London?s annual luxury watch show returned to the swanky Saatchi Gallery in early November, and despite being noticeably smaller than in previous years there were still ample interesting, unusual, beautiful and breathtaking watches to consume an entire Saturday afternoon. The absence of some of the larger Swiss brands resulted in the focus firmly placed on the smaller, independent labels?both young brands still breaking into the market and already established boutique watchmakers.
Stunning Habring2 Chronos
Primarily going in with an open mind about what I wanted to see, I did, however, make a beeline to the ever-popular Nomos stand to check out the impressive ?At Work? series, and to the Silvercut variants in particular. Each of the Tangente, Orion, Metro and Tetra models now houses the automatic DUW 3001 caliber in a larger 39mm case (33mm for the Tetra), and while the Metro is now an almost perfect under-the-cuff office watch, I was pleasantly surprised at just how well the stylish brushed finish works with the Tangente. Ordinarily I would think the cleanness of the Bauhaus dial and indices should not be meddled with, but if anyone could make such a thing work it?s Nomos. The ?At Work? series is covered in more detail here.
Moving on to something a little different, Konstantin Chaykin?s Joker was another timepiece that was being handled and wiped clean all day long. Starting out life as an ETA 2824-2, the K07-0 caliber runs two hour and minute discs which masqu...