Not all images were able to load for printing. Please close the print window and try again. What to Expect from MONOCHROME during these Weird Times
Events and launches cancelled, team members under confinement... but we're not giving up!
With the cancellation of all major watch events, it was already a pretty weird start of the year (Watches & Wonders cancelled and Baselworld postponed.) Countries like Italy have been in full lockdown mode for weeks, Spain too, and now other European countries follow suit. Schools are closed, sports clubs, gyms, bars, restaurants, museums, zoos, theatres, concert halls, everything, except the bare necessities like supermarkets, pharmacies, and hospitals. Over the coming weeks, we will be “confined to our homes” and it looks like many of you, our readers, will be in a pretty similar situation. Here’s what you may expect from us. Because we’re not giving up on you!
According to the latest news, we’re all confined to our houses until early April. MONOCHROME doesn’t have a big office where all of us work on a daily basis. We always work from home or from “somewhere on the road”; which could be a watch manufacture in Switzerland or Germany, an event somewhere/anywhere or while travelling. We’re digital nomads and we’re used to that. But still, these are weird, surreal times.
Rebecca lives in Madrid, a city she described this morning as a ghost town. People are only allowed to go out to visit the supermarket and pharmacy, but jogging in the park is forbidden. Brice lives in Tours, France, where it’s maybe a bit less strict (for now), but also deserted and people only go out for necessities like groceries. Same for Xavier, who lives in Switzerland, around Neuchatel to be precise, and his usual trips to manufactures are mostly cancelled as almost all brands have a strict no-visitor policy. In Switzerland, like in the Netherlands, schools are closed, meaning both Xavier and I have the kids home.
Of course, we already have a lot of news lined up, from watches that we had in for review or news we already had under embargo. So for the short term, there are some new watches from Breguet, a new blue Porsche Design Flyback or several cool watches from Hamilton coming. Xavier is visiting Bvlgari today (one of the few exceptions to the ‘no-visitor policy’) and he will see Bovet later this week, so there will be some ‘fresh’ news despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides this news, we have a long two-part story about pocket watches, from Erik, and we’re preparing some stories about watches in our personal collections, as well as more in-depth articles that we usually don’t have the time to cover. Just saying, in case you’re confined to your homes, and you’re fed up with yet another Coronavirus update, we have enough horological news for you!
But most importantly, from the entire team at MONOCHROME, stay safe!
13 responses
Looking forward to the Breguet releases, as well as the personal collections (any excuse to see more of that Daniel Roth).
Wishing you and the whole Team Mono and all of your families a safe passage through these extraordinary times. Looking forward to seeing some of your new content, and catching up with you in person sometime soon. Best wishes from Ireland.
Thanks Johnny! Stay well.
Hmmm… that’s a good one, Gavin. Will dig it out and take some shots.
We would like a réal analysis of the impact of this crisis on the watch industry,prices, grey market, brandis, etc….. a réal journalistic work
Best wishes for safety from very southern Florida, USA.
@Pipo… As soon as I find a crystal ball, I will tell you everything about the impact of Corona on the watch industry. More seriously, this has nothing to do with journalism and would merely be speculation.
Frank, probably it is the time for analytics, historical flashbaks and some watch-reated stories… For watch books discussion and collector interviews? Dont want to copy Hodinkee, but still this is sometimes as interesting as the news )) Stay safe
Even online presentations are canceled ((
Stay safe, guys!
Thanks, you too Artem!
Thanks for this unusual Letter Frank. Hard times for everyone of us… Take care of yourself and your families, the only priority today.
@lucien… thanks! You too, stay safe!
@Serg70… tomorrow the FHH will publish export numbers and like usual we will cover this! Some years ago we ran The Collector’s Series and internally we already discussed to restart this, first focused on some of our own watches and, who knows how long this strange situation is going to last, but I could imagine we will do similar interviews with readers of ours. Let me know if you’re interested in participating!