Döttling, the German maker of exceptionally lavish watch storage boxes, has just announced a pair of limited edition Colosimo safes. 

Named after an American gangster, these are miniature, desk top safes designed to keep a handful of watches, or three watches on a winder as pictured below. This is the smallest item Döttling makes; the largest is outfitting an entire room.

The safe with the quilted leather exterior is the Mies, obviously inspired by the Barcelona chair of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. And the other safe is the Spike, for obvious reasons. Both are a limited edition of 20 pieces. – SJX

It’s unusual for a high horology independent watchmaker to create a ladies watch, which is why the new 2-Eight from Kari Voutilainen is notable. Admittedly it still looks fairly masculine; its most feminine element is the mother of pearl dial centre.

The design retains all the archetypal Voutilainen design elements like the hands and numerals. Because it’s cleaner without overly elaborate guilloche, I actually like this dial more than most of the Vingt-8 dials. Incidentally both 2-Eight and Vingt-8 mean the same thing, “28”.  Case diameter is 37 mm, compared to the 42 mm of the Vingt-8. But the calibre clearly fits better in the smaller case of the 2-Eight, as the photo below demonstrates.

They use the same in-house movement with an oversized balance wheel and an unusual direct impulse escapement. The calibre, which has German silver bridges, is wonderfully finished, as these photos testify.

With the internet, even those with zero horological knowledge can discovering lots about a watch. And so it was that Patriarch Kirill I of the Russian Orthodox Church was spotted wearing an embarrassing $30,000 Breguet, as The New York Times just reported. I can’t figure out the model from the photos online, but someone has clearly been scrutinising the high-resolution version of the photo. The problem of the pricey watch was compounded by the fact that the Patriarch’s minders digitally removed the watch from the photo (but forgot to remove the reflection of it in the table surface), before restoring it after a public outcry.

– SJX

Patriarch Kirill I at right Photo courtesy of patriarchia.ru