I met Russian watch journalist Alexey Kutkovoy 16 years in the past and nonetheless keep in mind the day. I don’t communicate Russian, nor had I heard of him earlier than. However I actually loved his firm, each on that and day by day after once we’ve had an opportunity to fulfill, sit for a drink, and speak about watches. He’s been a kind of colleagues “on the circuit” that I’ve genuinely discovered pleasing and intellectually stimulating.
I met Konstantin Chaykin just a few years later. I don’t keep in mind the precise day sadly, however I do know that I’ve all the time regarded ahead to each assembly with him, ready (and wanting) to be shocked by his subsequent genius-level creation – and I’ve by no means been upset. He is without doubt one of the most inventive and courageous watchmakers I’ve ever had the pleasure to fulfill over the course of my lengthy profession.
Konstantin Chaykin engaged on the motion of his Moscow Comptus Clock
I’m not shocked that Kutkovoy and Chaykin are mates. I think about they entertain one another endlessly with witty, horologically infused tales. I generally want I spoke Russian simply so I could possibly be a part of what I think about their conversations to be like.
Which is why I used to be significantly happy to obtain a duplicate of of Konstantin Chaykin: Haute Horlogerie With Russian Soul and to find it was expertly written by Alexey Kutkovoy.
‘Konstantin Chaykin: Haute Horlogerie, With Russian Soul’
Konstantin Chaykin: Haute Horlogerie, With Russian Soul: ebook construction
Konstantin Chaykin: Haute Horlogerie, With Russian Soul could be very logically structured encompassing the steps of Chaykin’s profession to this point. This happens in 9 chapters spanning the primary 100 pages.
After that, Kutkovoy makes use of one other 20 pages to point out the manufacturing course of from A to Z and contact on particulars just like the Chaykin brand.
The remainder of the ebook is spent on the previous and current catalogue of Chaykin watches and clocks in all its depth and breadth.
The ultimate pages learn like a beautiful reference work, itemizing off Chaykin’s quite a few patents, going by the chronology of the Russian impartial’s workshop, and offering an illustrated glossary of distinctive phrases utilized in Chaykin’s particular artwork of watchmaking.
This completely illustrates how a lot thought has gone to the readers and their enjoyment.
“Konstantin and I agreed from the beginning that we must always not create a generic watch catalogue embellished with anecdotes and tales within the type of a printed exhibition of a watchmaking model’s developments,” wrote Kutkovoy within the preface. “As an alternative, we’ve got produced the story of a person, a dreamer, an inventor, a grasp, an artist, an haute horlogerie skilled, the founding father of a completely fledged timepiece manufacture in Russia – a rustic the place even mass-market, mediocre watchmaking is wretched. You maintain in your fingers a ebook that tells the story of Konstantin’s timepieces as a distinguished line of artwork. I believe the thought has labored very nicely certainly.”
‘Konstantin Chaykin: Haute Horlogerie, With Russian Soul’
Konstantin Chaykin: Haute Horlogerie, With Russian Soul: ebook content material
A.H.C.I. co-founder Svend Andersen seems as a big pull quote on web page 13, and it’s maybe probably the most apt method to start a ebook like this. “He [Chaykin] possesses an excellent potential to create aesthetically interesting and one-of-a-kind watches and clocks.”
The truth that this quote comes from Andersen, the grasp of one-of-a-kind watches and clocks – a person who virtually invented this within the fashionable period and the co-founder of the A.H.C.I. (Academy of Unbiased Artistic Horologists,) – is extremely significant. Based in 1985, the A.H.C.I. is a free grouping of greater than 30 inventive impartial watchmakers from many international locations. Chaykin aspired to hitch this merry band of watchmakers, the place he suits in so completely, changing into a member in 2010. The primary Russian watchmaker to be admitted to the A.H.C.I., it took him three years to achieve this prestigious standing.
On web page 20, watches enter the scene in an enormous method after Kutkovoy takes us by Chaykin’s early pre-watch life. And the opposite actually outstanding factor about Chaykin, except for the truth that he’s an inventor par excellence with an excessive inventive bent and an actual humorousness, is that – like most of the A.H.C.I. members – he’s self-taught.
“I needed to be taught every thing on the go. And I’m satisfied that having no formal training on this area was what gave me carte blanche and freedom,” a pull quote by Chaykin professes.
In the future, Chaykin learn an article in Tourbillon – Kutkovoy’s journal – which professed that nobody in Russia had made a tourbillon watch or clock in post-revolutionary Russia and that earlier than that solely nineteenth-century watchmaker Ivan Tolstoy had executed so. In 2003, it had been 174 years since Tolstoy’s work was first talked about in 1829, however Chaykin grew to become obsessive about making the subsequent one.
October 23, 2003, is subsequently the date Chaykin considers his manufacture having been based – the date he started to work on his personal tourbillon, the Basis Tourbillon Clock.
The ebook describes every of Chaykin’s main innovations and the thought processes and technical challenges that went together with them in vigorous textual content, all of which is accompanied by fascinating pictures clearly mined from Chaykin’s personal archives.
A few of these early clocks, particularly the Amber Coucou (cuckoo) Clock from 2007, is so fascinating trying that it makes me want Chaykin had already begun with the kind of stunning high-res images for it that he affords as press pictures for each watch that he makes right this moment. I do know of hardly one other watchmaker – whether or not particular person maker or massive model – who has such good and plentiful watch images as Chaykin.
What I’m getting at is that I want I may research this clock intimately because it appears to leap out at me from the web page. Alas, I’m certain that Chaykin was not but conscious that he would later want or need such high-res images in 2007. So I have to be content material with what we’ve been given.
This part is so chock-full of enjoyable info I’ve by no means heard earlier than that it’s an unbelievable pleasure to learn, although digging round in Chaykin’s early years was maybe probably the most enjoyable for me.
Konstantin Chaykin Joker
One full part is devoted to Chaykin’s Joker watch, which appeared in 2017 and whose reputation kicked off a full Wristmon line of restricted editions. And the anecdote that Kutkovoy so dexterously tells concerning its creation is indicative of the unusual honesty that I discover many times within the tales: the Joker solely took place as a result of it needed to. An invention out of necessity, it saved Chaykin from sure embarrassment.
“The historical past of the Joker watch started in November 2016 and, accurately in response to the legal guidelines of unexpectedly extraordinary concepts, it occurred by probability,” Kutkovoy’s textual content proclaims. “The speedy impetus for the launch of the Joker was right down to misfortune . . .” So the story begins concerning the watch that solidified Chaykin’s place within the Olympus of impartial watchmakers.
One factor I discovered on this chapter that I’m completely in awe of is that Chaykin’s favourite author can also be my favourite author: Stephen King. It was King’s It and the brand-new 2017 big-screen adaptation that impressed a sure Wristmon (“Monster on the Wrist”) – the Clown – which might develop into the impetus for a long-desired want of Chaykin’s to come back true.
Konstantin Chaykin accepting the Audacity Award on the 2018 GPHG for his Clown/Joker watch
Chaykin and Kutkovoy go on to explain the watchmaker’s historical past with the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, which started in 2013 and solely led to a prize in 2018 due to the Clown, which he had entered into the Petite Aiguille class. I occurred to be on the jury that yr and was so happy to have aided in bringing Chaykin to a well-deserved prize after so a few years of ingenious innovations and coming away empty-handed. We awarded Chaykin the Audacity Prize that yr, a prize solely given on the discretion of the jury. I couldn’t have been prouder to be taught that the discussions had within the jury room had bloomed into that exact fruit as Chaykin’s identify was referred to as and he accepted his award in the identical humble method he does most every thing.
That night, Chaykin, the proud recipient of 85 Russian patents, additionally grew to become the primary Russian watchmaker to ever win a prize on the prestigious Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève.
It is very important perceive – and this ebook superbly brings this message by – that regardless of the inconceivable reputation of the Joker collection, Chaykin is basically about a lot extra. He is without doubt one of the previous souls of horology, an inventor with one of the vital inventive bents I’ve ever seen. And the humility and enterprise acumen to drag his concepts to fruition – and success.
The additional chapters are of gorgeous reference work high quality, displaying and explaining the Moscow manufactory, every caliber Chaykin has invented, and cataloguing all of his timepieces from 2003 onward. The sheer amount of what he has achieved would have lengthy exhausted every other watchmaker.
‘Konstantin Chaykin: Haute Horlogerie, With Russian Soul’
Konstantin Chaykin: Haute Horlogerie, With Russian Soul: ebook high quality
That is a particularly high-quality espresso desk ebook, worthy of the worth it’s being bought for – and never solely as a result of it’s restricted to simply 1,000 copies. It could solely be bought by Chaykin’s personal web site.
Not like most espresso desk books, this exceptionally well-crafted one incorporates an encyclopedia’s price of knowledge and anecdotes, all of which is printed on stunning, fashionable inventory paper with a satin end that’s someplace between shiny and matte and wonderful to the contact.
The 771 illustrations are richly captioned on every web page so that you’re by no means left guessing what you’re looking at.
When it comes to the textual content, there’s nothing left to say however “spectacular.” I by no means doubted for a second that Kutkovoy would write the definitive ebook on Chaykin. However that it’s so nicely translated and copyedited I didn’t count on. It is a big thumbs up. Or ought to I say googly eyes up?
For extra data or to buy, please go to chaykin.ru/store/en/product/konstantin-chaykin-haute-horlogerie-with-russian-soul.
Fast Details Konstantin Chaykin: Haute Horlogerie, With Russian Soul
Writer: Konstantin Chaykin
ISBN: 978-5-901053-83-6
Pages: 384 pages
Illustrations: 771
Binding: hardcover
Format: 244 x 289 mm
Language: English (a Russian version additionally exists)
Limitation: 1,000 copies
Value: €230
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