Photo Courtesy of Cartier
Wristwatches are every human being’s ultimate companion nowadays, and with time, they have undergone many makeovers that are worth highlighting. In fact, they are not only essentials for both women and men, but they have also become items of style that each and every one of us can never leave home without. Luckily for you, we are dedicating this feature to dive into the history of time tellers.
After civilizations around the world observed the natural rhythm of daylight and dusk, they started looking for ways to measure the time, first with calendars then with instruments of increasing precision. Then, a sundial created by ancient Egyptians came along, opening a new chapter in the world of time telling.
Clocks with weight and gears, often without dials, took over the period between 1284 and 1292 until Prince Asulid of Yemen made a remarkable astrolabe in 1291. In 1364, Giovanni De Dondi of Padua built his Astrarium, an astronomical clock that was considered the wonder of its age. The 1410s saw a noticeable development, as the mainspring was developed and the portable domestic clocks with smaller components paved the way for the production of watches.
Around 1492, the mechanical watch saw the light simultaneously in Italy, Germany and France, and its principle remained dominant for five centuries until the late 1970s that witnessed the rise of the electronic watch. Watchmakers continued to compete on making smaller and smaller watches but it was not until 1554 that the first watchmaker Frenchman Thomas Bayard rose in Geneva, followed by Martin Duboule at the end of the 16th century.
From Christiaan Huygens’ invention of the spiral balance spring for watches in 1675, de Beaufré’s production of the first watch with jewels in 1704 and Samuel Watson’s creation of the five-minute repeater in 1710 up until know, the world of watches is in perpetual evolution, making us wonder if there is still anything else to develop in this magical field.
Mirella Haddad
