The brand with the double-star logo, founded by Pierre Jaquet-Droz (1721-1790) in 1738, celebrates its 280th anniversary in 2018. Minerals were important to the company’s founder, and today they are an integral part of the brand’s DNA, and continue to play a major role in the Ateliers d’Art. Dendritic agate, ruby heart, sunstone, lemon chrysoprase, jadeite, rutilated quartz, slate, onyx, astorite... the palette of stones used by Jaquet Droz for its dials is virtually limitless. After the Petite Heure Minute in cuprite (a mineral made of copper oxide), which was unveiled for Valentine’s Day, new models with dials made of meteorite and stromatolite have been introduced this year. It’s no accident that the watchmaker chose the Grande Seconde, with its figure-eight aesthetic, to pay tribute to these minerals that symbolise the infinite depths of space.

Originally developed to reinforce hunting dog collars, pyramid-shaped studs appeared on belts from the 1930s onwards. They then inspired the Hermès dog collar bracelet, before appearing in the Médor secret watch, which conceals the hours and minutes beneath its cabochon, or reveals them with a press on the crown.

Busy readers can save themselves the trouble of reading to the end of this article to find out the verdict: the Big Bang Referee 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia is a winner. The Nyon-based watchmaker, usually so quick off the mark where technical challenges are concerned, opted this time to wait a while before launching its first smartwatch. TAG Heuer and Bulgari – both from the same LVMH stable – brought out theirs some time ago, along with a good proportion of the rest of the watch industry, including pioneer Frédérique Constant.

On Saturday at 3pm, the 2018 Roland Garros champion, Rafael Nadal, was on the track to officially start the race. 24 hours later, the Toyota # 8 crossed the finish line two laps ahead of the other teams. Winners of the 86th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Fernando Alonso and Sébastien Buemi, partners of Richard Mille, gave Toyota their first win in 19 starts.

HALO, the fourth art commission by Audemars Piguet, which was presented at Art Basel this year, is an ambitious work that presents complex data from the ATLAS experiment at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, in the form of an electro-acoustic instrument. The project brought together Audemars Piguet, whose art commissions seek to explore the themes of complexity and precision that are inherent to the world of watchmaking, CERN, whose particle accelerators straddle the border between Switzerland and France on the outskirts of Geneva (and which, it may surprise you to learn, has its own Art Department) and Semiconductor, the British duo of Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt, who specialize in rendering complex scientific phenomena accessible as works of art.

The big WorldTempus summer competition is back again this year with the same successful formula: 93 days of competition, from 21st June until 21st September, 1 question per day and one prize per day. 

At Baselworld in 2014, a journalist colleague asked me pointedly whether I thought that blue was the new black. True, blue was increasingly ubiquitous. Since then, at predictable intervals, I’ve seen various headlines and press releases claiming that brown or green are also the new black.

Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It has historically been played for the most part in Canada and the United States, with small but dedicated lacrosse communities in the United Kingdom and Australia. Recently, however, lacrosse has begun to flourish at the international level, with teams being established around the world, particularly in Europe and east Asia.

On June 16th, Jaeger-LeCoultre celebrated the opening of the Shanghai International Film Festival, tThis 21st edition coinciding with the 185th anniversary of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Manufacture.

The first collection that you worked on for Montblanc was the TimeWalker. We saw some new models again this year. How has the collection evolved over the past couple of years?
In effect 2017 was a seminal year for the launch of sport watches and we worked in detail to look into the history of Minerva to find links with motorsport and performance. An incredible exploration in timekeeping took place in Minerva during the first half of the 20th century with counters that were either tools to measure performance, in particular short time frames (from 1/5th of a second down to 1/100th of a second in 1936), or that were specific to particular sports, such rally, football, rowing and horse riding. Leveraging this unique heritage we created the concept of “spirit of racing” to support and inspire the relaunch and re-design of the TimeWalker collection.

Watchmaker of the oceans, Ulysse Nardin announces a partnership with Alex Caizergues, the first to surpass 100 km/h on the water by sail power. With an impressive list of achievements to his name across all board sports, the French kitesurfer currently holds the World Sailing Speed Kitesurfing record, with a run averaging 107.3 km/h, or 57.98 knots (over 500m). 

Bell & Ross, in collaboration with Gaspard Horlogerie-Bijouterie, has participated in the sixth edition of the biennial offshore event in the South Pacific as the official timekeeper of the sailing race. With its 1.500 km long around the biggest lagoon in the world, the race started on Sunday June 17th from Nouméa, gathering a total of 24 monohulls and multihulls. The fastest anticlockwise sail around New Caledonia is passing through Cap N’Dua in the south and Grand Passage at the extreme north to eventually finish off Nouméa.