Baume et Mercier Impress With An Unfussy WorldTimer
Amongst the hoopla and drama at SIHH 2013 Baume and Mercier were quietly unveiling their collection for the coming year in a most gentlemanly manner. Their new Clifton collection gained them much publicity, and quite right too - its fifties-inspired styling is more than pleasing on the eye. Equally handsome is this, the Capeland Manufacture WorldTimer.
A WorldTimer watch is one which displays the time in 24 world locations at once - but in order to function, the thing must be readable. Girard-Perregaux have the knack, they manage to pack in a flyback chronograph + date into theirs while still maintaining usability. If however you hanker after something a little less busy, then Nomos perfected the art of understatement with their superb Zurich Weltzeit. The Capeland WorldTimer is somewhere in between, but it brings to the mix some very fine vintage styling, reminiscent of a time when a well-heeled traveller would find such a timepiece to be essential kit, a time when long haul was an adventure to be enjoyed rather than endured.
Housed in a 44mm case, this piece offers plainness, empty dial space aplenty and diminutive but readable indications. The Breguet-esque hands combine with curled numerals to indicate time and the 24 hour ring is recessed at the dial edge where the domed sapphire provides some alluring and entirely appropriate side-on fuzzyness.
The Baume and Mercier Capeland Manufacture WorldTimer will be available in red gold or steel case options.
More from the brand's official website, or some live photos here via Hodinkee.