PEAK PERFORMANCE
If you’re more about the ski than the après, it pays to strap up your wrist as carefully as your boots
Ice cool and high-tech, these Swiss watches double as your portable mountain sherpas
The winter working hours of a Swiss watchmaker – typically 7am to 4pm – might seem strange to some. But then perhaps that’s because your idea of an Alpine horologist – the cloistered boffin cliché, dressed in a lab coat and wearing pince-nez – is somewhat outmoded.
In fact, the hours many work are testament to a passion for snow such that they’d gladly suffer early mornings in order to enjoy the last of the daylight in the great outdoors. Imagine for a moment that you worked in the Jura Mountains rather than, say, on the Archway gyratory, and it’s not such a difficult trade-off to fathom.
When it comes to altitude, watchmakers traditionally prefer aeronautical heights and oceanic depths. But winter pursuits are so much ingrained in the Swiss lifestyle, it’s a given that any sports watch from this country will be suited to surviving what the slopes can throw at you. Of course, some take this connection to new extremes. Tissot, for instance, sponsors Europe’s highest-altitude railway, the Jungfrau, which tops out at 3454m. And the watch that commemorates this engineering feat, the T-touch II Jungfraubahn (£625) 01 , is a feat in itself, kitted out with a touchscreen dial, weather forecast and compass. Should a penchant for powder take you a little too far off the beaten track, this powerful tool can help you return in one piece.
As the name suggests, Alpina, the high-end yet accessible sports brand based in Geneva, also enjoys a particular affinity for the mountains. The steely cool of its new Alpiner Chronograph 4 Automatic Chronograph (£2820) 02 – official watch to 2016’s Sport Chek Canadian ski championships – makes it the ideal choice for the more refined winter aesthete. For a similar price, there’s also Tudor’s no-nonsense North Flag (£2430) 03 , a watch inspired by the intrepid members of the 1952 British North Greenland Expedition, all of whom wore Tudor Oyster Princes. It may not have the chronograph function of the Alpina watch, but you do get Tudor’s first in-house-manufactured movement. Ice cool and red hot.