Round-UpThe League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Seven Outstanding Watches Dedicated To Iconic Personalities
The horological industry has a penchant for recognising and honouring influential men who are determined to change the status quo. Over the years, in a bid to honour their work and contribution to the world, watch manufacturers have dedicated several timepieces to such distinguished men. Let’s take a look at some of these towering personalities, and the timepieces crafted to celebrate them
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If there’s one thing common among all the men who changed the course of history—regardless of when and where they were born—then it has to be their fearless determination to challenge the status quo. From ancient times till today, such men have rebelled against the mainstream traditions and norms in order to transform the imprint of their countries and the world. These extraordinary men are relentless and unwavering in the pursuit of their dreams, and when it comes to recognising and paying tribute to them, no one does it better than the horological industry. The watchmakers, who themselves constantly try to push the boundaries of innovation and creativity, have dedicated several timepieces to such legends to commemorate their contributions to the world. Let’s take a look at seven such towering personalities and the watches crafted to celebrate them
Antoine De Saint Exupéry
Born on June 29, 1900, in Lyons, France, Antoine De Saint Exupéry—an aviation pioneer, war hero and bestselling author—had his fair share of failures in his lifetime. He failed to distinguish himself at school; he failed the entrance exams for the French naval academy; he then enrolled at an art school to train as an architect but, according to one of his fellow students, had as little aptitude for architecture as for dentistry. But he never gave up and things began to change when, in 1921, he was conscripted into the French air force, and he qualified as a military pilot a year later—Saint-Exupéry dreamt of becoming a pilot from the age of 12. By 1931, he had worked as a pilot for a private airline, an airbase chief in Morocco, and had published two books, out of which one became an instant hit. However, all this didn’t quench his thirst for adventure and explorations. In 1935, Saint Exupéry tried to break the speed record for flying from Paris to Saigon but his plane crashed in the Libyan desert, and he and his co-pilot had to trudge through the sand for three days to find help. Three years later, he suffered serious injuries when he went to the United States to attempt a record-breaking flight from New York to Nicaragua, and it came to a premature end with a crash landing in Guatemala City. Despite his permanent disabilities due to the flying accidents, he became a military reconnaissance pilot when World War II broke out in 1939 and after the fall of France, he shifted to the US. Saint-Exupéry’s last journey took place on July 31, 1944, when he left from Borgo, Corsica, in a Lockheed P-38 Lightning to take reconnaissance photos over the Grenoble region in southern France. He disappeared that same day and never returned. It’s to honour this courage and bravado that IWC Schaffhausen in 2017 released the Pilot’s Watch Chronograph Edition ‘Antoine De Saint Exupéry’. The timepiece offers a dial in a tobacco brown metallic sunburst colour and a dark brown calfskin leather strap, which represent the brown pilot uniform Saint-Exupéry wore on his flights. Another reference to the legendary pilot can be seen on the caseback of the watch that features a flawless engraving of a Lockheed P-38 Lightning—the last aircraft that Saint-Exupéry ever flew.
Art Blakey
Art Blakey, the legendary American drummer and bandleader, who came into the limelight for his extraordinary drum solos, didn’t intend to become a drummer. Born on October 11, 1919, in Pennsylvania, Blakey aspired to become a pianist but, by all accounts, wasn’t good at it. His switch from piano to drums, according to the legends, took place after a gangster arrived in a club where the musician used to play and threatened to kill him if he didn’t get behind the drum kit. From there onwards, Blakey stuck to playing the drums, and as they say, the rest is history. Father of hard bop—a subgenre of jazz that includes elements of gospel, soul and R&B—the drummer founded the band called The Jazz Messengers, which provided a platform for several young jazz musicians to grow and become prominent figures in the music industry. Blakey maintained the band for 35 years until his death in 1990 and helped define the jazz genre. To celebrate his work and glorious legacy, Oris, in 2019, introduced a limited-edition timepiece that offers a pared-down dial, reminiscent of a snare or side drum. The most distinguishing feature of the timepiece is its applied hour markers, which come in the shape of a bass drum claw—seen everywhere except the usual positions of 12, three, six, and nine. On turning the timepiece over, we get to see a brass inlay in the shape of a cymbal, a percussion instrument, which the jazz legend played in the most ingenious way possible.
Ayrton Senna
Ayrton Senna found his calling at the age of four after his father gifted him a miniature go-kart. He became obsessed with it and inculcated an insatiable need for racing. At 13 Senna won his first official race that took place, in 1973, at the Interlagos Go-Kart Track in São Paulo, Brazil, also his hometown. Over the next 10 years, the racer not only secured several karting championships but also went on to participate in single-seat racing in Britain and won the 1983 British Formula Three Championship. However, it was the following year that Senna became a global sensation after he made his debut in Formula One and registered 162 Grand Prix entries, 41 wins, 65 pole positions, 80 podiums and three world championships in his 10-year-long F1 career—cut short when he tragically passed away following an accident at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994. Senna was arguably the most talented and charismatic racer ever to grace Formula One and, according to the experts, he had a sixth sense for where the grip was before he turned into a corner. A specialist in driving in catastrophic weather conditions, the Brazilian driver was recognised for his qualifying speed over one lap, and from 1989 until 2006 he held the record for most pole positions. Apart from all the achievements and accomplishments, Senna was also the brand ambassador for TAG Heuer and earlier this month, the watchmakers unveiled a special-edition timepiece to pay tribute to the legendary racer. The TAG Heuer Formula 1 Ayrton Senna Special Edition comes in a bold yellow and black colourway and features the signature bezel of the Formula 1 collection with ‘Senna’ written out from 12 to one o’clock. Not only this, the words are also imprinted inside the 1/10 second sub-dial, located at the six o’clock position. Equipped with a quartz movement, this watch is paired with an embossed black leather bracelet, which is a reference to the brand’s S/EL—short for Sports Elegance—models that Senna used to wear.
Jimi Hendrix
Despite his brief four-year career as a music superstar, Jimi Hendrix transformed the rock genre into a stylistic platform where artistes could toy with contrasting moods, explore their curiosities and push the limits of their creativity. Known for his immensely popular songs such as ‘Purple Haze’, ‘Hey Joe’ and ‘Voodoo Child’, Hendrix created a new musical form with his innovative amplification experiments that produced distorted, deep sounds. He wasn’t just a gifted songwriter and musician but also a dazzling showman who could sweep audiences off their feet—Hendrix was able to play behind his back and with his teeth and would set his guitar on fire. One of the most crucial events in his career came when, in 1969, he took to the Woodstock stage and, with his white Fender Stratocaster guitar, gave the world a magical rendition of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ (the US national anthem). Fifty years later, to commemorate this iconic moment in music history, Raymond Weil released a limited-edition timepiece, which perfectly encapsulates the illustrious legacy of Hendrix. Sized at 42mm, the watch comes with a dial inspired by the musician’s famous Fender Stratocaster guitar and features nine dotted index markers that mimic the frets on the guitar neck and a circular border representing the six guitar strings. Meanwhile, the central chronograph hand as well as those on the 30-minute and 12-hour counter at 12 and six o’clock are painted in electric blue—the colour is a nod to Hendrix’s blue outfit, which he wore on the day of the performance. What’s more, the tachymeter ring displays the singer’s famous quote, ‘Music is my Religion’ alongside his name, and the caseback is finished with the Authentic Hendrix logo, giving his estate’s seal of approval.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni
The Ranchi-born player changed the face of Indian cricket and transformed how Indian spectators viewed the game. His phenomenal rise in Indian cricket happened at a time when small-town players, like him, began to become a crucial part of the national team. Although by the late 2000s, the hegemony of players from metropolitan cities was long gone, there was still a yawning class divide in the dressing room and in the minds of the Indian cricket fans. English-speaking players like Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar were often seen as born leaders, while the likes of Dhoni, Munaf Patel and Harbhajan Singh were expected to play as pawns. Dhoni changed this. With his spectacular leadership skills and self-assured aura, he proved that even small-town players could catapult their team to the upper echelons of the game. He helped the Indian cricket team win the 2007 ICC World Twenty, the 2010 and 2016 Asia Cups, the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup and the 2013 ICC Champions Trophy. In a bid to pay tribute to these unparalleled achievements and impeccable legacy, Panerai, in 2019, unveiled two special Dhoni editions of their timepieces and one of them was the Luminor Chrono Flyback. Presented with a dial in military green—Dhoni’s favourite colour—the watch comes with a 44mm gold case and features a chronograph movement with a flyback function. The P.9100 calibre beating inside is visible through a transparent caseback, which offers a silhouette of Dhoni, along with his signature and an inscription that reads ‘Mahendra Singh Dhoni 183’—a reference to his top score in one-day international cricket.
Max Bill
Max Bill was a Swiss artist and designer who was obsessed with geometry and mathematics. He once said, “I am of the opinion that it is possible to develop an art largely on the basis of mathematical thinking.” Born on December 22, 1908, in Winterthur, Switzerland, Bill joined the famed German art school, Bauhaus, in Dessau, in 1927, and quickly became one of its most distinguished alumni. Founder of the Concrete Art movement, the artist later established the Ulm School of Design, where he served as the head of architecture and product design during the 1950s. It was during this time that he began his collaboration with Junghans and rose to prominence in the world of horology. In 1956, he released his first work with the watchmakers—a wall clock—that showcased Bill’s philosophy of clean lines, pared-down design, and simple geometry. But what brought him the ultimate critical acclaim and commercial success was a series of wristwatches, which he introduced in 1961. Featuring a minimalist aesthetic coupled with Bauhaus styling and reliability, these timepieces became an instant hit and cemented Bill’s position as an avant-garde designer and artist in the industry. In 2021, Junghans reintroduced the Max Bill collection, which includes many of the historical models as well as some modern interpretations of the artist’s original vision. A seamless blend of traditional workmanship with state-of-the-art technology, these contemporary timepieces are subtle yet eye-catchy—just like Bill intended them to be.
Stephen Hawking
Shortly after his 21st birthday, Stephen Hawking was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)—a motor neuron disease in which the nerves controlling the muscles become inactive while the sensory nerves function normally—and told that he only had two years to live. Hawking defied his doctors’ prediction and went on to live till the age of 76. Despite being wheelchair-bound and dependent on a computerised voice system for communication, he continued his research and went on to make several important contributions to the world of science. Hawking worked on theories about how our universe began and helped us better understand black holes and stars. He also wrote bestselling books such as A Brief History of Time that sold more than 10 million copies. In 2020, Bremont decided to pay respect to this British icon and introduced the Bremont Hawking Limited Edition timepiece. Designed in collaboration with the Hawking family, each detail of the watch commemorates Professor Hawking’s fascination with time. The most distinct feature of the watch is its caseback that comprises a piece of a meteorite at its centre—depicting the cosmos. Surrounding the meteorite are four discs made of wood taken from a desk at which Hawking worked from 1975 until his death. Meanwhile, the pattern of the constellation on the caseback shows the night sky above Oxford on January 8, 1942—Hawking’s birthday. The watch’s serial number is printed on a paper from the original copies of a 1979 seminal research paper—known as ‘The Nuts and Bolts of Gravity’—which the scientist co-authored with one of his longest-serving collaborators, Professor Gary Gibbons. The paper sought to understand the thermal properties of black holes. Adjacent to the serial number is the formula of the well-known Hawking radiation theory which relates the temperature of a black hole to its mass.
Shop The Story
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IWC Pilot’s Watches
IW327003
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Oris Artelier
01 733 7762 4081-SET
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Raymond Weil Freelancer
7730-STC-JHDX1
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Panerai Luminor
PAM01057
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Junghans max bill
027400902
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Junghans max bill
027360204
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Junghans max bill
027470002
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Bremont Time Capsule
HAWKING-WG-R-S
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Bremont Time Capsule
HAWKING-RG-R-S
