The Senator Sixties Panorama Date from Glashütte Original
Glashütte Original, the Saxony watchmaker, have presented a number of pieces from their 2010 collections at the recent SIHH exhibition in Geneva. Among them is the new Senator Sixties Panorama Date, an elegant gentleman's wristwatch evoking memories of times past. You might be forgiven for thinking that we are somehow stepping back in time to the swinging sixties, given that my last feature dealt with the Girard-Perregaux 1966 watches. However that's certainly not the case. What we are seeing from these watchmakers is a testimonial to the longevity and sheer quality of the design of these watches when their predecessors first appeared almost fifty years ago.
Glashütte Original have not fiddled about with the styling since the collection resurfaced a few years ago and the Senator Sixties Panorama Date of 2010 is a sleek, curvaceous watch in a 39mm round case with a slightly domed sapphire crystal and transparent exhibition caseback through which one can observe the hand-engraved detail of the in-house automatic Calibre 39-47 movement and the signature 21kt gold oscillating weight.
There are two variants of the Senator Sixties Panorama Date, both in polished stainless steel - one with galvanised black dial with silver numerals and markers, and the piece shown here with satin-finished silver dial, stylized arabic numerals and rose gold hands and baton hour markers.
Like the Girard-Perregaux 1966 pieces, this Glashütte Original Senator Sixties effectively captures the retro styling of the age they share with their titles. It was after all the beginning of 'cool' and these watches simply ooze effortless classic cool.
In an era where many of the must-have watches are huge, colourful, bulky, angular and are usually constructed from unpronouncable space age composites, it is nice to see the occasional uncluttered throwback. That's not to say that modern design has gone in the wrong direction, there are simply two different customers for old and new styles. Diddy and Kanye would be unlikey clients methinks.
