Jack Forster’s review of the Mikrogirder 2000, The World Fastest Chronograph Prototype from Tag Heuer

The remarkable work of Dutch artist M. C. Escher has been a subject of fascination for art lovers and mathematicians alike for many decades. (One of the most intriguing results of his work is the enormous Pulitzer Prize winning book by Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, a Pulitzer Prize winning magnum opus that interrelates Escher’s work with Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, and with J. S. Bach’s fugues, all of which are self-referential in structure.)

We’re just back from one of the central events of the watch lover’s (and watch journalist’s) year: the Salon International Haute Horlogerie in Geneva, where luxury watch brands under the aegis of the Richemont Group (as well as a few other brands that prefer the relative calm of the SIHH to the rugby-scrum hurly-burly of the Other Watch Fair, BaselWorld) show what’s new and (we hope) exciting for 2012.

As every keen watch enthusiast knows, this year marks an important anniversary in the history of both watchmaking, and a small, independent, family-owned company based in Le Brassus, Switzerland, known as Audemars Piguet.

There are any number of pilot’s watches being made around the world. Far fewer are those that are actually made by pilots, for pilots.

It’s the most recognizable of all haute horlogerie complications –the tourbillon (French for “whirlwind,” first invented in 1801 by that most renowned of watchmakers, A. L. Breguet, is immediately identifiable thanks to the rotating cage which its proud creators generally allow the equally proud owner to view through an opening in the dial.

The extra flat watch is enjoying something of a comeback this year, driven both by the explosion of a market that prefers thin, classically styled watches –China, we’re looking at you –and by a growing appreciation for watches that embody some of the classical expertise in watchmaking connoisseurs have always craved and that a wider audience is finally starting to appreciate.

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The word “iconic” gets tossed around a lot these days (especially in the watch world) so it’s always great to find a watch that really merits the epithet. The Royal Oak was, when it was introduced in 1972, a glove thrown down to the entire watch industry: a stainless steel watch, finished as lavishly as if it were platinum or white gold, with a groundbreaking design that totally integrated the watch case and bracelet, and a signature octagonal bezel modeled after a ship’s porthole that echoed the watch’s proud nautical name.