Walk No. 6 Trendng for 2016: Ethically Sourced Gold (1/3/2016)

Among JCK News' 12 Jewelry Trends for 2016, Jennifer Heebner highlights the increasing choice of using of ethically sourced materials including gold and gemstones by industry designers and businesses.  Noted Swiss jewelry/watchmaker Chopard is a leader in using fairmined gold, i.e. gold coming from an artisanal mine that operates according to recognized safe practices and leaves minimal environmental impact. In 2013, Chopard launched an initiative, called The Journey to Sustainable Luxury. At Baselworld 2014, it introduced the L.U.C. Tourbillon QF Fairmined, the world's first watch to be encased in fairmined gold. My high praise for certified supply-chain ethical sustainability.

(Note: I wrote about fairmined gold in my July 2015 post on Isabel Marant.)

January 2016 Bench #1 -- Amy K. Glasmeier

Amazing in its research and historical stretch, Amy K. Glasmeier gives us Manufacturing Time: Global Competition in the Watch Industry, 1795-2000,
(Guilford Press, New York, 2000).  I first learned of this title in Peter Oakley's bibliography for his article, "Ticking Boxes: (Re)Constructing the Wristwatch as a Luxury Object" in the journal Luxury: History, Culture, Consumption, Volume 2, Issue 1, May 2015. 

Walk No. 5 Indulge in the Bulge: Tonneau Watch Cases (1/2/2016)

The holidays are ending. The season of dieting and calorie counting has begun. But one bulging shape is timeless.  It's the Tonneau watch case. In French, tonneau means  a "cask" of varying liquid capacities often associated with the aging of wine. As a watch case design, head-on it resembles a barrel -- rectangular with rounded sides. These sides are sometimes squat; sometime curvaceous. The shape allows for a variety of dial openings including round, elongated, and of course one that follows the same contours of the outer case.   Cartier introduced the design in 1906 and it is its second oldest model after the Santos Dumont in 1904. Six years later, the first Vacheron Constantin Tonneau appeared.