• Gérald Genta didn’t like watches. He saw himself as an artist and hated having to adhere to the constraints of time. “However, though I don't like wearing watches, I do really like creating them."

  • Rolex has never really made a tool watch. ‘The Professional Series’ was the result of a 1950s marketing concept. Some of the watches were developed with the assistance of professionals, but the intention was to sell them to people who wanted to emulate the professionals, rather than to the professionals themselves. Rolex wanted to give customers a reason for owning more than one Rolex.

  • It took two weeks for George Daniels to notice that his wife had left him because he was eating and sleeping in his workshop. This may or may not be true, but those who knew him say that it’s entirely possible.

  • The Swiss used to fake English watches. In the eighteenth century these watches were known as ‘Dutch forgeries’ because the market was controlled by Dutch merchants. The forgeries were of lesser quality, but they marked the advent of mass-production and prompted the decline of the British watch industry.

  • Before its acquisition by the Swatch Group, loss-making and near-defunct Breguet was positioned as a sports brand. Nicolas Hayek saw that the future lay two hundred years in the past and set about remaking Marie Antoinette’s watch.