A trip to Northern Italy to explore the past, present, and future of its influence on watches.âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ âÍ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â [Hodinkee]( [Hodinkee Magazine]( â Magazine Feature | The Italian Influence In the 1970s, if you told someone you collected watches, theyâd assume you meant clocks or pocket watches. Show up at a âWatches & Clocksâ auction at Sothebyâs through the early â80s, and clocks wouldâve vastly outnumbered watches in the catalog. Instead, a staid, tight-knit community of collectors pored over historical pocket watches, emphasizing precision and complications. But the Italians were coming. â [Hodinkee Magazine]( â Perhaps Audemars Piguet developing the avant-garde Royal Oak at the request of its Italian distributor in 1972 was the first real sign. Soon after, Milanese Osvaldo Patrizzi co-founded Galerie d'Horlogerie Ancienne (now Antiquorum), the first auction house to focus on wristwatches. Before long, Italian dealers were heading to other countries, often the United States, to gobble up some of the most important vintage Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and Rolex watches ever made. Thanks to an economic boom in Italy in the late â80s, when Italy briefly became the sixth richest country in the world, an entire generation of wealthy business owners were looking for stylish ways to spend their lira. Theyâd buy up old tool watches and put them on leather straps just because they looked cool. The most famous purveyor of such sprezzatura may have been Gianni Agnelli, former head of Fiat and once the wealthiest man in modern Italian history. Over his shirt cuff, heâd strap a watch, often his beastly Omega Ploprof. â [Magazine Feature]( â When these rakes saw an image of Paul Newman wearing a once-unsellable exotic dial Daytona Cosmograph on a bund strap, they saw one of their own. Today, nicknames developed by the Italians during this time â Sophia Loren, Freccione, Padellone, and most importantly, the Paul Newman â are printed in auction catalogs as if gospel. Watches told time, but for the Italians, the watch culture they created was never about telling time. â [Read More On Hodinkee]( â [Hodinkee Magazine]( â [( [( [( [Custom]( This email was sent to: {EMAIL}
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