The TAG Heuer Monaco jean edition and The Microtimer Crystal Brazil
For their 2005 / 2006 ladies collection, TAG Heuer not only brought out the fireworks in the form of Uma Thurman, but they snapped up famous luxury jean designer, Vincent Dupontreue and the design team, Diamant Jean to create a hip feminine jean collection. Both the high-tech Microtimer and the Monaco jean, pictured above, were created by Vincent.
The Monaco Purple, on the other hand, is the follow up to the Monaco Python and White Monaco and is being marketing as being made just for Uma.
While this piece of news maybe a bit stale in the United States, it’s still fresh in the rest of the world - Up and coming hip hopper Kanye West reworked his song “Diamonds from Siera Leone”, originally titled “Diamonds are Forever”, when he first heard of conflict diamonds.
Conflict Diamonds are diamonds sold for arms and war supplies. Rebel groups, traders, transport companies, arms smugglers are among the many involved. The reworked song has been released as the “remix” version (I got my copy from the Ipod store). In the song, a conflicted Kanye even takes a jab at Jacob of Jacob and Co, a popular jewelry and watch brand among hip hop artists.
Designer Gina Reimann looks to the past for inspiration with her nomination for concept watch of the future. Billed as a sundial for the 22nd century, the Orbit use natural sunlight to tell the time with the help of a simple compass interface. At night, pushing a button illuminates a bright LED that simulates the sun’s shadow. And if that isn’t enough, there’s also a digital display of ‘world’ time - a hypothetical international time without time zones.
No word on whether this will will ever see the ‘light’ of day.
The Luvorene I is the first new model by independent watch designer Vincent Berard. The watch comes in two versions, white gold with a black dial or red gold with a brown dial, teamed with a double-sided crocodile leather strap, rolled-edge, hand-sewn and fitted with a gold folding clasp bearing the brand logo.
The Opus V is the result of a collaboration between Harry Winston (the company) and 31 year old Felix Baumgartner of Urwerk. It features the world’s first “satellite hour” display which consists of 3 small blocks, each carrying 4 numbers, arranged like satellites on a 3-D rotating system and which shows the time while spinning aroudn the two axes.
It also comes with the first service indicator that tells the wearer when the watch will require periodic maintenance. Harry Winston plans to release only a hundred of this limited edition watch.
Addendum to our earlier post: “You are what you wear”, Observers are saying that there are signs that the new Pope, Joseph Ratzinger may be more progressive than his record would suggest. These signs or indications or what have you, aren’t based on insider information but on what designer accessory the Pope is sporting:
- Pricey Serengeti sunglasses (the brand Val Kilmer wears)
- Pope’s reading glasses are Cartier’s Santos
- A stylish retro wristwatch with black hands, dial and straps (No word on what brand but our little elves are working on it)
- and a pair Black and gold cufflinks.
All this apparently outweighs his record as a Cardinal. Go figure.
Remember how you felt your little heart strings stretch with envy when James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) used his Omega Seamaster Professional as a laser gun and cut through the steel floor of an armoured train? Or remember how much you wanted one when he used it later as a detonator to setoff mines to destroy the Cuban control room for the rogue satellite?
Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you with that (there are support groups that I can refer to), but according to Jeff Marton, there’s a poor man’s version out there - It’s called the iBeam and its a watch with a built in magnifying glass and small flash light and Jeff apparently used it to fix his bike’s tyre, by “popping open the lens and using the sun to heat up and seal the patch”. Of course, once it got fixed, he furiously cycled home, logged on to his computer and emailed iBeam his testimonial which made me wonder about what he might’ve been high on.
Fawaz Gruosi, the man behind the DeGrisogono brand has created a gorgeous Formula 1 watch in collaboration with Flavio Briatore (The Who? - Non Race fan), the Renault F1 Team Manager. Called the Power Breaker, the watch is a large automatic (ETA caliber 2892) chronograph (54m x 43mm x 15mm) with F1 styling complete with a signature by Mr. Briatore.
Here’s one that’s long overdue - Hitachi is planning on launching a sensor node watch for the elderly in the next three years that will allow one to monitor the health of their loved ones. The device will have three sensors. One for pulse, one for temperature and one for measuring the owner’s movement.
