Digital Business Leaders

Another meeting of the Digital Business Leaders community.

I have already written that Digital Business Leaders were planning to hold a mechanical watch assembly masterclass at a watchmaking school in October. In the end, that one event became two: one theoretical and one practical.

At the weekend, the group held an in-person lecture where Julia Kozlova told us about the history of three different watch manufactures: Audemars Piguet, Patek Philippe and Jaquet Droz. It was fascinating, and I learnt a great deal—as did everyone else who attended.

It was also wonderful to see the most complicated watch in the world featured in the presentation. I wrote about it only recently here.

What struck me most, however, was the story of the Jaquet Droz manufacture. It makes watches that combine ingenious engineering with the genuine beauty of works of art. Its watches use Grand Feu enamel, plique-à-jour enamel and rare minerals, and even incorporate automata—mechanically powered figures—into their dials.

Take the Jaquet Droz Tropical Bird Repeater in the video, for example. Its dial contains no fewer than seven automata, while the hummingbird beats its wings 40 times per second—just as it does in real life.

Still impressed by what I had seen, I told my wife about these remarkable watches when I got home. She googled them, watched the video and said she really liked them and that they would suit her style. I have a suspicion that, for me, all this will lead to some serious spending in the not-too-distant future!

P.S. The second event in this series—a visit to the watchmaking school and a masterclass on disassembling and assembling a real mechanical watch—is scheduled for November. I will definitely attend.

P.P.S. Thank you to everyone who attended the lecture, and especially to the speaker. It was a wonderful discussion about watches.