Editor’s letter

A hopeful air abounds in the 2020 edition of Precious Index, our annual watch and jewellery title. Leading the way, on page 136, is eternal optimist, design aficionado and self-confessed Wallpaper* fan, super-producer Pharrell Williams. When we met him in Miami to talk about his new Mars-inspired watch design with Richard Mille, Williams waxed lyrical about the space race and the audacity of human ambition in thinking without limits. That sense of endeavour is reflected on page 129, where we consider the watch industry’s design love-affair with steel, the wonder material that underpins the modern world. The progressive mood spills over into our no-rules jewellery shoot on page 140. Photographed by Geray Mena, and styled by fashion director Jason Hughes, it shimmers with the heady 1980s individualism of London’s Club Kids culture.