You don’t load it up at night like a mobile phone, nor do you plug it in like a computer. The little mechanical marvel on your wrist called the watch has long created its own energy.
What started as key winding on pocket watches was revolutionised by Patek Philippe in the 1860s when one of the company’s founders, Jean-Adrien Philippe, patented a crown-winding device that did away with the cumbersome key used until then. From that point on, all anyone had to do to add tension to the watch’s mainspring for another day or so was to give the crown a few turns in a clockwise direction.
Manual-winding movements might seem somewhat archaic today, but they are still used in watches that need to be slimmer than most or in watches that project a vintage style. Sometimes they show up in watches meant for female wrists that are small, perhaps even cocktail-size. One notable new example is the petite 26 mm L’Heure du Diamant by Chopard, a maker that prides itself on its own movements.
This watch is therefore powered by a mechanical manual-winding movement that also happens to be one of the smallest and thinnest on today’s market, the Chopard Calibre 10.01-C. Additionally, this timepiece masterfully captures the beauty of diamonds set in ethical gold and is adorned with a dial-in textured mother-of-pearl (white gold) or stunning malachite (rose gold), and fitted with a bark-style bracelet crafted from gold using an in-house vintage technique.
This petite movement is only 2.9 mm in height and stays wound for 45 hours before the owner needs to wind it again by simply giving the crown a few turns.
Historically speaking, manual winding eventually evolved into automatic winding thanks to principles laid down by Abraham-Louis Perrelet in approximately 1780 and John Harwood in 1923.
Automatic winding is without a doubt the more comfortable of the mechanical winding types, for if the watch is worn regularly, it will continue to run without the owner ever having to think about it. Just put on the watch, wear it, add tension to the mainspring by doing your daily thing, and never think about it again. Easy enough – until you wear a different watch for a couple of days. But even then, the winding ritual is what most watch aficionados actually love about their watches. This is the time of day that allows the owner to build a real relationship with their timepiece.
Breguet’s Queen of Naples is one of the loveliest automatic watches, thanks to its history and to the fact that Breguet continues to release it in a multitude of variations. The line was introduced in 2002 to pay tribute to the fact that Caroline Murat – sister of Napoleon Bonaparte and the reigning queen of Naples – had accepted delivery of Abraham-Louis Breguet’s very first wristwatch in 1812. Much like Napoleon, Caroline was fascinated by timepieces and collected them, purchasing 34 of Breguet’s watches in her lifetime. Co-designed by the queen herself, Number 2639 was an “oblong repeater” that was delivered two and a half years after it was commissioned for a price of 4,800 French francs. It had one other element that distinguished it from every other watch of its era – it was secured by a wristlet made of hair woven with gold.
While that watch from 1812 was certainly manually wound, today’s Queen of Naples timepieces are automatic, meaning they have a rotor to wind the watch in place of a hand to turn the crown. The kinetic movement of the wearer’s arm is what makes the heavy-metal rotor move. See this for yourself by holding an automatic watch and looking through the transparent case back. Move the watch, and you see that the rotor also moves, generating its timekeeping energy.
Since 1969, when Seiko’s Astron hit the market on Christmas day, traditional watches can also be quartz-driven. In this instance, the winding mechanism is replaced by a battery that supplies electronic energy to a piezoelectric quartz (a quartz cut in a certain shape and then fitted with electrodes). When placed within an oscillating electric circuit, quartz vibrates – providing the energy necessary to keep a watch running for several years until the next battery change.
A great example of an elegant and interesting quartz-powered timepiece is Chanel’s Boy.Friend Couture watch, which uses the iconic case shape to showcase what looks like a typical Chanel jacket set with eight diamonds as buttons and accentuated with a silver braid as the dial. The watch bezel is embellished with a gold chain evoking the chain sewn into the hem of the jackets made in Chanel’s ateliers.
So, the next time you want to buy a watch, think first about which type of winding you want it to have. A mechanical watch, whether automatic or hand-wound, will always remain more environmentally friendly since there is no battery that needs replacing.
And – honestly – it’s just so much more fun.
