2009 Only Watch Presentation in Geneva - Underthedial Report from Ian Skellern

Impressions and images from Geneva - Ian Skellern visits the "Only Watch" preview in Switzerland, weeks before the auction later this month in Monaco.

"I visited the Only Watch 2009 exhibition at Patrizzi & Co's Geneva show room yesterday evening and despite the crowds managed to take a few photos."

Patrizzi & Co Geneva is in a beautiful pedestrian only street.

Here are a few photos of the timepieces at the recent Only Watch Geneva exhibition at Patrizzi & Co.

THE WATCHES

Hublot. If (like me) you sometimes think that it must be virtually impossible for Hublot to come up yet with another interesting variation of the same watch, they do. Nothing out of the ordinary, but a striking design.

Jaquet Droz. Jaquet Droz are starting to make stunning fired-enamel dial look easy, but it isn't. The ceramic case should ensure that this watch looks as good in 20 years as it does now.

Louis Vuitton. Turning cubes to tell the time made me think of URWERK, but neverthless it was good to see that Louis Vuitton make an effort to realize something truly unique and not just a new dial on an existing watch.

MB&F. It was as interesting eavesdropping on comments as looking at the watches and nowhere more so than the MB&f case. 'Is that a butterfly? Is that barbed-wire? Gruesome! How could you possibly wear it? It's fantastic!' The negative comments I heard easily outnumbered the positive by a factor of 5 to 1, but I am sure Max Büsser was smiling because in my short time there, more people were talking passionately about this watch than any other.

Montblanc. The dial is too busy for my taste, but there is no denying the quality and superb finish of this Star Nicolas Rieussec Monopusher Chronograph Open Date. If the bidding is related to name length this will be a winner.

Omega. The Omega Ploprof wins my 'What were they thinking?' award. There is nothing I like about the design of this watch, but then, I've never been accused of having impeccable taste. It is certainly a watch that attracts the eye.

Girard-Perregaux. At first glance I was disappointed in this watch as I expected more from Girard-Perregaux, but the more I learned, the more I liked it. The world time should be a useful complication for the type of people likely to be bidding and the ceramic case looks sublime.

Franck Muller. This was another brand I feel might have done more. A few brands really excelled themselves and that really raised the bar for the others. No doubt this is a very special watch, but if I saw it on somebody's wrist, I'd think 'Franck Muller', and not 'Wow! What's that Franck Muller?'

Franc Vila. This watch was another contender for my 'What were they thinking?' award and I nearly laughed out load when I first saw it. But then the originality of the design slowly won me over and, while it would not be a watch found on my little wrist, it does have something of the iconic Ikepod about it.

deLaCour. I think that you are either a deLaCour fan or you're not. There is no middle ground. And when you think that large unusual watches no longer have the power to surprise, one does. Unfortunately, this one did not surprise me in a positive way as it was far too big and far too busy for me.

De Bethune. If I had to pick one watch here for myself, it would be this sensational De Bethune pocket watch.

Corum. This was another favourite. With this watch Corum have taken their single bridge into the 21st century.

BNB Concept Confrérie Horlogère. If I could have chosen two to take home, this would have been the second. Great design and fascinating to look at. I loved it!


Chaumet. We do not hear much about Chaumet's watchmaking so it's good to see them step out onto the stage. Simple, but elegant with an interesting case shape.

Chanel. Another watch obviously meant for another audience, not me. There are interesting elements in the watch, especially the ceramic bracelet, but I just don't 'get it'.

Cartier. The three different dials of this Cartier Santos would normally be enough to provoke a 'Wow!' from me, and it did when I saw it (different designs) at the SIHH earlier in the year. I expect more than a unique dial design (or three) from Cartier. Nice watch but I'd like to see Cartier stretch themselves a bit more next time.

Cabestan. Now I love the Cabestan, but this is another watch that disappointed. I expect much more - and perhaps unfairly- of an 'Only Watch' than a unique piece, I expect the watch to be truly distinctive and to make a strong statement. The 'normal' Cabestan already makes such a strong statement that a special model has to be much much more. I love this watch, but want much more.

And this is just plain greed talking because for all of the brands involved, especially the smaller ones, just the fact of donating a watch, let alone developing a unique piece, is a major commitment in itself and one we should all be grateful for, but . . .

Breguet. This was another favourite and I felt that Breguet got the spirit of 'Only Watch', not to simply make a one-off, but to make something truly unique.

Bovet. When I saw this watch I didn't think 'Mona Lisa', my first thought was 'Pascal Raffy' (CEO of Bovet). This watch is the essence of Bovet and is certainly the essence of Pascal Raffy.

Blancpain. I am not at all a fan of the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, though I appreciate that I appear to be in a minority. However, this one - the 500 Fathoms -I like.

Bell & Ross. The exception that proves the rule? I have said that I expect Only Watch timepieces to offer something more than a new dial variation, but this diamond-encrusted skull and crossbones makes such a bold statement that nothing more is needed. It's not for me, but I'm sure somebody will love it (and hopefully two people to drive up the bidding).

Audemars Piguet. Take a beautiful Audemars Piguet Equation of Time and add 'ONLY WATCH MONACO12h30' is big capital letter at the top of the dial: What on earth were they thinking? There is so much on this this watch that is so right, but can you appreciate the dial without having your gaze drawn continually to the headline at the top? I can't.

Zenith. If retro is the new contemporary, then Zenith is onto something. I wonder if this watch signals a new direction for the brand (I hope so).

Van Cleef & Arpels. Here's another watch proving what a hypocrite I am. 'Midnight in Monaco' is hardly an inspired variation of their Midnight in Paris, but with every Van Cleef & Arpels complication I see, I cannot help but feel that they have no peer when it comes to crafting interesting and absolutely beautiful watches for women. I am sorry my photography let this watch down, because it is poetry (but they should do more next time).

Vacheron Constantin. Come on Vacheron, take a watch, the Quai de l’Ile, which has been designed to make unique variations and make a - gasp !- unique variation. I know that there is a bit more to it than that - tantalum and palladium are very difficult case materials to work with - but it just doesn't look different enough to me. Vacheron Constantin merits being held to a higher standard and they didn't reach that for me with this model.

Ulysse Nardin. What has saved me saying the same thing about this Freak than I said about the Cabestan is that the Freak has been out of the news longer, so seeing it again after a break, especially in this black-dialed rendition, had the power to shock.


Hermes. For a company famous for their leather goods, this alligator-clad 8-day travel clock appears to be appropriate and something different.

Please bear in mind that the opinions expressed above are the result of a fairly quick walk around a hot and crowded exhibition. I am well aware that my views are inconsistent (but hey, so am I) and they may well change . . .in fact some views are starting to change already.

I strongly recommend that you visit the Only Watch 2009 website and click on any image to learn more.

The Only Watch 2009 world tour was in Geneva recently and if the number of guests at Patrizzi & Co's Geneva show room yesterday evening was indicative of interest, the charity auction has every chance of being a big success.


Patrizzi Auction Website --> LINK

Ian Skellern's original Only Watch 2009 exhibition in Geneva post & Watch Photo Post via Horomundi

Ian's Underthedial Facebook page --> LINK

Related Posts;
All Current and Past "Only Watch" Auctions
Haute Horology Stories


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Barbed Wire & Butterflies - MB&F HM2 Piece Unique by Artist Sage Vaughn for Only Watch 2009

There is a butterfly trapped in the movement of the latest watch to emerge from MB&F (Maximilian Büsser & Friends). And it has no hope of escaping, because the complicated movement is wrapped in barbed wire. This emotionally charged piece, a one-of-a-kind interpretation of MB&F’s Horological Machine No.2, is signed by the American artist Sage Vaughn.

Video from the New York WENY presentation (July 16th, 2009)

It will be auctioned at Only Watch, the charity auction to benefit research into Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy to be held in Monaco on 24 September 2009 under the patronage of HSH Prince Albert II.


The auction is held every two years and brings together the cream of Switzerland’s haute horlogerie watchmakers. Each contributes a unique watch, or the number one from a limited series, to be auctioned without a reserve price. All the proceeds from Only Watch go to enabling the Monegasque Association against Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (AMM) to support international research projects into that disease – a field in which the Association has been actively involved since 2005.

HM2 Movement

"State Penn" by Sage Vaughn

The inspiration for the watch

Büsser and his team were, as he says, “shocked into” creating a piece of horology for the Only Watch event, and were determined that their timepiece should convey that emotion. But horology has its limits. How could it be used to express the beauty and vulnerability of childhood, and the valiant struggle of a child who may well be in a wheelchair before he is twelve?

There are no coincidences in life, and at the time, a new gallery in Geneva was given over entirely to the work of Sage Vaughn, an American painter and former graffiti artist whose solo show in New York last summer had been one of the art world’s most talked-about events. This young artist has fought and conquered his own demon – a seven-year heroin addiction – and the pain of that struggle is felt in the emotional power of his work. The images of gaily-dressed children or bright birds or butterflies putting on a brave front against bleak urban backgrounds had haunted Max Büsser. He had bought one of the art works, a baseball bat adorned with a collage of butterflies, pinned down by nails. Here was the tension between light-hearted innocence and something darker that he was seeking.

Sage Vaughn in his studio

The result

A trip to the US proved him right. Sage Vaughn understood the mission at once and immediately proposed to donate his time and talent. Max Büsser came back with the initial sketch for the watch, and the result is faithful to it. The entire upper face of the watch – the surface of the rectangular case and the two projecting portholes – is crafted in sapphire crystal, revealing the HM2’s complex engine. The hundreds of minute components display the meticulous hand finish that is MB&F’s hallmark. But they are imprisoned in barbed wire. A blue butterfly struggles to escape from the same fate, but its wings are clipped. In the finished work, the barbed wire is handcrafted in blackened gold and the butterfly in blued gold. But the scene has all the emotional power of the first rough by Sage Vaughn – a pencil sketch of the movement criss-crossed by barbed wire drawn in red pencil.

The watch is a unique interpretation of Horological Machine No2, launched as limited series in 2008. HM2 typifies the radical approach to high-end horology taken by Max Büsser and his Friends. It is a high-tech time machine of the twenty-first century and an incredibly sophisticated micromechanical work of art. It houses the world’s first mechanical movement – “engine” in MB&F language – to offer an instantaneous jumping hour, concentric retrograde minutes, retrograde date hand, a bi-hemisphere moon phase and automatic winding. The case alone contains more than 100 parts – more than many complete movements – and is the most complex case in watchmaking history. Altogether the watch has over 450 components.

"Reseda Butterfly" by Sage Vaughn

About Sage Vaughn

Sage Vaughn was born in Jackson, Oregon in 1976 and grew up in Reseda, California. He now lives and works in Los Angeles.

As a child he developed his talent for art in the company of his father, the artist Richard Smitty Vaughn Junior. His father would take him to the Los Angeles zoo, where they would sit all day, sketching the animals. His hippie parents had little money for toys, but they encouraged him to draw and to develop his own style. Later, he became an avid participant in the graffiti culture.

Today he favours painting, but the city of his graffiti days is ever present in his work. It is shown in its least flattering light, in the grey walls and stylised cityscapes and freeways that form an austere backdrop to his vibrant foreground figures. He has also preserved the same free and easy touch and energy. This is most visible in the paint runs used in certain areas of his work.

“I try to utilise animals in the same way that Aesop did in his fables”

Sage Vaughn’s paintings question the human condition and the difficulty of living in a contemporary environment. The bright birds and insects serve as an affirmation of life, but they also remind us of our strategies for survival in a modern society. Imperceptible at first glance, black tattoos in the birds’ plumage spell out the names of gangs or codes. They evoke the individual’s need for recognition, but also a subculture, linked in the collective conscience to violence and rebellion in the streets.

“It is easier for an observer to project into the countenance of a child”

Sometimes, children replace the birds in the foreground. Not yet formatted by society, they seem to have the energy to survive and reinvent the world. Sporting masks and brightly coloured costumes, they look like superheroes. Yet there is nothing joyous or innocent about them. Each is desperately alone, abandoned in a hostile setting.

The message could thus be seen as a bitter one: the American dream of bucolic happiness is shattered.

Sage Vaughn likes to cloud the issue, however, and scramble what might be seen as clear cut. His paintings do not stop at that admission of failure. To live is, of course, difficult but the simple fact of being alive brings hope. In the wake of Melville, whose novels the painter admires, Vaughn knows that even during war, birds do continue to sing and children to play.

Being Maximilian Büsser And Friends

The founder of MB&F says that he created a business model around his neurosis. He was an only child who grew up longing to surround himself with people that he could admire. His parents – his father Swiss, his mother Indian – were “too much in love” to provide the company that he craved, and, left to himself, he developed a rich imaginary life. This led to constant injunctions, at home and at school, to be more reasonable and responsible, and the little boy grew up imbued with his father’s rigorous principles and sense of duty.

It was only when his father passed away, seven years ago, that he felt free to become unreasonable again. “There are two occasions when you become conscious of mortality”, he says. “When you have a child, and when a parent dies.” That prompted him to leave what he admits was a dream job, as head of Harry Winston Timepieces, and form MB&F (Maximilian Büsser and Friends), a company dedicated solely to designing and crafting small series of radical concept watches in collaboration with talented professionals. Or, as he says: “Letting my guts speak instead of my head”. That spirit is shared by all the independent craftsmen, engineers and watchmakers who collaborate on his projects.

Joining the battle to save children from muscular dystrophy

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is a serious genetic disorder that affects one in every 3,500 boys. It is characterised by a progressive weakening of the muscles, resulting in respiratory and cardiac problems that become fatal as the child gets older. In Europe there are around 30,000 sufferers of the disease.

As yet there is no cure for the disease, but considerable progress is being made. One of the most important breakthroughs is the development of Saut d’Exon – a surgical technique that enables the cellular machinery to “forget” to read that part of the gene that carries the abnormality of the illness. This technique was developed by Luis Garcia, Head of Research at CNRS, and his team. Mr Garcia is a key player in the field of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. He and his group are among the 20 research teams that have benefited from AMM’s financial support.

The role of childhood in MB&F’s creations

Maximilian Büsser knew that he would participate the moment he spoke to Luc Pettavino, the President of AMM. “At my age,” he says, (he is 42), “if I contract a serious illness I can say that I have already lived a full life, but for a child just starting out, it is a tragedy”.

Whilst he would never claim to understand the suffering of a child with this disease, childhood holds a special importance for him. For all their sophistication, the lovingly crafted time machines that he dreams up and creates with his Friends have their roots in his earliest years.

The case of Horological Machine No2 is the most complex case in the history of watchmaking, but its modular structure is inspired by the meccano model kits that were his toys. The 22-karat gold automatic rotor has the jewel-like hand-finish reserved for the elite of traditional watch movements, but it owes its iconic sickle shape to the double-headed battleaxe wielded by his childhood comic hero, Grendizer. All the great sci-fi TV series – Star Trek, Thunderbird, Dr Who and Star Wars – have played a role in MB&F’s creations. It is the tension between fascination with that imaginary world and a love of high-end horology at its purest that gives the machines their vitality.


Technical Specifications

Movement:
Jean-Marc Wiederrecht/Agenhor designed functionality regulated and powered by a Girard-Perregaux oscillator and gear train.
Blued 22K gold Battle Ax automatic winding rotor
Balance oscillating at 28,800 bph

Number of components: 349 including 44 jewels

Functions:
Left dial: Retrograde Date and Bi-Hemisphere Moon Phase
Right Dial: Jumping Hours and Concentric Retrograde Minutes

Sage Vaughn sculpture:
Blackened 18K gold barbed wire which imprisons the movement, symbol of the illness capturing the body.
Blued 18K butterfly on movement bridge, symbol of innocence and childhood.

Case:
Piece unique – 18K white gold/titanium with sapphire “double dome” glass
Dimensions (exclusive of crown and lugs): 59mm x 38mm x 13mm
Water resistant to 30 meters (3 ATM)

Sapphire crystals:
Dial side with anti-reflective treatment on both faces. Display back signed by Sage Vaughn.

Dials:
Brushed sapphire for minutes and date, Black disks for hours and moon phase.

Number of parts (Movement & Case): 439 parts

Strap & Buckle:
Black hand-stitched alligator with 18K gold and titanium custom designed deployant buckle.

Presentation box:
Sage Vaughn piece unique painted wooden “coffret”.

How does Only Watch work? Swiss haute de gamme watch companies each produce a unique watch or the first (No 1) of a limited series to be offered (without a reserve price) at this exceptional auction. Patrizzi & Co Auctioneers will be taking these watches on a promotional preview tour during late summer/early autumn 2009.

The Only Watch auction will then take place on 24 September 2009 in Monaco during the 19th Monaco Yacht Show. Participating watch brands 2009 Audemars Piguet, Blancpain, BNB Concept, Bovet Fleurier, Breguet Montres, Cartier, Corum Montres, De Bethune, Delacour, Franck Muller, Frederique Constant, Glashuette Uhrenbertrieb, Hermes, Hublot, Jaquet Droz, Louis Vuitton, Maximilian Buesser & Friends, Mont Blanc, Omega, Patek Philippe, Piaget, Richard Mille, Swatch, Tag Heuer, Tourneau Timepieces, Ulysse Nardin, Urwerk, Vacheron Constantin, Van Cleef & Arpels, Zenith International. Source: Patrizzi & Co Auctioneers www.patrizziauction.com

MB&F website->LINK

Related MB&F, Max Busser, and Horological Machine Posts-->LINK

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