Watches

The view from my top floor room at the Steigenberger Hotel de Saxe looked out at the great dome of the Frauenkirche. It’s a huge Baroque church in the center of Dresden; I first saw the building on foot, when failing to find a local restaurant on my first night there. I turned a corner to see it towering above me. It looks like it’s always been there, but the original was destroyed in 1945, under the infamous British firebombing, and reconstruction only finished in 2005. I was eventually directed to the restaurant, past the Oktoberfest stands that began sprouting up during my visit in late September. However beautiful the town, I was not here for “Florence on the Elbe” and its grand buildings, but for smaller, more delicate wonders from a nearby town. And so, at 8 a.m.

Over the last four years, one of the biggest trends in watch collecting has been the rise of the “independents” — the independent watchmakers with eponymous brands like Philippe Dufour, F.P. Journe, Roger Smith, as well as the new kids on the block like Rexhep and Xhevdet Rexhepi and my friends Petermann Bédat. These independent watchmakers typically have years of experience working for other watch companies such as Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and A. Lange & Söhne before starting their own brands.