The French connection

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The French connection - Newsletter
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Your editor-in-chief joined Paris native David Chokron in the City of Lights last week to bring you more than just the high jewellery collections presented during the Fashion Week.

Many luxury brands use the media attention around the Paris Fashion Week to launch new high jewellery collections, often sprinkled with a dash of the very finest in high jewellery watches. David Chokron toured the Place Vendôme and its environs to see the latest high jewellery watches and will report his findings later this week.

“Jean-Claude Biver is a genius of the industry who rightly merits a biography”

Paul O'Neil

Montblanc, on the other hand, pulled out all the stops for a global launch of a new collection within its Bohème line. Continuing the brand’s aim to “share the passion for fine watchmaking”, the new pieces offer original complications for ladies but are, like all of the recent horological offerings by the Hamburg-based company, unbeatable on price. We will feature the new collection, as well as our interview with Montblanc’s watchmaking director Alexander Schmiedt, on the site this week as well. My interview with Chanel’s head of watchmaking, Nicolas Beau, will continue the French theme on the site this week.

Our coverage will not be confined solely to the activities of the Paris Fashion Week, of course. There will be plenty of reading matter for mechanical watch aficionados, starting today with Olivier Müller’s look at the discreet advances that Patek Philippe is making through its Advanced Research models and continuing with Keith Strandberg’s review of the Raymond Weil Nabucco Tourbillon before Olivier Müller returns to discuss Leroy’s obsession with chronometry.

I also had the chance to see the first production models of Montblanc’s e-strap in Paris. Coincidentally, while I was there my wife also forwarded me the promotional e-mail for the new Jawbone 4 smart bracelet that has just been launched in the USA (the Jawbone 3 has yet to be launched in underprivileged Switzerland!). The e-mail was clearly targeted at women, referring in almost sexist terms, to kids and grocery shopping. But statistics show that women are the main buyers for such wearable technology. Based on what we have seen in terms of wearable technology from the watch brands, it left me thinking that they still have some catching up to do.

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