Nico Bandl

It is pitch dark, suddenly two burning tyres start spinning whilst spraying sparks as if the rubber would have burned down to the rim. A signal-red needle accelerates over and over and provokes the howling of an engine. When it turns light, it’s not the animation of a sportscar as you would have expected, but…

Sometimes the most simple ideas eventually lead to the greatest changes. At this years watch fair SIHH 2019, the oldest watch manufacture in the world, Vacheron Constantin surprises with a new power reserve technique that appears to be fairly simple, but is extremely complicated in its mechanical implementation. Neat crafting – the 480 components fit into…

The Maison Jaeger-LeCoultre not only develops and produces sophisticated movements and complications (around 1.250 own calibres) in their manufacture in Le Sentier, but they also cherish the craftsmanship in terms of decorating movement parts, plates and dials. The most qualified artisans of their craft are joined in the manufacture's own Atelier “Métiers Rares” and with a…

The Bauhaus movement celebrates its 100thanniversary this year and still today stands for functionality and aesthetics. Due to the industrialization, Bauhaus manifested a basic philosophy to preserve the artistic work and bring it in line with the raising engineering sciences. The aim was to grant a broad audience access to quality products. Typical design elements…

In 2018 Montblanc celebrated the 160thanniversary of the traditional watch manufacture Minerva, which since 2007 belongs to the Hamburg based brand that produces its timepieces in Le Locle and Villeret in the Swiss Jura. Bronze is the key material used for the new 1858 collection Montblanc started an adventurous journey of their '1858' collection last…

The watch brand Panerai experienced an enormous upswing in the past 20 years. Many don’t know that the Florentine brand was already established in 1887 and produces wristwatches since 1936, although in the beginning only for the Italian navy. In particular combat divers relied on the tough watches that needed to withstand the water pressure…

For some people travelling is the epitome of freedom – for others it is just normal daily business. “Once a year you should visit a place you have never been before” Dalai Lama said and points out a desire that is deeply rooted in many people. In this growing connected world people don’t only travel…

Swatch Group founder Nicolas G. Hayek had a perceptive intuition for traditional watchmakers of which horological heritage has been ageing little over the years and he had a strong demand to keep the Swiss watch industry alive – thus, his attention was besides Abraham-Louis Breguet and Jehan-Jacques Blancpain also on Pierre Jaquet Droz, the ingenious…

Time seems to stand still in ‘Vallée de Joux’, the high Jura valley of Vaud. The idyllic villages around the lake ‘Lac de Joux’ mainly live from dairy and their cheese. And watchmaking. From village to village on the eastside of the lake you can find old-fashioned houses next to imposing constructions of prestigious watch…

The 1892 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania founded watch brand Hamilton not only produced precise timepieces for the railroad and field watches for soldiers on the ground, but also precise watches for the timekeeping in the sky. However, not so much for the military but primarily for the pilots of the U.S. Airmail. That was 100 years…

A well-trained opera singer is able to cause a tuning fork to vibrate simply by the power of their voice. The tuning fork absorbs the energy, and strives to vibrate at the same frequency. Should the tuning fork be interrupted by an external factor, it always tries to get back in line with its counterpart.…

The Hamilton story starts in 1982 in in the U.S. city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. At a time when the country further extended their infrastructure with rail transport, also the number of accidents increased, as time keeping was not always precise enough. Hamilton made itself a name with accurate pocket watches and became famous as "The…