From hip-hop’s role in watch popularity to a lively book on basics, a diverse group of watch-themed books were published this fall. Here are a few to consider.
On History
Writing a history of watches would be a daunting task, but François-Luc Giraldeau, Sean Paul Lorentzen and Blake Z. Rong found a simple solution: They approached it through more than 65 watches, beginning with the 1892 Hamilton Pocket Watch and concluding with Cartier’s 2022 Masse Mystérieuse.
Called “Time Machines: How Watches Shaped the Modern World,” the 320-page book was published by Gestalten in September in Britain and on Nov. 11 in the United States ($90/60 British pounds).
Mr. Lorentzen, who is an editor at the online platform a Blog to Watch, said he and his fellow authors prepared a set of criteria to help them select watches for the book. For example, he said, they asked themselves: “Is it historic? Is it something that goes beyond just being a watch that collectors lust after?”
Among the timepieces they chose: the Seiko Laurel, the first wristwatch made in Japan, which represented “the transition in 1913 from the feudal closed-off Japan to the Japan that would go on to dominate so much of the 20th century,” Mr. Lorentzen said.
The book, he added, places each watch within a wider social and political context, but also emphasizes “the people behind the watch in a way that sometimes gets lost.”
An Anniversary
To celebrate its 150th anniversary, Audemars Piguet spent the past two years creating “The Watch: Stories and Savoir Faire,” published by Flammarion in October ($95).
But rather than simply presenting a company history, each chapter in the 584-page book examines a different watch element, such as the dial, the case, the movement, even the straps and bracelets. There are diagrams explaining, for example, the parts of the dial and its reverse. And there are short “Did You Know?” highlights sprinkled throughout the book, on such diverse topics as how long it takes to make a metal watch bracelet (answer: 85 hours). The tidbits were included to “give light to something unexpected,” said Sébastian Vivas, the company’s heritage and museum director, who led the book’s editorial development.
Even the cover has an unusual cartoonlike illustration, complete with a gold watch dial as the rising sun. Watchmaking is “considered a little bit distant to the general public,” Mr. Vivas said, so the idea was to make the book “look young and attractive and welcoming and colorful.”
Hard to Find
Clément Mazarian, a watch collector in Avignon, France, said he wrote a book on battery-powered quartz watches because he could not find such a volume — even though “we all had a quartz watch at some point, Casio or Swatch, maybe given as a childhood gift.”
“Quartz Watches,” a 240-page book, was published by Mitchell Beazley in October in Britain and on Nov. 4 in the United States ($60).
More than 100 quartz watches are featured chronologically, including Lip’s first electric wristwatch, in 1958, and its earlier 1954 prototype; the 1972 steel Girard-Perregaux GP350, which pioneered the quartz oscillator rate still used today as it achieves high accuracy; and the Apple Watch, introduced in 2015. Each one was photographed by Henry Leutwyler, so readers could “see patina on watches, when they don’t work, when they are broke,” Mr. Mazarian said.
A 1970 Rolex “Texano” was the hardest watch to find, as “only 1,000 were ever produced,” Mr. Mazarian wrote in a later message. And “we had to go all the way to London to shoot it.”
Among the book’s features are a timeline that runs from the first quartz clock in 1927 to the 2022 Swatch MoonSwatch, a who’s who of the people who appear in the book and a horological glossary.
A Cultural Approach
Ever since Flavor Flav from the hip-hop group Public Enemy started wearing a clock necklace in the 1980s, hip-hop and watch culture have been entwined — sometimes in lyrics and sometimes in rappers’ watch collections.
Now there is “Million Dollar Hip Hop Watches,” which explores the evolution of watches within hip-hop history through its 320 pages. It was published in September in Britain and Europe and on Nov. 11 in the United States ($125)
The book was developed by Tobias Kargoll, the project’s editorial director; Leon Schäfers, who wrote most of the text; and Jeanette Lang, who searched out photographs (such as the one showing the American rapper Young Thug with his iced-out Patek Philippe Nautilus Chronograph Ref. 5980). Everyone on the team that developed the book works for ManeraMedia, a hip-hop marketing agency in Düsseldorf, Germany, and its online magazine, hiphop.de.
As the team did not come from the world of watches, Mr. Kargoll said, they “had a cultural approach, not looking at watches first but looking at what they symbolize and their meaning in culture and as a means to communicate.”
The book explains why rappers gravitate toward certain brands and models. For example, Pharrell Williams name-dropped Richard Mille in the lyrics of his 2006 song “Can I Have It Like That,” featuring Gwen Stefani. And it defines terms, noting, for example, that the phrase “iced out” means something originally set with diamonds while the term “bustdown watch,” on the other hand, “refers to watches literally broken down, drilled and customized after being purchased.”
The editorial development faced challenges, Mr. Kargoll said, such as how to represent Sean Combs. When the editorial team started work on the book in early 2024, the former music mogul was still awaiting trial in New York (in October, he was sentenced to four years in prison on prostitution-related offenses).
“Since we could not know what the jury or judge would decide later on and this is in printing, we were like ‘Let’s not glorify him too much but mention him where it’s important to tell the history,’” Mr. Kargoll said, adding that, when writing about the 1990s, “you can’t get around him.”
So the book does include him, as Puff Daddy, with an iced-out Rolex, the tonneau-shape Franck Muller watch that he made popular and other pieces.
The Collectors
For a lighthearted read, “Watch Spotting: The Collectors” by Rhonda Riche dives into the watch collections of 30 A-list celebrities. The 160-page book was published by ACC Art Books in September in Britain and in October in the United States ($30).
Working alphabetically, it describes the timepieces owned by collectors such as David and Victoria Beckham, who share a chapter; Jay-Z; Taylor Swift; and Cristiano Ronaldo, who “is huge, so he gets to play around with them more than most people,” Ms. Riche said.
While many celebrities in the book are contracted to be brand ambassadors or have long associations with specific brands, they also have personal choices when it comes to watches. For example, the Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton started his collection with a Mickey Mouse watch from Disneyland, moving on to relationships with IWC Schaffhausen and Richard Mille as a brand ambassador.
And Ed Sheeran’s collecting strategy has included making stops on tour to buy watches from independent brands, such as the JS Watch Company in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Ms. Riche said that writing the book was harder than she expected as “every five days you’ll find someone will be wearing a new watch.”
For example: “Originally Taylor Swift wasn’t in the book because she wasn’t that much of a watch girl. But all of a sudden, she got into watches halfway through the process and also became this cultural touchstone with her Eras tour.”
And when it came to the cover, Ms. Riche finally chose Mr. Williams because, she said, “he goes beyond the blank check,” even helping brands from Richard Mille to Casio’s G-Shock to design watches.
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