Boy, have we come a long way when it comes to telling time.  You wouldn’t believe what some of our ancestors were wearing back in the day.  In the 1500’s the first timepieces to be worn were called clock-watches. A clock-watch got its name for obvious reasons; it was the perfect size between a clock and a watch.  Could you imagine how big those things were?  They only had an hour hand and they had to be wound twice a day.  One thing that stayed the same was the fact that the good watches were expensive and the rich and the famous usually had the chance to play with new fashions before it hit mainstream.

So after the failure of the clock-watch (inaccuracy and poor movement) the pocket watch was born in the 1600’s.  Of course fashion influenced the invention of the pocket watch.  According to history, pocket watches were created when Charles II of England introduced the waistcoat to gentlemen around the world.  The pocket watch was pretty popular, they are still around today, but accuracy came in 1657 when the balance spring was invented, 1765 when temperature compensations and chronometers came to light, 1800 when the lever escapement was invented by Thomas Mudge, 1850 when humanity realized mass production could cause pop culture obsessions, and 1900 when materials got a little more creative.

All this lead to the invention of the wristwatch, which women had been wearing for a long time before it became “manly”.  The first wristwatches were called trench watches and they had the same movements as pocket watches and were larger than what we know wrist watches to be today. In the 1930’s pocket watches finally became history as John Harwood created the self-winding system in 1923 and changed watch making forever.

Since the first wristwatch, Electric watches were created in 1950 and Quartz watches were created in 1969. Even though we’ve made wrist watches better through digital technology, we still haven’t really derived from the original design.

However, some say the cell phone is the new watch, which is an arguable point…but with so many watch enthusiast out there; I doubt we really give up their wristwatches and stick with cell phones.

Since 1856 Eterna has been making luxury watches.  Even though the family ran business was taken over by the Porsche family in 1995, they have stuck the heritage and history keeping products in line with the original philosophy and mission.

One repeating milestone that keeps popping up throughout the company’s history is their obsession with size.  Here is a look at how the company, Eterna, manipulated size to create some of the world’s greatest watch master pieces.

1930: Eterna creates the smallest Baguette Calibre watch to be manufacture in series production.

1956: Eterna launches an extra-thin Centenaire watch with self winding mechanisms and advertised by violinist Yehudi Manuhin. At the time Eterna was celebrating 100 years of business and this watch became the companies most popular product; hence the name.

1958: Another small record, Eterna creates the EternaMatic Golden which becomes, at that time, the world’s smallest automatic movement.

1962: Eterna launches the EternaMatic 300 and it becomes the world’s thinnest man’s wristwatch during that time at just 3.6 millimeter in height.

1980: This was my favorite. Eterna creates the Eterna Museum watch which, including the watch case, measure at .98 millimeters in height.  It also won the Grand Prix Triomphe del’Excellence Europeene Award in 1980.

The one thing about luxury watches is that boredom is never an option.  Whether they wow you with their beauty or shock you with their prices, the best surprise is when they actually make you smile.

One watch maker, Alain Silberstein, takes his job very seriously; as a matter of fact his tagline is “true happiness is to have one’s passion as a profession”.  Alain Silberstein’s watches fall into the luxury watch category for many reasons. Some say it’s the price of his watches, some say think it’s the materials, I say it’s his creative and funky design methods that add a little extra spunk to your wrist.

I have so many favorites from his collections that I had a hard time picking just one watch to share.  However, after looking around for a while I settled on a diamond watch from Alain Silberstein’s Klassik Collection entitled the Krono Bauhaus 2 Diamonds.  The Klassik Collection was actually the first collection created by Alain in 1987 and this amazing watch was one of his first creations.

Alain Silberstein’s Krono Bauhaus 2 Diamonds is a watch with a stainless steel case embedded with 438 diamonds!  Each diamond is VVS - Top Weselton and of the highest quality.  The Krono Bahaus 2 has an automatic calendar is a limited edition because Alain only made 999 of these watches. Each one has 10 bars of water resistance and anti glare crystal.

Van Cleef & Arpels Charms Timepiece is a watch jam-packed with character, history, exquisiteness and loads of diamonds.

Named appropriately after the English verb “to charm”, the Charms Timepiece was made to seduce luxury lovers into the ultimate attraction…the beauty of time.

The Van Cleef & Arpels Charms watch has four distinguishing qualities.  The first is the face of the watch which is made with a silver or gold guilloche dial and decorated with a repeating Alhambra motif.  The Alhambra motif is a renowned quatrefoil Van Cleef & Arpels design made popular in the 1970s, it’s suppose to offer the wearer luck and happiness.  The face also includes four large Roman Numeral hour markers at 12, 3, 6, 9 o’clock.

The second distinctive quality of the Van Cleef & Arpels Charms watch is the pink gold or white gold watch case set with two or three sizes of diamonds.  The larger diamonds surround the face of the Charms timepiece and the smaller diamonds surround the edge of the pink gold case. Some models of the Charms watch come with three rows of diamonds with the larger diamonds in the middle.

The third attribute of this spectacular watch is the interchangeable straps as seen below.

The fourth dazzling feature is the Alhambra pink gold or white gold charm that hangs from the case of the watch. Not only is the charm studded with diamonds but it also rotates 360 degrees.  Finishing off the watch is the Van Cleef & Arpels engraved signature on the side of the case.

Back in October of 2008 Timex and J. Crew announced that a military-style watch would be released for J. Crew, the first of the Timex Vintage Collection.  Both parties were obviously excited about the new venture.  Kristine Lumpinski, Timex VP of Marketing stated

“We’re looking forward to collaborating with J.Crew’s design team to launch more vintage-inspired designs in the future.”

and Frank Muytjens, J.C Crew’s Head of Men’s Design stated:

“We are excited to partner with Timex and offer a military style watch that reflects the classic, rugged and authentic feel of our recently opened Tribeca Men’s Shop at the Liquor Store…”

So how did the watch turn out?  Well, it reminds me of that “wash your jeans 100 times to get that worn look” type of watch, which isn’t that bad and fits right into J. Crew’s style.  The J.Crew Timex Military Watch isn’t exactly luxury at $150.00, but it’s the inspiration that counts.  The Timex watch was inspired by the military watches from the 1940s.  Other technical specifications include a stainless steel watch case, luminescent hands, a nylon strap, water resistance for up to 50m, and a five year battery life.

And the worn look I was talking about earlier?  Well, the Timex watch face was purposely distressed to appear worn… perfect for that “rugged but elegant” look.

I am so excited. My hometown–basically anyway, it’s close enough–made its chance to aquire the greatest collection of timepieces in the world a possibility. With over 1500 timepieces from sundials to the most modern atomic clocks from a single collector this was an enormous possibility. It required a 25 million dollar exchange that Chicago had to fight for a way to accomplish. They tried though hard. Their work paid off. They hired  Lipman Hearne to come up with matierials to support a campaign to raise the capital necessary. The collection was named the ‘National Time Museum’ by Lipman in an effort to raise the funds. The theme was a catchy: Seizing the Moment for the People of Illinois.

It now resides in Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. There are probably even some historic Baume and Mercier’s in there.

The historical impact of timepieces is really intriguing me lately. Ever since I saw the blurb for the Presidential Timepiece exhibit being held at the National Watch and Clock Museum is holding I can’t stop wondering what types of watches former Presidents wore. I still want to know what George Washington wears.

I did find out something quite interesting this morning. It seems Mr. George Bush, the senior, prefers Timex. Now you’d think someone of his stature would go for a more up-scale watch, however even his simple tastes allow for the fact that the one he used to wear was special made for him by a former classmate that worked for Timex. Someone stole it. Can you imagine? Stealing the President’s watch? Now that’s a gutsy crook.

I also found out this morning in my wanderings, that I was wrong in my assumption the other day about what type of watch Bill Clinton would wear–but not by much. Although he started his term in office in a simple Timex, he soon graduated to more luxurious timepieces. It seems Mr. Clinton has a penchant for big watch faces, and have multiple dials, I did figure that, just had the wrong brand of preferenc. However, this Cartier is one of his ‘less expensive’ watches, still valued about $12,000.00 and he has quite a selection of many different brand names in his ‘watch wardrobe’.

Leave it to Bill to be stylin’ with the big boys.