Watchlords

As far as debut watch releases go, they don’t come much more influential than Vianney Halter’s pioneering perpetual calendar, the Antiqua. It was 2013 when I first held an Antiqua. The design was already 15 years old, and would only see another few years of production (the last one rolled off the bench in 2016) — but it was still a watch that was almost shockingly novel in its execution.

Even if you’re not familiar with the retro-futuristic lines of the Antiqua, you will be aware of its influence. That’s because critics, collectors and watchmakers frequently cite the Antiqua as one of the primogenitors (along with the Harry Winston Opus series), of the independent watchmaking scene. It’s a watch that’s ahead of its time, timeless and profoundly a relic from the past, all at once.

On paper, the Antiqua is a round watch, in a relatively petite 36mm case, powered by Halter’s automatic VH 198, with separate displays for the time, date, day and month indicators (the leap year indicator is piggy-backed on the month). But the best thing you can glean from this description is how poorly bald facts, abstractly described, can encapsulate a three-dimensional object.


https://www.revolution.watch/1998-viann ... tchmakers/

Vianney Halter is tops!!!