Grand’ versions of successful watches, like the TAG Heuer Grand Carrera.

“Luckily,” says co-founder Mike France, “some of the other suggestions we had – the C1 Farage, for instance – didn’t gain much traction with anyone!”

One of the most striking aspects of the C1 Grand Malvern is the new case, which both looks slimmer – thanks to clever styling – and actually is slimmer than the existing C9. This impression is aided by a distinctive horizontal line around the case, not unlike the swage lines on some cars.

And the actual height? It’s a good 1mm shorter than the old C9 5 Day Automatic, thanks to some clever modifications to the way the movement sits within the case, and in many further incarnations – where the movement allows it – it will be slimmer still. Indeed, only the proposed Single Pusher Chronograph and C1 Jumping Hour versions will be as thick or thicker than the Power Reserve version.

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“One of the best things about this new design is that it is absolutely of Christopher Ward,” says Mike, “and cannot be mistaken for anything else. In fact, we believe that, over time, this will become seen as a signature Christopher Ward look.”

Continuing the theme of reduced dimensions, the standard C1 case isn’t just slimmer than the C9 case, but less wide than the larger of the two C9 variants too – 40.5mm in its standard iteration, which is pretty much the universally accepted sweet spot for dress watches these days. It also reflects the general trend for watch sizes to come down across the board, after the heady heights of the ‘size wars’ of recent decades. Most C1 Grand Malverns of the future will come in this case, though one or two will demand something slightly bigger, with a 42.5mm version being talked about for the upcoming C1 Grand Malvern Worldtimer.

Under a double curved top sapphire crystal – domed sapphire is almost a shorthand for ‘quality’ in many watch aficionados’ eyes – sits an elegant domed dial, finished in opalin white, sunray blue or sunray black, and paired with brushed and polished hands, in steel (on the dark dials) or blued steel (on the white one).

The opalin dial treatment features a pearlescent finish that catches the light beautifully, not unlike what you’d find on the back of an iPhone (or, indeed, on some Patek Philippe faces), while the hands, which are elegant and intriguingly multi-faceted – the tops are brushed, while there are polished facets on the sides – are apparently five times more complicated to manufacture than before.

Batons in two weights (with the heavier at 2, 4, 8 and 10, and the lesser printed on the face) march around the edge of the dial, while there are large san serif arabic numbers at 12 and 6 – an arrangement fast becoming a Christopher Ward trademark – and the company logo has moved from its standard 9 o’clock position to 3 o’clock, making room for the five-day Power Reserve display at 9.

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The tiny hint of red you can see here adds just the faintest touch of visual drama to this particular C1, too.

“All in all, the C1 Grand Malvern shows an attention to detail that you might not immediately notice, even when you first see the watch,” says Mike, “but which becomes very obvious as you wear it, and live with it. In terms of quality, as well as design, it’s a game changer.”

The back of the watch is where we see yet more innovation – both in terms of the presentation, and of the movement itself.

For one thing, the bridge is new, allowing much more of the movement to be seen.

And instead of the very British, low-key – and, it turned out, rather unforgivingly in terms of imperfections – polished look of the visible surfaces seen in previous iterations of SH21, we now have the unique Christopher Ward twin-flag engraving over a Colimaçoné finish on the bridge, the English and Swiss crosses making an intriguing pattern of squares.

“This is our new default look for Calibre SH21,” says Mike, “and it extends, in subtle fashion, into other areas of our watches too, with the twin flags appearing on the crown, occasionally on the underside of the leather straps, and elsewhere.”

And then there’s SH21 itself, Christopher Ward’s in-house movement, with its remarkable five-day (or 120 hour) Power Reserve now paired with a PR indicator for the very first time.

“We launched our own movement back in July 2014,” Mike says, “and though it caused a stir then, we don’t think we ever quite got the credit we should have for creating something so audacious. Now, with the new case designs; the new bridge, which further exposes the movement to the eye; the new finish; and this new complication, we expect more people to be talking about SH21 in 2017, and the years to come.”

It’s a very beautiful watch, then, but one that set its designers a surprising number of challenges.

“Creating the C1 Grand Malvern was full of subtle technical challenges,” says Adrian Buchmann, senior designer. “Take the hands, for instance. They’re curved, with three facets and two finishes. Or the curved dial, with its domed indexes.

The curved case of the C1 Collection brings a new degree of British sports car-influenced style to Christopher Ward, while the light catches the opalin dial treatment beautifully

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“We launched our own movement back in July 2014, and though it caused a stir then, we don’t think we ever quite got the credit we should have for creating something so audacious” Even the basic case shape was a worry, as the entire design depends on one curve – and if that wasn’t executed right, it would just destroy the look.

“Johannes Jahnke, our master watchmaker, also faced issues on his side of things, as his two main aims could be seen as mutually exclusive. He wanted to keep the movement as strong and as reliably constructed as ever, but he also wanted to reveal as much of it as possible through the display back.”

Also something of a challenge was finding just the right way to express the power reserve function. It had to be pleasing and obvious, yes, but not so much so that it detracted from the essential simplicity of the rest of the design.

“That’s why we used a disc that’s actually under the dial, with a subtle opening at 9 o’clock to let you see the power reserve arrow,” Adrian

says. “The complication then becomes a twist – something you notice but may not understand immediately – while supporting the elegance of the watch.”

Straps, by the way, are Cordovan leather – a particularly smooth and high quality leather that ages exceptionally well – with the now-familiar Christopher Ward Bader buckle. They’re available in blue, black, tan and brown, or there’s a Milanese mesh steel bracelet alternative.

“Alligator is getting less and less sustainable,” says Mike, “and after an extensive search, it became quite clear that Cordovan was the natural alternative. It’s a truly beautiful and hard-wearing material, and suits the watches perfectly.”

The C1 Grand Malvern Power Reserve is vital on a number of fronts, then. “This is not just the story of a single watch,” says

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Mike, “though that watch itself is a remarkable one. Rather, it is the story of where Christopher Ward is heading. The C1 Collection boldly signifies the shape of things to come.”

This is not a watch that shouts loudly in itself, then – it’s far too restrained and elegant for that – but all the implications inherent in it will echo through 2017 and beyond. It introduces a new redefinition of the Christopher Ward design language, and a new reassertion of SH21, and shows perhaps more than any other watch where the company is at the end of 2016 – and where it’s going.

The C1 Grand Malvern Power Reserve is available now, £1,550

A watch made for travellers, thanks to its 24-hour fourth hand, the C60 Trident Pro 600 GMT keeps time in two global timezones. Waterproof to 600m, and with a re-engineered machine-grade, stainless steel case and scratch-resistant ceramic bezel, it’ll function as perfectly in the boardroom as it will at 35,000 feet.

Swiss movement English heart

Discover the new breed of watchmaker...

christopherward.co.uk

Gift Guide 2016

21 amazing watches, each the perfect Christmas present As picked by the Christopher Ward team

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C3 Malvern Chronograph MKII £249 — £420 What is it? One of Christopher Ward’s core watches, with a quintessentially English look and feel inspired by the design of vintage Aston Martin dashboards. It’s at a very wearable size, and has an elegant yet sporting look that works in virtually every situation, and with any outfit.

“This is a tried and tested watch,” says Billy Evans, who works in Christopher Ward’s customer services department. “It looks smart, and it’s at a great price point. No wonder it’s been such a hit.”

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How big is it? 39mm.

What’s inside it? The superbly accurate 13 jewel, gold-plated, Swiss-made quartz Ronda 5040.D chronograph movement.

C70 Brooklands £599 — £630 What is it? One of the most boldly-designed watches Christopher Ward makes, this limited edition chronometer celebrates the first ever British Grand Prix, which took place at Brooklands motor racing circuit in 1926, and was won by… Ah. Turns out, it was actually the French pair of Louis Wagner and Robert Sénéchal in a Delage 155B. Still, the bold numbers, British Racing Green colour

Chris Ward Co-founder

“I like these two as they show the different ends of our design spectrum.

One is dark and quietly menacing, the other bold and striking.”

C60 Trident Titanium Variation #1 £750 — £995 What is it? This variation on the C60 Trident theme is made of the strongest metal known, titanium, but it’s as handsome as it is tough. It has a two-tone brushed grey titanium case and matt ceramic inserts on the bezel, plus matt grey titanium indexes and hands and a warm grey minute track and logo. It’s one of the most quietly imposing watches you’ll see.

How big is it? 43mm.

What’s inside it? A highly durable ETA 2824-2 or Sellita SW200-1 self-winding mechanical movement, identical apart from an additional 26th jewel.

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scheme and ceramic Union Flag stamped on the backplate make this as patriotically British a watch as you’ll find.

How big is it? 42mm.

What’s inside it? ETA’s 251.264 COSC, an outstanding 27 jewel Swiss quartz movement, with full chronometer status and accuracy of +/10 seconds a year.

C65 Trident Vintage £539 — £600 What is it? With sleek retro styling and at a useful size – not too big, not too small – this is a supremely versatile watch with plenty of vintage 1960s flair. It was one of the first designs to carry our new logo, and gives you all of the allure of a great period timepiece, but with modern accuracy and reliability. The price difference reflects whether you choose yours on a leather strap or metal bracelet.

How big is it? 38mm.

What’s inside it? One of either the ETA 2824-2 or the Sellita SW200-1, two high quality and virtually identical self-winding mechanical movements. (The only difference is that one has an additional 26th jewel.)

“I knew I’d love this watch before I even saw it in the metal. It was our first release under the new branding, and it has really sharp vintage styling – but, at the same time, it looks very fresh and modern too. I like that it doesn’t shout ‘look at me’; it’s just not that sort of watch.”

Helen McCall Head of Marketing

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C7 Rapide Chronometer Limited Edition Black £599 — £630 What is it? A handsome upgrade of the already impressive C7 Rapide Chronograph MkII: v390, this one’s powered by an upgraded 27-jewel, thermo-compensated ETA quartz movement – one accurate enough to give this version official chronometer status too, taking it into the top six percent of movements for accuracy. The watch’s

tachymeter also provides an invaluable tool for ontrack timekeeping, and it’s been released in a limited edition of only 500 pieces worldwide.

How big is it? 42mm.

What’s inside it? ETA’s 251.233 COSC quartz movement, one of the most accurate calibres available.

C9 Jumping Hour MKIII £995 — £1,895

“I really enjoy the ‘click’ that takes place on each full hour,” says Yvonne Fürst, watchmaker. “It’s one of the things that makes it the next on my list to acquire.”

What is it? Turns out you don’t need two hands to tell the time – one is sufficient, if the lone minute hand is accompanied by a small window at the top of the dial in which the hours are displayed. This is an elegant dress watch displaying all of Christopher Ward’s distinctive English aesthetic, and its movement is remarkable too, as Johannes Jahnke, our master watchmaker, has devised Calibre JJ01 to power it. It is, we believe, the most accurate jumping hour movement ever made.

Versions come on a leather strap or a stainless steel bracelet, and some even carry an 18ct gold bezel.

How big is it? 43mm, though a 40mm version is also available.

What’s inside it? Calibre JJ01, devised by our master watchmaker, Johannes Jahnke, and a bespoke modification of ETA’s great 2824-2 movement.

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“I adore this one,” says Alex McKenzie, marketing assistant. “It blends monochrome design with a chronograph, and the subtle red touches look great.”

C8 Flyer Quartz 38mm £299 — £350 What is it? A great quartz pilot’s watch, inspired by British aviation history, and available in steel and black.

The dial references the Smith’s clocks found in the cockpit of the Supermarine Spitfire, and the back has a 3D-stamped representation of the giant mahogany blades in the wind tunnels at Farnborough Airport.

How big is it? 38mm, though there’s a 44mm version available too.

What’s inside it? The Ronda 715, a highly reliable Swiss quartz movement with five jewels and a gold-plated finish.

“My personal preference is always for a watch with a clean, uncluttered dial,” says Richard Dalziel, head of finance and corporate, “so I really like this.

I’d want mine on a brown leather strap.”

C8 UTC Worldtimer £899 — £950 What is it? This is one of Christopher Ward’s best looking new watches, referencing both military and civilian aviation design in its face, and putting the wearer in direct touch with what’s going on in cities across the planet thanks to its two-piece worldtimer dial and ‘UTC’ functionality.

The two-piece dial, which features a crown-operated worldtimer bezel showing

“This is my current aviation watch of choice,” says Andrew Henry, one of our watch technicians. “From the dial layering to the oversized twin crowns and ‘pipette’ hands, it’s a really powerful addition to the range, and equally as good in either black steel or vintage.”

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major international cities, allows the wearer to work out the time anywhere on Earth, while the case is available in stainless steel or with a black DLC finish.

How big is it? 44mm.

What’s inside it? A self-winding ETA 2893-2 calibre with 24-hour UTC functionality.

C5 Malvern Automatic MKII £399 — £580 What is it? A great first mechanical watch, this replacement model for the Malvern Mk1 – the watch that launched the company in 2005 – offers industry-beating sophistication and technical excellence for the price, plus the pleasing ‘quintessentially English’ styling the line has become known for. There’s

an extensive range, and it’s available on leather or a metal bracelet, and in steel or 24ct PVD gold.

How big is it? 39mm.

What’s inside it? Either the ETA 2824-2 or Sellita SW200-1 automatic movement, dependent on available stock.

“This has always been one of our most important watches,” says Wera Mettes, head of customer services, “and I can’t see that changing any time soon.”

C60 Trident GMT 38mm £799 — £860

Anthony Teasdale, head of creative content, is a big fan. “The Trident is an acknowledged classic anyway,” he says, “but that extra fourth hand makes this diving-inspired travel watch very special.”

What is it? A thoroughly refreshed version of Christopher Ward’s dual-time automatic timepiece, the Trident C60 GMT 600 offers not just a much-improved stainless steel case and ceramic bezel, but water resistance to 600m too. The big selling point, though, is the dual time function, making it the perfect

watch for adventurous, style-conscious world travellers.

How big is it? 38mm, but also available in 43mm.

What’s inside it? ETA’s very accurate 2893-2 automatic movement.

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“Perhaps unsurprisingly, I really like our most technically impressive or unusual watches, like these three. Every piece is of the highest quality, with strong design throughout and either special materials used in the cases, or interesting movements contained within.”

Johannes Janke Technical Director C60 Trident COSC 600 £1,499 — £1,660 What is it? A very handsome and solidly constructed diver’s watch, powered by our own in-house SH21 movement, and water resistant to the quite remarkable depth of 600m, or 2,000 feet.

How big is it? 43mm.

What’s inside it? Our own COSC certified in-house movement, Calibre SH21, with five days power reserve when fully wound.

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C1000 Typhoon Cockpit Edition £995 What is it? A pilot’s chronograph, built around a titanium frame, covered with an advanced ceramic case. It’s light in weight, scratch-resistant, durable, smooth to the touch, and takes some of its design cues from the the instrument panel of the FGR4 Typhoon – the RAF’s current multirole fighter plane –

including a font inspired by its Head Up Display (HUD).

How big is it? 42mm.

What’s inside it? The classic ETA Valjoux 7750, one of the world’s great chronograph movements.

C9 Single Pusher Chronograph Gold Limited Edition £2,325 — £3,095 What is it? This is a watch that shows how ambitious Christopher Ward is in purely horological terms, an elegant dress chronograph – in this 50-unit limited edition version enhanced by an 18 carat gold bezel and accents – that’s powered by our most sophisticated complication to date.

Calibre JJ02 uses the Unitas 6497 movement as a base, but has redesigned its chronograph function with a new main plate, winding mechanism, and centre

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and second wheels, enabling a continuous-seconds sub-dial and a 30-minute totaliser to be operated through a single pusher in the crown.

How big is it? 43mm.

What’s inside it? Calibre JJ02, a modified version of the Unitas 6498 created by our master watchmaker, Johannes Jahnke.

C8 Power Reserve Chronometer £1,550 What is it? This is one of Christopher Ward’s most exciting new watches, combining classic pilot watch design with horological distinction. It’s powered by a hand-wound version of our own Calibre SH21, with the movement more visible than ever through an exhibition back and a redesigned bridge. Its twin barrels allow for a mighty 120 hour power reserve, and are engraved with a design that references wind turbine blades. And the face of the watch – with its

DLC (diamond-like carbon) black case and dial, taking many cues from the design of the Smith’s instruments in a Supermarine Spitfire – is mighty impressive too.

How big is it? 44mm.

What’s inside it? Our own in-house movement, Calibre SH21, here in a hand-wound version featuring a new power reserve complication.

“People sometimes regret asking me about the SH21 movement,” says logistics manager George Kelman.

“I can talk about it all day!

It’s the most exciting thing in British watchmaking right now, and this watch is my favourite way we’ve used it so far.”

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“This is a very solid and handsome watch. It’s imposing, but not too much so, and it comes at a great price. Everything about it just works.”

Peter Ellis Co-founder

C60 Trident Pro 600 £599 — £660 What is it? Christopher Ward’s best-selling watch, in this version re-engineered with a new marine-grade stainless steel case, and a zirconia ceramic uni-directional bezel for scratch resistance. It’s watertight at depths of up to 600 metres (2,000ft) – twice that of its predecessor – and has extra luminosity too.

How big is it? 43mm, though there’s also a 38mm version.

What’s inside it? The extremely solid ETA 2824-2 or Sellita SW200-1 self-winding mechanical movements, identical apart from an additional 26th jewel.

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C9 Worldtimer £995 — £1,095 What is it? Behind one of Christopher Ward’s most complicated, impressively detailed dials – with a full 3D relief map of the world, and tiny windows for important cities that ‘light up’ in red when it’s set to that time zone – lurks the clever Calibre JJ03, a major modification of the ETA 2893 base movement

by Johannes Jahnke, our master watchmaker.

It allows you to simultaneously tell the time in two time-zones, thanks to a rotating disc visible at 12 o’clock that indicates one of 24 zones, based on

international airport codes (so New York is JFK, and London Heathrow is LHR).

His ingenious modification changes the gearing system of the automatic movement, so that the hour and minute hand take 24 hours to complete a full cycle, as does the GMT function.

How big is it? 43mm.

What’s inside it? Johannes Jahnke’s Calibre JJ03, a modification of ETA’S 2893 automatic movement.

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Mike France Co-founder “It’s no secret that I adore cars, motor racing and travel, so few who know me would be surprised to hear that these two especially appeal.”

C9 D-Type Limited Edition £2,995 What is it? One of Christopher Ward’s most elegant motorsport watches, with a face based on the Smith’s dial design from the car itself. The 12 is presented in a white circle to reflect the large racing numbers painted on the bonnet and flanks of Jaguar D-Types, while a piece of metal from one of the 18 production cars has been placed inside it, and is visible through the display back. To mark this legendary Jaguar’s

most memorable Le Mans victory (in 1955, with Mike Hawthorn driving), it comes in a limited edition of just 55 pieces.

How big is it? 43mm.

What’s inside it? One of ETA’s Valgranges A07.161 self-winding movements.

It has a 46-hour power reserve with fuel gaugestyle indicator at 6 o’clock, and central hacking seconds.

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C5 Slimline Square £399 — £475 What is it? A square dress watch, the company’s slimmest ever, meaning it’ll slide easily under any shirt or blouse cuff. It has an elegantly simple dial with an understated art deco feel.

Available on a leather strap or a mesh bracelet.

How big is it? 37mm.

What’s inside it?

A hand-wound Sellita SW 210-1 movement.

“This is a lovely watch, and is beautifully designed and proportioned in every regard.

Having a square dial like this in the range brings a fresh swing to the collection, too.

The version with a blue dial and a mesh bracelet is my hidden champion.“

Antoine Schott Assistant CEO 32

“In my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful watches we make. Although there are many other moonphase watches on the market, it’s the very distinctive design of this one that will always make it a conversation piece. I envy anyone lucky enough to receive one of these for Christmas!”

Olivia Blakstad Marketing Assistant

C9 Moonphase £1,295 — £1,425 What is it? Christopher Ward’s first – and highly successful – stab at one of the great traditional complications of watchmaking, created in response to requests from fans of the company. It’s a very beautiful watch that shows the movement of the moon with unerring accuracy, and at an incredibly low price for this complication. It’s one of the company’s great recent hits, and a watch that suits every wrist, male or female.

It comes on either a leather strap or a steel bracelet, and in two very different colour schemes: either midnight blue with silver indexes, hands and moon, or optic white with gold highlights.

How big is it? 40mm.

What’s inside it? Calibre JJ04, a modified version of ETA’s 2836-2 calibre, created by our master watchmaker, Johannes Jahnke.

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“I find it hard to pick between these. They’re at similar price points, but so different.”

C60 Trident Chronograph Pro 600

Adrian Buchmann

£1,395 — £1,445

Senior Designer

What is it? Waterproof to 600m, and boasting an automatic helium release valve – activated when the differential between the inner and the outside pressure reaches a critical level, releasing any helium, hydrogen or other gases that might have become trapped inside the watch case – this is an incredible diver’s watch, but one that

C1 Grand Malvern Power Reserve £1,550 What is it? The first of Christopher Ward’s new range-topping dress watch line; read all about it on page 10 in this issue.

How big is it? 40.5mm.

What’s inside it?

An automatic version of Calibre SH21, in a new iteration, with a new bridge and a different finish – and now with a power reserve complication and display.

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looks just as good worn with a suit (or, indeed, a shirt and jeans) as it does with a wetsuit.

How big is it? 43mm.

What’s inside it? ETA’s classic, well-proven Valjoux 7750, the best known and most widely used mechanical chronograph movement in the world.

Our thinnest mechanical watch to date, the C5 Slimline Square is a masterclass in subtle elegance. The refined curves of its 37mm case will fit under any shirt or blouse cuff, while the decorated hand-wound movement is proudly displayed behind its exhibition window. ÂŁ399

Swiss movement English heart

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And your bird can sing Adele once famously said that ‘female singer’ is not a genre – and nor, for that matter, is being British. And yet there’s a clear tradition at play with the best British women vocalists, who consistently provide a soulful counterpoint to all those boys with guitars…

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From 1963 until the end of that decade, five girls – Petula Clark, Cilla Black, Sandie Shaw, Lulu and Dusty Springfield – contributed nearly 70 Top 40 hits (including seven Number Ones) to the UK charts, and this country’s rich tradition of rock and pop acts has always had its strong distaff side. In the ’70s it was spearheaded

by Joan Armatrading and Elkie Brooks; in the ’80s by Bananarama and Bow Wow Wow; in the ’90s by the Spice Girls and Garbage; and the so-called ‘Third British Invasion’ that America’s lately enjoyed has had perhaps the strongest XX chromosome element of them all. Indeed, from Adele to Florence Welch, there’s an argument that says the most successful and influential British artists of recent years have all been women. But though we’re living in a Golden Age, the voices of the past ain’t too shabby, either. Here are the vital ones…

Petula Clark Breakthrough year: 1954

Shirley Bassey Breakthrough year: 1958

Dusty Springfield Breakthrough year: 1963

Cilla Black Breakthrough year: 1964

Of an earlier generation to Cilla, Dusty et al, Sally Clark of Ewell, Surrey was a wartime child star and 1951’s Television Personality of the Year, who had as many hits in French (and, later, German, Italian and Spanish) as English. Spectacularly, she reinvented herself during the ‘Beat Boom’ of 1963 – when many established artists floundered – thanks to the incredible ‘Downtown’, which not only saw her top the UK charts, but put a rocket under her in the US too, where she was nominated for ten Grammy Awards (she won two). When she headlined Las Vegas she was the first female artist to be offered $1m to do so, and later enjoyed a beautifully slow decline, peppered with film roles, and West End shows.

Must-hear track: ‘Downtown’

Dame Shirley Bassey could command any stage by just standing there – no dancers, no backing singers, just her – and letting loose with that voice. Put an orchestra behind her, and it was magical. And it remained magical for over 50 years. Even as late as 2013, with her triumphant Oscar performance of ‘Goldfinger’, she was showing the world how it’s done, her performance as committed as ever, as if she genuinely believed the film’s money-hungry villain remained a real and present danger. Bassey was from the Cardiff docklands, and Bond made her, but she seemed designed for the jet-set too, slinking her magnetically man-eating way through the ballrooms of high society as if born to it. Must-hear track: ‘Diamonds Are Forever’

Mary O’Brien of High Wycombe – ‘Dusty’ was a childhood nickname, ‘Springfield’ taken from The Springfields, a folk trio she was in – had ambition to burn, switching to the thrilling sound of American soul after encountering it on a New York stopover. Her first solo release – ‘I Only Want To Be With You’ – stormed the charts, and soon she was fronting TV shows that helped break the Motown label in the UK. Though the hits kept coming (‘Son of a Preacher Man’, for instance), they were mixed in with a fair few flops too, not helped by some bizarre decision-making (why ‘The Look of Love’, from the comedy version of Casino Royale, was only ever a B-side remains a mystery to this day). Must-hear track: ‘You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me’

Forget the TV years of the ’80s and ’90s – for a while Priscilla White was Britain’s highest-paid female presenter – and think, instead, of the mid-’60s, when the coat check girl at Liverpool’s famous Cavern Club became one of our top stars, thanks in no small part to such songwriting talents as Burt Bacharach (‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’; ‘Alfie’), Phil Spector (‘You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling’), and fellow Cavern regulars Lennon and McCartney (‘Step Inside Love’ and others). Part of her appeal was in how ordinary she seemed, but in reality she was anything but. Few worked so hard, for one thing; fewer could connect to people so effortlessly; and fewer yet have such big voices, urgent and dramatic. Must-hear track: ‘Anyone Who Had a Heart’

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Kate Bush Breakthrough year: 1978

Siouxsie Sioux Breakthrough year: 1978

Annie Lennox Breakthrough year: 1979

Sade Adu Breakthrough year: 1984

PJ Harvey Breakthrough year: 1992

Delightfully oddball, with a unique voice – and an extensive and unlikely range of influences and references – Kate Bush is perhaps the most fascinating British female artist of all time.

Many on this list have clear antecedents, but not so Kate Bush: she’s pioneering, real, literary, womanly, witchy, and as skilled a choreographer and dancer as song writer and singer.

Unlike many performers, you never felt she was in it for the money, or the fame, or the glamour, but simply because she couldn’t help herself. She was always uniquely, excessively creative – and in love with her art. When you think of the artists who can tell a story through song, Kate Bush comes top of the list.

Must-hear track: ‘Wuthering Heights’

Susan Janet Ballion of – in quick succession – punk followers the Bromley Contingent, punk band Siouxsie and the Banshees and experimental drum-andvoice duo the Creatures is a hardy perennial of the British rock scene, and one of its most influential figures: glamorous, frightening, exotic and haughty. And she’s hugely influential, not just on female singers but many of the major male rock acts too, from U2 to Jane’s Addiction, Depeche Mode to The Cure. Loud but melodic, sexy but strange, poppy but experimental, energetic but vulnerable, theatrical but real, Siouxsie and the Banshees were a mass of contradictions, and in their bold, essentially unknowable front woman boasted a true pop enigma.

Must-hear track: ‘Hong Kong Garden’

Some voices you know the moment you hear them, and this strikingly androgynous, highly political Scottish singer is blessed with one of them, a hugely flexible instrument that can be piercing and powerful one moment, quietly heartbreaking the next, and able to stir the emotions like little else. A feminist yet also a fashion icon – the female Bowie, she was often called – she puts a unique stamp on any song, as her versions of American songbook classics (‘I Put a Spell On You’, ‘God Bless the Child’) attest. That she’s a songwriter – often with Eurythmics partner Dave Stewart – of no mean skill too only adds to her appeal, as does her philanthropic work. Are there any better white soul singers? Musthear track: ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)’

Here’s another who seemly had it all – smooth, cool good looks; a quiet, unknowable eroticism; a soothing, spine-tingling voice – and who rarely appeared to have to put much effort in. Sade’s melodic, understated, hypnotising recordings are predictably excellent, to the point where it’s easy to underestimate Helen Folasade Adu, and her appeal transcends age gaps and musical styles. (Rappers, famously, love her.) Listening to Diamond Life is like taking an unhurried journey to another world, and the artist herself – of Anglo-Nigerian background and Essex upbringing – seems similarly unrushed, floating above the hurly-burly of life and releasing perfect albums to her agenda, on her time scale. Must-hear track: ‘Smooth Operator’

Some artists find a groove and stick with it; not so Dorset’s Polly Jean Harvey, who lives to reinvent her sound, adding new interests (and, indeed, instruments) along the way. She started off in a band – the little-heard Automatic Diamini – but it’s her albums since (either solo, or in an eponymous trio) that have troubled the Brits, Grammys and Mercury Prize, and seen her a constant critical darling. Influences from folk and the blues underpin her ever-mutating art rock output, which drags in as many references to poetry and classical music as they do her perennial favourites, from Captain Beefheart to, many suspect, Patti Smith.

She’s a true original, both shockingly funny and a leering seductress, fearless, timeless and muscular.

Must-hear track: ‘Dress’

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Amy Winehouse Breakthrough year: 2003

KT Tunstall Breakthrough year: 2004

Lily Allen Breakthrough year: 2006

Adele Breakthrough year: 2007

Florence Welch Breakthrough year: 2009

Few careers are as heartbreaking as that of endlessly troubled neo-soul singer Amy Winehouse, whose self-destructive, hard-livin’ life echoes through her music. The reasons Winehouse stands head, shoulders and beehive above the rest – the greatest British female artist of the 21st century, many say – are endless. She punched adrenaline into a moribund British music scene; she revitalised soul music; she reintroduced America to British acts; and, horribly, her untimely death – only two albums in, with promise to burn – gave her the iconic status of a James Dean too. Winehouse had a mighty range, as capable of fun, sexy songs as dark and edgy ones, and plenty of her recordings are unbearably moving. Must-hear track: ‘Rehab’

Scottish singer/songwriter Kate Victoria Tunstall – think ‘Katey’ for ‘KT’ – is now six albums (and numerous awards) in, and recently made a life change, the move to Venice Beach, California reinvigorating her songwriting, and adding more power to her pop. Years of busking, and keeping a deliberate low profile, had allowed her to suddenly appear, fully formed, with her Mercury-nominated debut album Eye to the Telescope in 2014, and her image has remained steady since then – the nice, undamaged girl-next-door who just happens to be rather excellent at old-school, rhythmic rock ’n’ roll. The passion in her vocals adds an edge that her generally smooth, shiny production can’t disguise. Must-hear track: ‘Suddenly I See’

Not everyone seems to love Lily Allen these days, and it’s not hard to see why: the heavyweight showbiz background (dad is iconoclast Keith Allen; brother Alfie is a star of Game of Thrones), coupled with bitchy feuds with other celebs (Cheryl Cole, Piers Morgan, Courtney Love) is a fairly toxic mix. But then listen to what she actually has to say in her snarky tweets – much of the time she makes sense – and, most of all, listen to the songs: witty, clever, and in their own way just as sad and moving as anything by Adele. It’s the juxtaposition of Allen’s innocent, sunny voice and her unexpected choice of subject matter that’s so winning, plus her wickedly cheeky language, and knowing, winking relationship with her own celebrity.

Must-hear track: ‘Smile’

The fact that so many people love Adele so much makes it tempting to join the backlash against her – especially since she gets credit for plenty of things she never did, like pioneering the idea that you don’t have to be highly sexualised to sell music.

But then, dammit, there’s that voice – with power in abundance and a disarmingly truthful quality that, coupled with a her winning personality, sees her speak to people like few other modern artists. Adele’s one of the best-selling singers in the world, and given a modern-day torch song she has no equal. It’s hard to see a future that doesn’t have Adele in it, and her age-named albums – 19, 21, 25 – are a soundtrack to our lives. Must-hear track: ’Someone Like You’

The striking, red-haired lead singer of Florence + The Machine – she’s “The Lady of Shallot meets Ophelia, mixed with scary Gothic bat lady,” she once said – is operatic and strange in a way that makes her stand out amongst her contemporaries, a darker Kate Bush whose songs are like psychological horror stories, full of werewolves, murdered parrots, drowning, domestic abuse and madness. Her romantic, violent art rock has long been critically lauded, but it’s populist too – when she headlined Glastonbury in 2015, she was the first woman to do so this century – and she’s strikingly high-energy on stage. A peculiar pop eccentric in the English tradition. Musthear track: ‘Shake It Out’

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Beautiful. Ambitious. Ingenious. Thanks to its Calibre JJ04 movement – the work of our master watchmaker Johannes Jahnke – the C9 Moonphase is able to plot the orbit of the Moon with perfect accuracy.

More remarkably, if kept wound, its nickelplated ‘Moon’ will travel across the watch’s dial for 128 years before it needs adjusting.

Steel, 40mm. £1,295

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Design matters | Watch history | How it works

Great watch wearers

First lady It’s no surprise that one of the 20th century’s most stylish women, Jackie Kennedy, wore the Cartier Tank; few wristwatches ever looked to the future like this one If there was one woman who embodied classic American style in the 20th century, it was Jackie Kennedy. The daughter of a stockbroker, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was born in 1929, and raised in New York City and the Hamptons. After graduating in French literature, she worked as photographer for the Washington Times-Herald, meeting handsome young Congressman John F Kennedy at a dinner party in 1952. They were married a year later.

As her husband’s career took off, Jacqueline became famous for her style, wearing signature items like her Chanel dress and pillbox-hat combo, black polo-neck jumpers and, of course, an ever-present Cartier Tank wrist watch.

It shouldn’t be surprising that a woman as stylish as Jackie would wear a watch as sophisticated as the Tank. Released in 1919, the Tank was one of the first ‘fashion’ timepieces, thanks to the then-unusual effort that had gone into ensuring watch and strap were consistent with each other.

Louis Cartier, the man behind both the Tank and the earlier Cartier Santos – one of the world’s first ever wristwatches – was a jeweller, and so style was every bit as important to him as horological excellence. Before then, wristwatches had primarily been regarded as mere tools, a way for people to tell the time when they had both hands busy.

His Tank – a term that started as a nickname in Cartier’s workshop, and not initially as a reference to the war machine, despite an undeniable physical resemblance – was a reaction to the curves of Art Nouveau. Taking the Santos as his starting point, Cartier banished rounded edges until he had a wristwatch that was angular and

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without adornment. The dial was equally simple, made up of two blued hands and circled by Roman numerals – a perfect watch for the refined Art Deco age. And it was modern in its androgynous nature too, with surprisingly little difference between the versions aimed at men and those designed for women.

Throughout her life, Jackie wore a Tank, usually on a leather strap, and paired it with both the buttoned-up styles of the early 1960s and the looser fashions of the 1970s and ’80s. And today, while she might be best known in style circles for her ‘Jackie O’ sunglasses – she married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis in 1968, hence the name change – to those who look to the wrist for style inspiration, she’ll always be the Tank girl.

Full We’ve just recently finished designing the new C1 Grand Malvern, writes Adrian Buchmann, senior designer at Christopher Ward, and it’s a very important model for us indeed. The brief was certainly short and very direct.

Basically, the three co-founders all wanted a more English design inspiration, a unique look and feel, and a watch that could launch a new company design DNA that will eventually be translated across all the collections.

Actually, co-founder Mike France started the first design meeting we had by bringing to the table a little model of one of his favourite English cars – it was an Aston Martin DB9 – and telling me, ‘I would like something as beautiful as this.

It needs to look just as good as this does from every angle. But, of course, I need to be able to wear it on my wrist.’

Apart from the new C1 Grand Malvern, of course – which I’ll get to in a minute – some of my favourite dress watches of recent years have been from the

Adrian Buchmann had a real design challenge on his hands with the new C1 Grand Malvern.

Make it distinctive yet classically English, make it elegant yet versatile – and, above all, establish a new design language for Christopher Ward…

English German brands, companies like A. Lange & Söhne, Nomos or Moritz Grossmann. They each build something very strong that, yes, has its own DNA – but that, at the same time, definitely comes under the umbrella of classic German styling. I also like Jaquet Droz, for the purity of their Grande Séconde, and Zenith, for their great relaunch of a few years ago, executed by CEO Jean-Frédéric Dufour. Their new range contains a nice mix of their great heritage and some modern design codes.

And what do they all have to do with the new C1 Grand Malvern? Well, as far as I’m concerned, the previous C9 case – which this replaces – had nothing much wrong about it. It certainly offered clean lines, and some very good execution. The only issue with it, really, was that it didn’t use enough English design codes. There was something about its lines that seemed a little too Swiss – or, perhaps, Germanic – for a Christopher Ward.

This all being the case, we’ve really gone back to the company’s roots with this new 42

watch – it proudly uses the name Grand Malvern, after all, referencing the very first Christopher Ward watch, as well as a fantastic piece of the English landscape.

One of the crucial things we always knew this new case would need was a tactile quality that the old one didn’t have. It needed to be a watch you really wanted to touch; a watch that plays in clever ways with curves and softness.

Though the watch itself is a very pleasing one, what I’m particularly pleased with is the way it establishes what will become the new Christopher Ward DNA. Of course, we’ll have to change and adapt elements of it for the various different watch lines – aviation, dive and so on – but the basic design code established here will extend way beyond just the Grand Malvern collection.

Of course, it’s a dress watch, and though watches with more complications, or a particular technical or sporting function, may on the surface look like the harder, more involved job in terms of design,

actually the opposite is true. In fact, a simple, classical three-hand watch is probably the hardest of all to design – and to redesign. Why? Well, when you work on a complicated movement, you have a lot of design elements to play with – and so, by default, there’s lots going on. Straight away the watch looks ‘clever’, and it impresses very easily.

But bring to the market a new, very simple dress watch, and you can have a real problem making it look different to everything else that’s out there. The fear is that all that could possibly be done with this format has already been done; that this particular watchmaking playground is very small, and rather overcrowded.

Getting beyond those thought processes can be a real challenge.

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This said, of course, our first C1 Grand Malvern isn’t just a simple three-hand watch. It is also a Power Reserve, and so has an additional design element we had to incorporate. This showed another side of the dress watch conundrum: though three simple hands gives you very little to play with, adding anything else – like a complication – can be very tricky too, as additional elements will detract from the essential elegant simplicity of the design.

In this instance, I think we came up with the best balance possible, wherein the watch makes it clear how clever it is – it’s an in-house calibre, after all, with five days of power, and there aren’t many like that out there – but we maintain a particularly elegant face.

Come to buy a new Christopher Ward directly from us at the Maidenhead showroom, and you’ll not only get great service and an amazing watch, but will enjoy a seasonal range of extremely attractive special offers too

Gift justice Most people buy their Christopher Ward watches online, of course – it’s part of the company’s business model, and one reason why we can bring you such high-quality watches at such good price points – but there’s another option, and it’s a rather attractive one if you live in the South East of England, or perhaps occasionally visit the area. We’re talking, of course, about coming along to see us at the bijoux but perfectly formed showroom at Christopher Ward HQ in Maidenhead, just west of London.

Attending the showroom is by appointment only, but we’re open 10am-5pm, Monday to Friday, for most of the year – and for extended hours in the run-up to Christmas.

Indeed, we’ll be open each Saturday from 12 November until 17 December, 10am-4pm (with the last appointments booked in at 3pm), and Thursday evenings too, from 10 November until 22 December, 5pm-8pm

(last appointments at 7pm). Come along, and not only will you get the perfect Christmas present (whether for yourself, or someone else), but you’ll also receive personal service from one of our consultants too. And – who knows? – perhaps you’ll get to meet Christopher Ward himself, or one of the other company founders, as they often pop in to say hello.

Plus, if you buy your new watch at the showroom before Christmas 2016, you’ll also receive your choice of two free goodies: either a complimentary first service for your new toy, or a spare strap of equal value to the one the watch comes with.

In addition, if you don’t want to take your new watch away with you on the day, we can ship it for free anywhere in the world.

(Perfect, for instance, if it’s to be a present for your aunt in Woop Woop, Western Australia, or your uncle in Kalamazoo.) And there’s more, too, for we’re also extending

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all our existing customer offers, so if you buy from us in person, you’ll get at least £100 off the price of any new watch worth £500 or more until Christmas Eve. All in all, we’re struggling to think of a more enjoyable way to do your Christmas shopping.

Make a booking at christopherward.co.uk, or call us on 01628 763040

Great watch makers

Marco In the first of a new series, Loupe meets the mavericks of the watch industry, those small-scale watchmakers making a big noise.

This time: Marco Lang of the Dresden-based Lang & Heyne

Marco Lang runs a small, but rather heavy-hitting, workshop in the residential section of Buehlau, a suburb of Dresden, where he produces some very fine watches indeed. They do everything here, from making their famously functional, robust, rather old-fashioned movements to their equally impressive engraving. The end result? Watches with some of the aesthetic of the 19th century.

(Their movements, in particular, are somewhat reminiscent of old pocket watch movements.)

That’s not to say there isn’t incredible detail-work present here, however – the chronograph hands of one model, Albert, are apparently thinner than a strand of hair.

And it doesn’t end there: most of the dials are enamel, and beautifully finished; and though the company has a family feel, it relies almost totally on the skill and dedication of the watchmaker at its core.

This is not a standard-issue luxury watch brand, but something much more exclusive and, in its own way, real. We caught up with Marco himself to find out more.

Lang

Dresden is the historic capital of Saxony, but for a long time it was part of communist East Germany – and luxury watchmaking was frowned on there.

Did this make it hard to become a watchmaker?

Well, I’m a watchmaker of the fifth generation – and doing something else was never in question. Not even if there’d been no change of course in Germany. Though, just maybe, it would have ended up more of a hobby than a job. As a young boy, I watched my father, who worked in the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon [Royal Cabinet of Mathematical and Physical Instruments], and was sometimes allowed to assist him. My initial professional goal was just to become a restorer of old watches, but I always really wanted to create and build my own.

Dresden has long been a watch-making city, of course…

Yes, since the middle of the 16th century the art has thrived here. In time the local noble families created a boom in the jewel45

lery and watch segments, so established watchmakers moved here and shared their knowledge with the locals. By the end of the 18th century, important precision timepieces were being made here, with the Dresden/Saxon tradition actually highly influenced by English watchmaking. A particularly Saxon style developed in the middle of the 19th century, too.

They made very special pocket watches – right up until about 1930, and particularly in nearby Glashütte – and the typical style included, for example, countersunk and screwed gold chatons, blued screws, and swan-neck fine adjustment – as well the silver grinding, followed by gold-plating, of the plates, bridges and balance cock.

So tell us a bit about your company, Lang & Heyne.

Although the majority of what we do is instigated by me, we see ourselves as a team, and the 15 of us here – eight are watchmakers – get on very well. We all love the creative process, and see ourselves more as artists than anything.

At present we manufacture around 50 watches per year, and amongst them are several very specialised watches, built to specific customer requirements – some of our more unique pieces include a movement made of mammoth ivory, for instance. Every watchmaker at Lang & Heyne believes that each detail is important, which raises our quality to the highest level. Because of this, our watches actually tend to gain in value.

And you run both a shop and a movement manufacturer, too…

Tempus Arte Dresden is a boutique we created in 2012 as a new platform for international independent watchmakers to sell through. For similar reasons, we created Uhren-Werke-Dresden just a year later; it’s a supplier of watch parts, watch groups and entire movements for small and medium-sized brands which otherwise would have to rely on simple ETA movements. At UWD we make much larger quantities than at Lang & Heyne.

What is it about watchmaking you enjoy the most?

The greatest pleasure is the variety – though manufacturing all the different watch parts, materials and surfaces, followed by finishing the watch in an attractive way, is very demanding. But the satisfaction is immense, too. Characteristic of our watches are things like a solid gold gear train and escapement wheel; a Breguet balance-spring with screws balance; and the already-mentioned bridges, often with screwed gold chatons. The more time

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you spend reshaping metal, the better you understand it – and the quality of the finished parts can’t help but benefit. That’s why any watchmaker applying for a job at Lang & Heyne needs to have a similar affinity for the material in their fingers.

What sort of people do your watches appeal to?

Well, the first thing to say – of course – is that there are only a very few watch enthusiasts who can actually afford a Lang & Heyne. These are mainly quite serious col-

“People get excited that you can have your watch custom-made”

lectors, who’ve come to us through their love of high-quality mechanic watches made by the bigger luxury brands. When watch enthusiasts visit us, or see our watches at one of our partners, they’re generally amazed, and they tend to get excited by the idea that it’s possible to have your watch custom-made, allowing you to change or add many details.

Which of the watches are most exciting and interesting to you?

Oh, there’s no one watch in particular. All our creations – our current range is nine watches, and six movements – are like my children to me. Of course, the latest project is always the most exciting, but I take as much pleasure out of creating a simple three-hand watch as I do the highly complicated ones, like the Albert or Augustus models. The best way to understand Lang & Heyne is to visit our workshop, though.

During a tour, I’d explain how and why we actually do all the things other brands just talk about.

Finally, Marco, where can we find your watches, and what would you ask us to particularly take note of when we look at them?

We work with a tiny, well-chosen selection of international partners, who are all we can supply because of our small annual production volume. When you do get to examine one of our watches – perhaps at Tempus Arte in Dresden – the things you’ll personally find the most astonishing (perhaps the fine polishing of the case, or the enamel dial, with its delicately finished hands) I cannot say. But I do suggest that you just try putting whatever watch you’re wearing next to that Lang & Heyne…

For more, lang-und-heyne.com

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The power game

Johannes Jahnke, our master watchmaker, talks about the making of the SH21 power reserve, one of the watch world’s most useful complications…

When we first designed SH21, we always meant for it to be able to incorporate many different complications, writes Johannes Jahnke, Christopher Ward’s technical director and master watchmaker. And I always had in mind various different places and ways in which we could take information or power out of the basic system in order to do so – not always easy, as the movement itself is already relatively complex. Still, it’s this pre-planning that’s allowed us to install the power reserve complication without a great many compromises.

Of course, theoretically, you can add any complication to any base movement – but sometimes it demands far too many additional parts to make it worthwhile.

As we’ve always wanted SH21 to provide a smart and affordable solution to any watchmaking problem, we planned a power reserve function as part of to our basic ‘brick-building’ system from the start. We have all the parts needed in stock anyway, so it’s actually quite easy

for us to choose from our shelves the pieces we need to build any version we need to on a particular day: today it will be a C9 auto, and tomorrow perhaps a C8 hand-wound power reserve movement.

Power reserve isn’t inherently an easy or a difficult complication to design and make; it just depends on the rest of the configuration. Certainly, adding a power reserve indicator to a hand-wound movement isn’t very hard; adding it to an automatic is more complex, however. You need a clutch system, for one thing, which prevents the watch from becoming overwound if it’s already fully wound and you continue to wear it. The incoming automatic energy, you see, needs to be eliminated.

SH21 has a very long power reserve of 5 days, and to achieve that it needs two barrels, so attention needs to be paid to the differential used too. The differential checks the turns of each barrel, and calculates the difference between the two barrel states – clever, but not always easy to achieve.

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The SH21 power reserve complication is not actually the first one I’ve worked on. I once made a special power reserve version of an automatic alarm watch – this movement already had more than 300 parts before I started my work on it, adding two power reserve barrels, which made it quite a challenge. As for the power reserve complications from other companies, most of the ones I admire are those that try to do things a little differently.

The Oris version is very special, for instance. It’s fascinating the way they’ve made the angle variation between the days different, so more space on the dial is given to the last few days of power reserved, and it becomes increasingly obvious how little energy is left as the watch starts to run down.

All of which takes us to the basic function of a power reserve complication, which is, of course, is to show the user how much energy the watch has left, and so to remind him or her not to let that run

It references the speed at which time is flying by in a way that other watches don’t

down totally – unless they don’t mind it happening, of course.

It’s like the fuel gauge in a car, essentially. Most modern cars have computers on board that will give you much more information than a simple fuel gauge does – how much you are using per mile, what your current range is, and so on – but everyone relies on the fuel gauge anyway.

We know we have to wind our watches every few days, just like we know we have to fill up a car with fuel every few hundred miles, but it’s still good to be reminded just how much is left.

I’m very pleased, though, that we found it possible to place it at exactly 9 o’clock without needing to use additional parts.

This is the perfect position for a PR indicator, in my view, as you so often have the date at 3 o’clock, and I always like to keep the 6 o’clock position free for a small second indicator. That this all came together so neatly shows how easily we’ll be able to combine the SH21 PR system with plenty of other complications in the future.

The other interesting thing about a power reserve watch, I always feel, is that it references the speed at which time is flying by in a way that other watches don’t, since you can see at a glance how long it was since you last wore it.

With the C1 Grand Malvern Power Reserve, the position of the power reserve indicator sub dial is dictated by the position of the barrel within the watch.

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Timespan

4 mins 22 secs Cary Grant gets chased around a cornfield, and the modern action movie is born A good suit is designed for many things: going to the theatre; making an impression at a job interview; impressing your hosts at a fancy dinner party.

What it’s not designed for is getting chased around a cornfield while a man in a crop-duster biplane fires a machine gun at you. But such is the fate of the lovely grey number worn by Cary Grant in the most famous and influential scene from North By Northwest, the Alfred Hitchcock thriller from 1959.

Grant is Roger Thornhill, a New York advertising man who’s been mistaken for an undercover agent, then – as is often the case in this sort of film – framed for a murder he didn’t commit. Trying to escape the authorities and a villainous conspiracy, he ends up in the middle of the sun-baked Midwest.

The highly influential 4 minutes, 22 seconds that follow are virtually without

dialogue, though they start with Thornhill arriving at a bus stop at an isolated crossroads, and talking to a local man who turns up to catch a bus. “That’s funny,” says the man. “That plane’s dusting crops where there ain’t no crops.”

A bus approaches, the man gets on, and Thornhill is left with just the sound of a biplane for company. A sound that gets louder as the aircraft turns and makes directly for Thornhill, who dives on the ground as it swoops over him.

The plane turns and swoops again, this time firing at Thornhill with a machine gun, the bullets pinging off the road.

Seeking shelter – not easy in this empty, wide-open corner of Hicksville – he jumps into a nearby cornfield, which the pilot covers in pesticide.

Coughing and covered in dust, Thornhill spots a wagon thundering down an adjoining road, and stands in the middle of the tarmac until, reluctantly, it

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stops for him – just inches from impact.

The pilot of the biplane isn’t quite so fortunate, and ends his days ploughing into the truck, which we find out is an oil tanker. Talk about rotten luck. Both truck and plane, of course, explode.

This film, full of famous scenes, ends with another one, in which various characters scramble around on the carved faces on the cliffs of Mount Rushmore. But it’s the magical, masterful crop-duster sequence that stays longest in the memory. It’s pure cinema, a model – in many ways – for the James Bond movies (and all the action thrillers they influenced) to come; indeed, From Russia With Love, four years later, copied it directly for a helicopter sequence.

But North by Northwest got there first. And you know what? That suit still looks great at the end.

A watch with a truly global perspective, the C8 UTC Worldtimer is able to tell the time in three timezones at once.

Designed in England, and built at our atelier in Switzerland, its self-winding ETA 2893-2 movement also boasts a power reserve of 42 hours. Steel 44mm

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Meet the new C1 Grand Malvern Power Reserve, page 10.

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