77


Left to right: Patek Philippe’s newest worldtime model is the Ref 5330G; its  Louis Cottier made Patek Philippe’s Ref 1415 back in 1948


appearing every few years, each produced in tiny, highly customised runs.


M


£100,000 for the earlier reference 5131, ver- sions of which carry a world map, and around £85,000 for now-discontinued world map versions of the 5231.


O


r else, you could turn to the very wonderful thing that is Andersen Genève. In the Seventies, had you


brought your Cottier-made worldtimer to Patek Philippe for servicing, it might well have been entrusted to the hands of Svend Andersen, a young Danish watchmaker whose supreme talents had earned him the nickname ‘watchmaker of the impossible’. Andersen, now a sagacious 82-year-old, spent a decade in Patek’s Grand Complica- tions workshop, and though the company had stopped making worldtimers in 1966 following Cottier’s death, Andersen was personally bewitched by the concept. Though Patek wouldn’t restart worldtime watchmaking until 2000, he would help cre- ate the market for that return. In the Eighties he struck out on his own, producing handmade timepieces to order


for collectors, and becoming one of the pio- neers of the independent watchmaking movement. In 1990 he finally unveiled his own interpretation of the Cottier worldtim- er, having developed a slim, proprietary take on the internal mechanism required. Known as the Communication, it was lapped up by collectors eager to reconnect with a watch genre that instantly invokes the era when international travel was a genu- inely glamorous endeavour. Today Andersen Genève, the firm he


founded, still makes only around 40 to 45 watches a year, from a tiny workshop that is a cluttered wonderland of antique tools, lathes and worn workbenches, overlooking the Rhône in central Geneva. This is horolo- gy done the old way: individually, to order, and by hand, with a local network of unim- aginably


skilled craſtspeople – enamel


artisans, engravers, gem-setters, polishers – engaged to bring decorative beauty to what’s produced. Over the years, a host of inspired and un-


conventional designs have borne the Ander- sen name – automata, jumping hours, com- plex calendar watches. But it is worldtimers that have remained the flagship Andersen Genève product, with new interpretations


y absolute favourite is the one made for Asprey, the English mai- son de luxe, double signed by both


brands and with the central dial in ‘blueg- old’ (gold that is delicately heat-treated to turn it blue, an Andersen Genève speciality) and engraved with an old Asprey motif. It also has the most beautiful watch case I know: a smooth pebble of polished red gold with striking triangular lugs which, I’m told, have to be made separately and then deli- cately welded on by hand. That’s a skill in itself and something almost nobody bothers to do any more; one reason why lugs, the parts that attach the strap to the case and once a distinctively expressive element of watch design, have nowadays become most- ly bland and generic. Unusually, Andersen Genève has its own


workshop for bespoke case fabrication in the watchmaking town of La Chaux-de- Fonds, and lavishes as much attention on that element as it does on the dial and in- nards. The latest fruit is a brand new world- timer to mark 45 years since the firm’s founding. Appropriately, it goes back to the original Communication model from 1990 for inspiration – particularly in its magnifi- cent, teardrop-style lugs – and takes the name Communication 45. At the heart of the dial is a cloisonné


enamel artwork that will be bespoke for each watch made – of which 45 will appear over the next few years. In this case, the worldtimer is not simply an internationalist statement, but an act of patronage for watchmaking in its most beautiful and skil- ful form.


PHILLIPS


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