16 watches that made history in Hollywood action films
See who got the most face time on the big screen’s A-list heroes.
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Nearly every action hero comes equipped with a top-shelf timepiece, whether it’s Sean Connery battling the mysterious Dr. No as James Bond, Tom Cruise doing barrel rolls in a F-14A Tomcat in Top Gun or Sly Stallone taking down villains in The Expendables. You know the costume department has aced it when the timepiece matches the character’s persona. Bruce Wayne (aka Batman) opted for an elegant and refined Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso—a metaphor for the wrist that illustrated his dual existence. Meanwhile, Robert Downey Jr.’s Urwerk 110-RG sported a wild design and revolutionary mechanics, which reflected the mad genius of Tony Stark (aka Iron Man). In the case of Tom Hanks’s Omega Speedmaster in Apollo 13, no metaphor was necessary—the watch saved the lives of all on board the real-life failed lunar mission on which the film is based.
Some watches that achieve a big-screen debut in an action film, however, take on a larger-than-life role beyond the screen, firmly cementing their status both in Hollywood history and in watch-collecting circles for decades . . . and potentially for centuries to come. Connery’s ref. 6538 Rolex Submariner has become a holy grail for collectors, while Omega has cornered modern-day James Bond with its Seamaster.
Here are the watches that made it to the big screen on Hollywood’s toughest heroes.
## Dr. No (1962): Sean Connery, Rolex Submariner Ref. 6538
Sean Connery wearing Rolex Submariner Ref. 6538 in Dr. No
Photo: Danjaq/EON/UA/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
Sean Connery introduced James Bond into the Hollywood film canon when he appeared in the first instalment of the iconic series in 1962’s Dr. No. Connery wore a Rolex Submariner ref. 6538 on the big screen while tracking down the mysterious Dr. No bent on destroying the U.S. space program. The ref. 6538, which was first produced sometime around 1953, would go on accompanying Connery as Bond on his missions in films such as From Russia with Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball.
Rolex Submariner Ref. 6538 worn in Dr. No
Photo: Courtesy of Rolex
## Le Mans (1971): Steve McQueen, Tag Heuer Monaco
Le Mans – 1971
Solar/Cinema Center/Kobal/REX/Sh
Every year, brands come out with new collections referencing Steve McQueen’s style, but many of those brands never existed during McQueen’s life. Tag Heuer, however, can lay claim to having laid its hands on McQueen’s wrist in what is arguably the most famous automotive racing film of all time. Not only did the actor wear the now instantly recognisable square-faced Tag Heuer Monaco on his wrist, but he also wore the Swiss watchmaker’s name and crest on his racing suit in the film. It has been said that McQueen chose the piece from a selection of timepieces flown to the set, which were accompanied by Jack Heuer himself.
A Rolex Submariner purchased by McQueen and engraved with a special message by the actor to his stuntman, Loren Janes, was set to be sold at Phillips on October 25. It was expected to be a blockbuster sale, but questions about the timepiece’s provenance forced the auction house to recently take it off the block.
## Top Gun (1986): Tom Cruise, Porsche Design Orfina 7176s
Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise wearing Porsche Design Orfina 7176s in Top Gun
Photo: 1996-98 AccuSoft Inc., All rights reserved
Arguably one of the greatest flight films of all time, Top Gun firmly solidified Tom Cruise as one of the biggest film stars of his generation. Most people assume that Cruise wore an IWC to complete his training missions as the hotshot fighter-pilot-in-training, Maverick, because the Swiss watchmaker has issued several Top Gun–branded timepieces over the years, but it was actually a Porsche Design Orfina 7176s. Made by watch manufacturer Orfina for Porsche design in the ’80s, the timepiece featured a self-winding Lemania caliber 5100 and came in PVD-coated stainless steel with a day/date indicator, chronograph registers at 12 o’clock, six o’clock and nine o’clock, and a tachymeter scale. A rerelease of the timepiece was issued in late 2010.
Porsche Design Orfina 7176s worn in Top Gun
Photo: Courtesy of Porsche Design
Fun fact: A sequel titled Top Gun: Maverick is slated for release in 2020 with Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer reprising their roles as Maverick and Iceman, respectively. Maverick’s 2020 timepiece is currently still classified information, but Porsche Design would be wise to get in on the action again.
## Apollo 13 (1995): Tom Hanks, Omega Speedmaster
Tom Hanks in Apollo 13
Photo: Universal/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
Tom Hanks appropriately wore an Omega Speedmaster while re-creating astronaut Jim Lovell’s ill-fated journey aboard Apollo 13, when an oxygen-tank leak caused the crew to abort their lunar mission and return to Earth in a harrowing an almost fatal experience. The Omega Speedmaster was the timepiece of choice by NASA for astronauts venturing into the new space frontier thanks to its ability to withstand intense sunlight, cold, and g-force. While it is most famous for having adorned the wrists and space suits of astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins for Apollo 11’s first lunar landing on July 20, 1969, it proved lifesaving for Apollo 13.
It was astronaut Jack Swigert’s Omega Speedmaster that saved the lives of everyone aboard Apollo 13. Once the spaceship lost power, the astronauts were only able to burn the engine for 14 seconds at a time to make navigational trajectory adjustments to return safely to Earth before turning it off. Lovell and his fellow astronauts used Swigert’s Omega Speedmaster chronograph to measure the short intervals of time. Houston, problem solved.
Snoopy Edition of the Omega Speedmaster from Apollo 13
Photo: Courtesy of Omega
In 1970, Omega was awarded NASA’s Silver Snoopy Award—one of the greatest honours the space program can bestow on employees and contractors for outstanding achievements related to human flight safety and mission success—for safely bringing the astronauts of Apollo 13 back to Earth. In 2015, Omega unveiled a Snoopy edition of the Omega Speedmaster, featuring a rendering of the famous Peanuts character on a dial counter and on the caseback, to commemorate its historic role for the 45th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission.
Snoopy Edition of the Omega Speedmaster from Apollo 13
Photo: Courtesy of Omega
Expect to see the Omega Speedmaster dominate the big screen again this year in Damien Chazelle’s First Man- a biopic, set to debut in late 2019, in which Ryan Gosling takes on the role of Neil Armstrong.
## Blood Diamond (2006): Leonardo DiCaprio, Breitling Chrono Avenger
Leonardo DiCaprio wearing Breitling Chrono Avenger in Blood Diamond
Starring as Danny Archer, a gunrunner-turned-diamond-smuggler during the Sierra Leone Civil War, Leonardo DiCaprio sported a 44 mm titanium Breitling Chrono Avenger with a brown leather strap and black dial. DiCaprio is typically associated with TAG Heuer, for which he was a longtime brand ambassador, but the heavy-duty Breitling looked at home amidst all of the action in Blood Diamond. The Chrono Avenger accompanied Archer as he braved the conflict zones of the Sierra Leone to fight warlords and his former boss Colonel Coetzee, who was on the hunt for an elusive pink diamond that Archer is ordered to deliver.
Breitling Chrono Avenger worn in Blood Diamond
Photo: Courtesy of Breitling
## Casino Royale (2006): Daniel Craig Omega Seamaster Professional
Daniel Craig wearing Omega Seamaster in Casino Royale
Photo: Susie Allnutt. CASINO ROYALE © 2006 Danjaq, LLC and United Artists Corporation. All rights reserved.
Pierce Brosnan first wore an Omega Seamaster with a blue dial as James Bond in 1995’s GoldenEye, thanks to Oscar-winning costume designer Lindy Hemming. Modern-day James Bond Daniel Craig followed suit, but he wore not one but two Omega Seamasters—the Seamaster Diver 300M Co-Axial and a Planet Ocean 600M Co-Axial—in his 2006 debut as the big screen’s most famous spy in Casino Royale. In one scene, when Bond encounters Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), she sizes him up, taking careful note of his watch. “MI6 looks for maladjusted young men that give little thought to sacrificing others in order to protect Queen and country . . . you know, former SAS types with easy smiles and expensive watches. Rolex?” she asks him, eyeing his watch. “Omega,” replies Bond.
Embedded content: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB5hzlDe10c&feature=youtu.be
In 2008’s Quantum Solace, Craig wore a Seamaster Planet Ocean 600M Omega Co-Axial with a classic black dial and bezel, and in 2012’s Skyfall, 007 relied on a Planet Ocean 600M and an Aqua Terra, both powered by Omega co-axial calibers.
Omega Seamaster worn in Skyfall
Photo: Courtesy of Omega
In Craig’s most recent turn as James Bond in 2015’s Spectre, he again wears a Seamaster as he takes on global crime boss Blofeld (Christopher Waltz). A limited-edition 300 Spectre watch (around $10,600) with a rare lollipop seconds hand worn on a handsome black-and-gray NATO strap and the Omega Aqua Terra 150m with a blue dial accompanied Bond on his latest MI6 mission.
Omega Seamaster 300 Spectre Limited Edition
Photo: Courtesy of Omega
And based on the latest teasers for 2019’s Bond 25, it looks like Craig will be wearing an Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean 600M Co-Axial Master Chronometer in steel (around $9300).
## The Expendables I (2010): Sylvester Stalone, Panerai PAM 332
Sylvester Stallone wearing Panerai PAM 332 in The Expendables
Photo: Karen Ballard
When Panerai launched the commercial production its watches for the public in 1993, just two years later Sylvester Stallone spotted a Luminor in Rome and purchased it to wear in his movie Daylight, effectively putting Panerai on the map. A known Panerai collector ever since, Sly wore a PAM 332 in the first installment of The Expendables, featuring an impressive lineup of tough-guy A-listers that effectively saw the revival of Stallone’s image as the ultimate action hero (incredibly, Sly was 63 at the time the film was released).
Panerai PAM 332 worn in the Expendables
Photo: Courtesy of Panerai
The Panerai Luminor 1950 Regatta Rattrapante that adorns Sly’s wrist is a 44mm timepiece—an oversized watch to match his oversized, vein-popping, 41-centimetre biceps. Limited to 500 pieces, the split-second chronograph timepiece comes in a case with a DLC treatment and features the Panerai OP XVIII calibre. It also comes equipped with an Incabloc anti-shock device—which comes in handy when you’re a professional ass-kicker.
## The Expendables 2 (2012): Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone PAM 382 Bronzo
The Expendables 2 – 2012
Millennium Films/Kobal/REX/Shutt
Following in Sly’s steps, Jason Statham wears a 47 mm Panerai PAM 382 Luminor Submersible 1950 3 Days Automatic Bronzo in The Expendables 2. Supporting actors Randy Couture, Dolph Lundgren, and Terry Crews also don the PAM 382—although the watch is featured most prominently on both Stallone and Statham. While the PAM 382 Bronzo didn’t help the Expendables take down any henchmen, its rusty patina and 47mm case certainly looked the part.
Panerai PAM 382 Luminor Submersible worn in the Expendables II
Photo: Courtesy of Panerai
The special-edition dive watch, released in 2011, is known for its brushed-bronze case and is powered by Panerai’s p.9000 in-house calibre. The automatic movement features a 72-hour power reserve and has been used in both the Panerai Luminor 1950 and Radiomir models. Just 1000 of the PAM 382 Bronzo were ever made, and they’ve since become collector’s items.
## The Expendables III (2014): Sylvester Stallone, Richard Mille RM 032
Sylvester Stallone wearing Richard Mille in The Expendables III
Photo: REX/Shutterstock
In the third installment of The Expendables, villain Conrad Stonebanks (Mel Gibson) is back to destroy the Expendables, and the only way for Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) to take down Stonebanks is with fresh recruits. Ross assembles a new crew of tech-savvy youngbloods—former U.S. Marine John Smilee (Kellan Lutz), nightclub bouncer Luna (Ronda Rousey), computer expert Thorn (Glen Powell) and weapons expert Mars (Victor Ortiz)—to battle the old-school Stonebanks.
Richard Mille RM 032 worn in the Expendables III
Photo: Courtesy of Richard Mille
For his latest turn as Barney Ross, Stallone chose to wear a Richard Mille—a watchmaker known for blending old-world watchmaking expertise with new-world technical innovation. Sly’s Mille of choice was the Richard Mille RM 032, a skeletonised dive watch complete with a flyback chronograph and annual calendar. You might think that a watch costing around $180,000 would be too precious to brave explosions, heavy-duty combat fire, runaway trains, parkour-style building jumps and pretty much every stunt you could ever dream up, but only a 50mm titanium piece at 17.80mm thick such as this could handle that kind of action on Sly’s pumped-up wrists.
Stallone announced he was leaving the franchise—which has grossed around $1.14 billion at the box office—and not returning for a fourth instalment despite a lucrative pay deal, according to Deadline.
Ensuring that he and Richard Mille would still see some action together, Stallone and the watchmaker recently unveiled the ultimate survivalist timepiece, the RM 25-01, which comes with a tourbillon, a mountable compass, a level and a cache of water-purification tablets, retailing for somewhere in the region of $1.4 million.
## Argo (2012): Ben Affleck, Rolex Deepsea Sea-Dweller
Ben Affleck wearing the Rolex Deepsea Seadweller in Argo
Photo: Claire Folger, © 2012 Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Did you spot the time traveller in Argo? When Ben Affleck was directing his Oscar Award–winning film, he probably didn’t have a lot of time on his hands to dial in on what kind of timepiece he was going to wear and how it would fit into the film. Watch enthusiasts balked when the actor wore a modern-day Rolex Deepsea Sea-Dweller (the model was first introduced in 2008) on the big screen as Tony Mendez, the extractor called upon by the US government to rescue 66 American hostages from the US embassy in Tehran in 1979. “Pretty nifty for a spy in ’79 to ’80 to have a watch that won’t come out for 30 years,” said one commenter on Rolexforums. “Still better than a Daytona in ancient Rome!” read another. The latter is a reference to a famous blooper in the 1959 epic drama Ben Hur, in which a Roman chariot driver can be seen wearing a wristwatch . . . in AD 26.
Rolex Deepsea Sea-Dweller worn in Argo
Photo: Courtesy of Rolex
But all jokes aside, Affleck’s Rolex Deepsea Sea-Dweller is still a handsome timepiece—albeit being a dive watch in a film that has nothing to do with the sea.
## Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014): Bremont Kingsman Special Editions
Colin Firth wearing Bremont in Kingsman: The Secret Service
Director Matthew Vaughn’s first installment in the Kingsman franchise saw its special agents dapperly dressed in the best of the best of British attire—the original Kingsman is about a spy network whose front is a high-class London tailor’s shop. Scenes from the movie include shots at Huntsman on Savile Row. So it was only natural that Vaughn sought out British watchmaker Bremont for timepieces to be worn by his leading men. For the film, Bremont developed three new special-edition Kingsman watches—a world timer (worn by Kingsman agents Colin Firth and Michael Caine), a DLC model worn by apprentice agent Eggsy (Taron Egerton) and a steel world timer for Kingsman’s head of new recruits (Mark Strong). While the placement of the watches in the film were unpaid, the British watchmaker was so closely connected to the film that Vaughn even invited Bremont cofounder Nick English for a brief guest appearance in the film as a Kingsman agent.
Co-founder of Bremont Nick English had a cameo in Kingsman: The Secret Service
Photo: Courtesy of Bremont
Stay tuned for the next Bremont appearance in an action film this Autumn, when it appears on the wrist of Tom Hardy in Ruben Fleischer’s Venom. The nose of one of Nick English’s vintage planes has already been painted with a WWII-fighter-plane-inspired “Venom face” by a Marvel artist to celebrate the next big-screen Bremont debut.
Taron Egerton and Michael Caine wearing Bremont in Kingsman: The Secret Service
## Doctor Strange (2016): Benedict Cumberbatch, Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra-Thin Perpetual
Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange wearing Jaeger-LeCoultre
Before Benedict Cumberbatch’s character Dr. Stephen Strange morphs into a superhero in the secret realm of Kamar-Taj, he is a world-famous neurosurgeon who is robbed of his career when a car accident deprives him of the use of his hands. On that fateful night, the distinguished Dr. Strange is seen wearing his Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra-Thin Perpetual, which he carries with him into the dimension of Kamar-Taj. The slim 9.2mm stainless-steel perpetual calendar features the day of the week at nine o’clock, the calendar at three o’clock, and the month at six o’clock. The timepiece also features a moonphase at 12 o’clo
The Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Ultra-Thin Perpetual in Doctor Strange
But it’s the watch’s inscription that ultimately reminds Dr. Strange of his earthly origins. Inscribed on its caseback is a message from Dr. Strange’s love interest, Christine (played by Rachel McAdams). “Time will tell you how much I love you, Christine,” it reads.
## Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017): Robert Downey Jr., Urwerk UR-110RG
Robert Downey Jr. wearing Urwerk UR-110RG at the Spider-Man: Homecoming premiere
Photo: John Salangsang/REX/Shutterstock
Robert Downey Jr. is not only renowned for his epic film career, but also for being a true watch aficionado. His collection includes everything from a Jaeger-LeCoultre AMVOX3 Tourbillon GMT (worn in Iron Man 2) and an Omega Speedmaster Moon Professional to a Rolex GMT Master II “Ghost” customised by Bamford Watch Department and a Bell & Ross BR 01-94 Titanium Orange (gifted to him by Ben Stiller after wrapping Tropic Thunder), to name just a few. But his biggest blockbuster was his Urwerk UR-110RG, which he wore as Iron Man in the Marvel Comics film Spider-Man: Homecoming.
The watch, hand-selected by the actor, was chosen to accompany Iron Man on his mission to combat evil. The company initially turned down Downey Jr.’s inquiry about the watch, suspecting they had received a prank call. But the star ultimately used his real-life superpowers to procure the timepiece for his on-set wardrobe.
It was the perfect instrument for Tony Stark aka Iron Man, the billionaire business magnate and inventor-turned-superhero. Crafted from lightweight titanium with an asymmetrical 18-karat rose-gold bezel, the watch presented a radical new way of telling time when it was first introduced in 2011. A rotating cube and orbiting satellite tell the time instead of traditional hands and markers, while a “control” board indicates night and day and an “oil change” indicator signals when the watch needs to be serviced.
In a real-life superhero move, Downey Jr. sold the watch at auction in May at Phillips’ Geneva Watch Auction: Seven for 150,000 CHF (around $210,000) to benefit Manusodany, a nonprofit that funds development projects in Haiti.
## Atomic Blonde (2017): Charlize Theron and James McEvoy, Carl F. Bucherer
Charlize Theron wearing Carl F. Bucherer in Atomic Blonde
Photo: J Prime/Focus Features/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock
Spoiler alert: While most watch brands’ only role in films is to adorn the wrists of the leading characters, Carl F. Bucherer was the leading character of Atomic Blonde. When Charlize Theron, as MI5 agent Lorraine Broughton, goes undercover in Berlin to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents, it’s a Carl F. Bucherer Manero CentralChrono worn by Sam Hargrave as James Gascoigne that ultimately conceals the coveted list.
But the watchmaker doesn’t just see the spotlight at the big reveal at the conclusion of the film. Theron gets a Manero Mabu, which she purchases from a Carl F. Bucherer watchmaker (played by Til Schweiger) who takes apart the timepiece to insert a coordinates tracker. Meanwhile, Theron’s character wears a Manero AutoDate with diamonds while taking down villains as a bleach-blonde femme fatale.
Carl F. Bucherer Manero AutoDate worn in Atomic Blonde
Photo: Courtesy of Carl F. Bucherer
Director and stuntman David Leitch, a fan and brand ambassador of Carl F. Bucherer, also worked with the Swiss watchmaker during the making of his films John Wick and John Wick: Chapter 2.
## Dunkirk (2017): Tom Hardy, Omega CK2129
The Omega CK2129 worn in Dunkirk
Photo: Courtesy of Omega
An authentic vintage Omega CK2129 accompanied Tom Hardy in his role as a British Royal Air Force (RAF) pilot in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, which tells the story of the evacuation of 330,000 French, British, Belgian and Dutch soldiers from a German advance on the beaches of Dunkirk in May of 1940. In real life, approximately more than 110,000 pilot, navigator and soldier watches were delivered by Omega during World War II to Great Britain’s Military of Defence to support its air force and navy pilots during service.
Vintage Omega ad
Photo: Courtesy of Omega
The CK2129 was a useful tool for the RAF thanks to its unique rotating bezel enabling the timing of specific intervals, particularly during bombing raids. The bezel also featured a lock through its second crown so it wouldn’t be affected during accidental knocks. The timepiece’s cream dial with Arabic numerals and poire dials were ideal at the time for visibility.
Roughly 2000 CK2129 models were delivered to the British Ministry of Defence at the beginning of World War II.
## Batman Franchise: Val Kilmer, Christian Bale, Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso; Ben Affleck, Breguet
The Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso worn in the Batman movies
Photo: Courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre
Bruce Wayne aka Batman first wore a Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso timepiece in 1995 when Joel Schumacher first directed Val Kilmer in the iconic role. While not nearly as futuristic as Batman’s other toys, the Reverso’s flip face mirrors Batman’s dual personality.
Christian Bale wearing Jaeger-LeCoultre as Bruce Wayne
Photo: Courtesy of Jaeger-LeCoultre
Christian Bale solidified the relationship between Jaeger-LeCoultre and Batman when he wore three different Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso timepieces throughout all of the Dark Knight trilogy films directed by Christopher Nolan. For The Dark Knight Rises, Jaeger-LeCoultre created a special-edition Grande Reverso Ultra-Thin Tribute to 1931, which featured the black Batman symbol on the steel caseback, which can be flipped over and worn as the face.
Ben Affleck wearing Breguet Tradition Fusee Tourbillon 7047PT as Bruce Wayne
Ben Affleck, however, did an about-face in his turn as Bruce Wayne in 2016’s Batman vs. Superman by wearing a tony Breguet Tradition Fusee Tourbillon 7047PT in platinum (around $270,000). While it was certainly a departure from tradition, it was a fitting choice for an action hero masquerading as a billionaire philanthropist, complete with a butler named Alfred Pennyworth.
The Breguet Tradition Fusee Tourbillon 7047PT worn in Batman vs. Superman
Photo: Courtesy of Breguet
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Daybeds, the most relaxed of seating solutions, offer a surprising amount of utility.
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In a lifetime spanning two centuries, Lagerfeld made and dropped an ever-changing parade of close friends, muses, collaborators and ambiguous lovers, as easily as he changed his clothes, his furniture… even his body. Each chapter of this book would be set against the backdrop of one of his series of apartments, houses and villas, whose often wildly divergent but always ultra-luxurious décor reflected the ever-evolving personas of this compulsively public but ultimately enigmatic man.
With the publication of Karl Lagerfeld: A Life in Houses these wildly disparate but always exquisite interiors are presented for the first time together as a chronological body of work. The book indeed serves as a kind of visual novel, documenting the domestic dreamscapes in which the iconic designer played out his many lives, while also making a strong case that Lagerfeld’s impact on contemporary interior design is just as important, if not more so, than his influence on fashion.
In fact, when the first Lagerfeld interior was featured in a 1968 spread for L’OEil magazine, the editorial describes him merely as a “stylist”. The photographs of the apartment in an 18th-century mansion on rue de Université, show walls lined with plum-coloured rice paper, or lacquered deepest chocolate brown in sharp contrast to crisp, white low ceilings that accentuated the horizontality that was fashionable among the extremely fashionable at the time. Yet amid this setting of aggressively au courant modernism, the anachronistic pops of Art Nouveau and Art Deco objects foreshadow the young Karl’s innate gift for creating strikingly original environments whose harmony is achieved through the deft interplay of contrasting styles and contexts.
Lagerfeld learned early on that presenting himself in a succession of gem-like domestic settings was good for crafting his image. But Lagerfeld’s houses not only provided him with publicity, they also gave him an excuse to indulge in his greatest passion. Shopping!
By 1973, Lagerfeld was living in a new apartment at Place Saint–Sulpice where his acquisition of important Art Deco treasures continued unabated. Now a bearded and muscular disco dandy, he could most often be found in the louche company of the models, starlets and assorted hedonistic beauties that gathered around the flamboyant fashion illustrator Antonio Lopez. Lagerfeld was also in the throes of a hopeless love affair with Jacques de Bascher whose favours he reluctantly shared with his nemesis Yves Saint Laurent.
He painted the rooms milky white and lined them with specially commissioned carpets—the tawny patterned striations of which invoked musky wild animal pelts. These lent a stark relief to the sleek, machine-age chrome lines of his Deco furnishings. To contemporary eyes it remains a strikingly original arrangement that subtly conveys the tensions at play in Lagerfeld’s own life: the cocaine fuelled orgies of his lover and friends, hosted in the pristine home of a man who claimed that “a bed is for one person”.
In 1975, a painful falling out with his beloved Jacques, who was descending into the abyss of addiction, saw almost his entire collection of peerless Art Deco furniture, paintings and objects put under the auctioneer’s hammer. This was the first of many auction sales, as he habitually shed the contents of his houses along with whatever incarnation of himself had lived there. Lagerfeld was dispassionate about parting with these precious goods. “It’s collecting that’s fun, not owning,” he said. And the reality for a collector on such a Renaissance scale, is that to continue buying, Lagerfeld had to sell.
Of all his residences, it was the 1977 purchase of Hôtel Pozzo di Borgo, a grand and beautifully preserved 18th-century house, that would finally allow him to fulfill his childhood fantasies of life in the court of Madame de Pompadour. And it was in this aura of Rococó splendour that the fashion designer began to affect, along with his tailored three-piece suits, a courtier’s ponytailed and powdered coif and a coquettish antique fan: marking the beginning of his transformation into a living, breathing global brand that even those with little interest in fashion would immediately recognise.
Lagerfeld’s increasing fame and financial success allowed him to indulge in an unprecedented spending frenzy, competing with deep-pocketed institutions like the Louvre to acquire the finest, most pedigreed pearls of the era—voluptuously carved and gilded bergères; ormolu chests; and fleshy, pastel-tinged Fragonard idylls—to adorn his urban palace. His one-time friend André Leon Talley described him in a contemporary article as suffering from “Versailles complex”.
However, in mid-1981, and in response to the election of left-wing president, François Mitterrand, Lagerfeld, with the assistance of his close friend Princess Caroline, became a resident of the tax haven of Monaco. He purchased two apartments on the 21st floor of Le Roccabella, a luxury residential block designed by Gio Ponti. One, in which he kept Jacques de Bascher, with whom he was now reconciled, was decorated in the strict, monochromatic Viennese Secessionist style that had long underpinned his aesthetic vocabulary; the other space, though, was something else entirely, cementing his notoriety as an iconoclastic tastemaker.
Lagerfeld had recently discovered the radically quirky designs of the Memphis Group led by Ettore Sottsass, and bought the collective’s entire first collection and had it shipped to Monaco. In a space with no right angles, these chaotically colourful, geometrically askew pieces—centred on Masanori Umeda’s famous boxing ring—gave visitors the disorientating sensation of having entered a corporeal comic strip. By 1991, the novelty of this jarring postmodern playhouse had inevitably worn thin and once again he sent it all to auction, later telling a journalist that “after a few years it was like living in an old Courrèges. Ha!”
In 1989, de Bascher died of an AIDS-related illness, and while Lagerfeld’s career continued to flourish, emotionally the famously stoic designer was struggling. In 2000, a somewhat corpulent Lagerfeld officially ended his “let them eat cake” years at the Hôtel Pozzo di Borgo, selling its sumptuous antique fittings in a massive headline auction that stretched over three days. As always there were other houses, but now with his longtime companion dead, and his celebrity metastasising making him a target for the paparazzi, he began to look less for exhibition spaces and more for private sanctuaries where he could pursue his endless, often lonely, work.
His next significant house was Villa Jako, named for his lost companion and built in the 1920s in a nouveau riche area of Hamburg close to where he grew up. Lagerfeld shot the advertising campaign for Lagerfeld Jako there—a fragrance created in memorial to de Bascher. The house featured a collection of mainly Scandinavian antiques, marking the aesthetic cusp between Art Nouveau and Art Deco. One of its rooms Lagerfeld decorated based on his remembrances of his childhood nursery. Here, he locked himself away to work—tellingly—on a series of illustrations for the fairy tale, The Emperor’s New Clothes. Villa Jako was a house of deep nostalgia and mourning.
But there were more acts—and more houses—to come in Lagerfeld’s life yet. In November 2000, upon seeing the attenuated tailoring of Hedi Slimane, then head of menswear at Christian Dior, the 135 kg Lagerfeld embarked on a strict dietary regime. Over the next 13 months, he melted into a shadow of his former self. It is this incarnation of Lagerfeld—high white starched collars; Slimane’s skintight suits, and fingerless leather gloves revealing hands bedecked with heavy silver rings—that is immediately recognisable some five years after his death.
The 200-year-old apartment in Quái Voltaire, Paris, was purchased in 2006, and after years of slumber Lagerfeld—a newly awakened Hip Van Winkle—was ready to remake it into his last modernist masterpiece. He designed a unique daylight simulation system that meant the monochromatic space was completely without shadows—and without memory. The walls were frosted and smoked glass, the floors concrete and silicone; and any hint of texture was banned with only shiny, sleek pieces by Marc Newson, Martin Szekely and the Bouroullec Brothers permitted. Few guests were allowed into this monastic environment where Lagerfeld worked, drank endless cans of Diet Coke and communed with Choupette, his beloved Birman cat, and parts of his collection of 300,000 books—one of the largest private collections in the world.
Lagerfeld died in 2019, and the process of dispersing his worldly goods is still ongoing. The Quái Voltaire apartment was sold this year for US$10.8 million (around $16.3 million). Now only the rue de Saint-Peres property remains within the Lagerfeld trust. Purchased after Quái Voltaire to further accommodate more of his books—35,000 were displayed in his studio alone, always stacked horizontally so he could read the titles without straining his neck—and as a place for food preparation as he loathed his primary living space having any trace of cooking smells. Today, the rue de Saint-Peres residence is open to the public as an arts performance space and most fittingly, a library.
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By Josh Bozin
24/07/2024
Watch This Space: Mike Nouveau
Meet the game-changing horological influencers blazing a trail across social media—and doing things their own way.
In the thriving world of luxury watches, few people own a space that offers unfiltered digital amplification. And that’s precisely what makes the likes of Brynn Wallner, Teddy Baldassarre, Mike Nouveau and Justin Hast so compelling.
These thought-provoking digital crusaders are now paving the way for the story of watches to be told, and shown, in a new light. Speaking to thousands of followers on the daily—mainly via TikTok, Instagram and YouTube—these progressive commentators represent the new guard of watch pundits. And they’re swaying the opinions, and dollars, of the up-and-coming generations who now represent the target consumer of this booming sector.
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MIKE NOUVEAU
Can we please see what’s on the wrist? That’s the question that catapulted Mike Nouveau into watch stardom, thanks to his penchant for highlighting incredibly rare timepieces across his TikTok account of more than 400,000 followers. When viewing Nouveau’s attention-grabbing video clips—usually shot in a New York City neighbourhood—it’s not uncommon to find him wrist-rolling some of the world’s rarest timepieces, like the million-dollar Cartier Cheich (a clip he posted in May).
But how did someone without any previous watch experience come to amass such a cult following, and in the process gain access to some of the world’s most coveted timepieces? Nouveau admits had been a collector for many years, but moved didn’t move into horology full-time until 2020, when he swapped his DJing career for one as a vintage watch specialist.
“I probably researched for a year before I even bought my first watch,” says Nouveau, alluding to his Rolex GMT Master “Pepsi” ref. 1675 from 1967, a lionised timepiece in the vintage cosmos. “I would see deals arise that I knew were very good, but they weren’t necessarily watches that I wanted to buy myself. I eventually started buying and selling, flipping just for fun because I knew how to spot a good deal.”
Nouveau claims that before launching his TikTok account in the wake of Covid-19, no one in the watch community knew he existed. “There really wasn’t much watch content, if any, on TikTok before I started posting, especially talking about vintage watches. There’s still not that many voices for vintage watches, period,” says Nouveau. “It just so happens that my audience probably skews younger, and I’d say there are just as many young people interested in vintage watches as there are in modern watches.”
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Nouveau recently posted a video to his TikTok account revealing that the average price of a watch purchased by Gen Z is now almost US$11,000 (around $16,500), with 41 percent of them coming into possession of a luxury watch in the past 12 months.
“Do as much independent research as you can [when buying],” he advises. “The more you do, the more informed you are and the less likely you are to make a mistake. And don’t bring modern watch expectations to the vintage world because it’s very different. People say, ‘buy the dealer’, but I don’t do that. I trust myself and myself only.”
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Read more about the influencers shaking up horology here with Justin Hast, Brynn Wallner and Teddy Baldassare.
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By Josh Bozin
24/07/2024
This Pristine 1960 Ferrari 250 Spider Could Fetch $24 Million at Auction
The car wears the same colours and has the same engine it left the factory with.
Some Ferraris are just a little bit more important than others.
Take, for example, the 1960 250 GT SWB California that RM Sotheby’s is auctioning off during this year’s Monterey Car Week. Any example of the open-top beauty would attract interest, but this one just so happens to be the first one that was built.
The 250 is one of the most legendary series of cars in Ferrari history. Between 1952 and 1964, the company released 21 different 250 models—seven for racetracks, 14 for public roads—of which the “Cali Spider” might be the most well regarded, thanks to its potent V-12 and a Pininfarina-penned design that is one of the most beautiful bodies to grace an automobile. The roadster, which was specifically built for the U.S., made its debut in 1957 as a long-wheel-base model (LWB), but it wasn’t until the SWB model debut in 1960 that it became clear how special it was. This example isn’t just the first to roll off the line. It’s the actual car that was used to introduce the world to the model at the 1960 Geneva Motor Show.
Just 56 examples of the 250 GT SWB California Spider would be built by Scaglietti during the three years it was in production. The first of those, chassis 1795 GT, is finished in a glossy coat of Grigio. The two-door had a red leather interior at Geneva but was returned to the factory and re-outfitted with black leather upholstery before being delivered to its original owner, British race car driver John Gordon Bennet. Six-and-a-half decades later the car looks identical to how it did when it left the factory the second time.
In addition to its original bodywork, the chassis 1795 GT features its original engine, gearbox, and rear axle. That mill is the competition-spec Tipo 168, a 3.0-litre V-12 that makes 196.1 kW. That may not sound like much by today’s standards, but, when you consider that the 250 GT SWB California Spider tips the scales around 952 kilograms, it’s more than enough.
The first 250 GT SWB California Spider is scheduled to go up for bid during RM Sotheby’s annual Monterey Car Week auction, which runs from Thursday, August 15, to Saturday, August 17. Unsurprisingly, the house has quite high hopes for the car. The car carries an estimate of between $24 million and $26 million, which could make it one of the most expensive cars ever sold at auction.
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By Josh Bozin
24/07/2024
