LETTER FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

PERHAPS IT SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE THAT clocks, particularly grandfather clocks, have made a huge comeback as collectibles and objects of desire. Time, after all, has become the most leveraged asset in the past 16 months. Now a joint venture between French architect turned watch designer Alain Silberstein and a French clockmaker Utinam has yielded a quirky, Bauhaus clock that is funky, colourful and contemporary. Something to be enjoyed by the whole family and mark the generations as they pass—an underlying message of the importance of family time. As a powerful vector of self-expression, watches are also a reflection of the world and the times in which we live. This year’s watch trends are particularly inspired as they reflect on society, culture, economics, history, and a year that no one could have perceived or predicted. Apart from cradling history, size, shape, and pedigree, Spice’s watch special issue charts watch makers as they continue to push the limits. You don’t need to look at the sky to know when to expect a full moon, or even adjust the date for more than a hundred years—the IWC Big Pilot remembers the time, day, date, month, and year that you set today, till 2100 AD. Dramatic dials and intricate designs have become de rigueur as more watches flash open casebacks and skeletal workings to exemplify watchmaking bravura. Another recent trend is a move towards gender-free watches. Classifying watches as men’s and women’s is slowly coming to an end as many women sport larger watches and men discover the beauty of gem settings. Many brands have done away with gender designation altogether to become more inclusive and allow the beauty of the timepieces to become the only distinguisher. Non-Fungible Tokens have been in the news of late, but now they have entered the world of watchmaking with the first NFT timepiece offered for sale by Jean-Claude Biver, the legendary former LVMH watch division president. Biver created an NFT photograph, or digital twin as it is also called, of the first Bigger Bang Tourbillon Chronograph prototype. With a magpie-like attention to the sparkly, haute joaillerie still shines brightly as a nod to hope and happier times. Bulgari summons its trademark colour-blocked jewellery to create two-row bracelet watches in round-cut diamonds, pink, purple and blue sapphires, red rubies, orange spinels, yellow sapphires, and green garnets and emeralds for its Rainbow Series. Meanwhile, the jewellery-adjacent world of watch straps is undergoing a total revolution with a whole range of vegan straps made out of apple peel, wood, cork, mushrooms, and more. One of the more surprising bytes of horological news this year was the announcement that Greubel Forsey, one of the most prestigious high-end watch brands, would only be using vegan straps from now on. Definitely a sign of the times.