THE CALENDAR ON YOUR WRIST
MECHANICAL WATCHES THAT KEEP TRACK OF MONTHS AND YEARS AS WELL AS SECONDS, MINUTES, AND HOURS ARE VERY COMPLICATED MACHINES.
The universe’s clock started running about 14 billion years ago with the Big Bang which, after a few tumultuous early seconds, created the four-dimensional space-time in which we now live, measuring out our existence second by second, hour by hour, day by day, reflecting the majestic sweep of the Earth as it circles around the Sun. A mechanical watch is the most romantic way of measuring our passage through the dimension of time, and on the face of it, it has a fairly easy task: it just has to cycle through 60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hours, seven days, and so it is always aligned with the real world -as long as we keep it running. But things get more complicated if we want the watch to tell us the date and the month as well. The Gregorian calendar reflects man’s efforts to understand the sequence of seasons and how they relate to the heavenly bodies, and it has echoes of the moon’s cycle and ancient Roman gods and goddesses. Building a watch that can take all this into account is a fearsome task. The finest calendar watches are magnificent complications.
Most watches have a window for the date indication, which has to be adjusted for every month with less than 31 days. After this, the simplest calendar complication is the so-called full calendar or complete calendar, which provides the date, day, and month, and sometimes the moon phase as well. But it doesn’t take the differing lengths of months into account or
the leap year cycle, so it has to be adjusted five times a year. Generally, this is done using recessed pushers on the case band, but in the Blancpain Villeret Quantième Complet GMT, you can set up all calendar and moon phase indications with your fingertip, using correctors under the lugs, a patented Blancpain invention. The watch has a lot of character, with an unusual curving blued steel hand indicating the date, another hand tipped with a red triangle showing the time in a second time zone, chunky Roman numerals, and the cheeky expression of the moon. The in-house automatic movement provides 72 hours of power reserve.
An annual calendar watch keeps track of the different lengths of the months, and so it just has to be adjusted at the end of February. The Saxonia Annual Calendar by A. Lange & Söhne has a classic display, with the brand’s hallmark double date window at the top of the dial, and subdials for days of the week, months, small seconds, and moon phase. Its 476 components are packed into a case 38.5 mm in diameter, making it wearable by both men and women, and the watch is just 9.8 mm thick. Adjustments are made using a stylus pressing micro-pushers on the case band. The sapphire caseback displays the fabulously decorated L085.1 movement, with its gold micro-rotor and a hand-engraved swan-neck regulator.
Mechanical watches are the most romantic way of measuring our passage through the dimension of time.
The Rolex Sky-dweller is also an annual calendar watch, but it has an unusual and original display, with a rotating disc for displaying the time in a second time zone, a window with Cyclops lens for the date, and months shown in small red windows at the tips of the hour indices. So you just have to remember that December is at 12 o’clock, January at one, and so forth. There is a subtle logic in this approach: generally, you are always aware of which month we are in, and on this watch, the month display is useful above all for when you are setting up the annual calendar. Settings are all made from the crown, with functions selected by rotating the bezel. Powered by Calibre 9001, the Sky-dweller is one of Rolex’s most complicated watch movements.
A perpetual calendar watch keeps track of the different months of the year, and also the four-year leap year cycle, so that it will only need adjustment in centurial years, the next arriving in 2100. The Vacheron Constantin Traditionnelle Twin Beat Perpetual Calendar achieves this with a modern, almost minimalist display, with subdials for date and month, and the leap year cycle shown in a small window at 6 o’clock. This watch has an exceptional feature: you can choose the rate of the oscillator so that the movement runs either at a fast, accurate 5 Hertz, or a slower 1.2 Hertz. When you choose the latter, the watch can continue running for an astonishing 65 days. This is a brilliant idea, particularly apt for a perpetual calendar watch which should ideally be kept running all the time. It sounds simple, but the mechanics required to select which balance is in operation -which means starting one and stopping the other with no lag to avoid any loss of precisionis a complex feat of watchmaking.
The Endeavour Perpetual Calendar Purity by H. Moser is a radically minimalist approach to the perpetual calendar, with a mysterious Cosmic Green graded dial that seems to display just the date in a large window at 3 o’clock. But the months are shown by a small arrow on the central pivot, using the 12-hour positions for reference, while the leap year cycle is on the caseback. The watch is delightful for the sense of contrast between the complexity of the movement required for a perpetual calendar, and the simplicity of the dial, which doesn’t even bear the brand name.
Beyond complete, annual, and perpetual calendars, there are watches that display just certain aspects of the passage of time. For example, the Arceau L’heure de la Lune by Hermès has two subdials for time and date, which themselves rotate around the dial, showing the moon phase in the southern and northern hemispheres. This simple but original and ingenious idea is made more complex by the need to keep the two subdials horizontal at all times. Another innovative design is the 5212A Calatrava Weekly Calendar by Patek Philippe, which shows the date in the customary window at 3 o’clock, and the number of the week -most often used in the realms of business- by means of a long red-tipped hand. Another shorter hand shows the day of the week. This timepiece is given extra fascination by the typography on the dial: letters and numbers all look handwritten, and in fact they are based on the handwriting of one of the brand’s designers. The result is a watch with a warm, human touch, a fine example of how there is always room for something new in the crowded arena of mechanical timekeeping.