Credits: Article and images by @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2024/01/18/a-collectors-view-old-school-by-massena-lab-and-luca-soprana-reprise/
————————————————————————————————
Before we leave the movement, I think it’s useful to shed some light on its origins. If like me you’ve read various articles written at the time of the Old School’s launch last fall, you’ll have seen various assertions and speculations about where Caliber LS-01 comes from, including suggestions that it is fully built up from a pocket watch ébauche.
When I corresponded with Soprana, he characterized the Old School as “a real school watch: that means an ébauche-based piece where the watchmaker makes many of the components” including in this case pivots, balance staff, chatons, and more. His estimate is that the finished watch includes 50 percent components developed and made at his atelier in Vaumarcus and 50 percent integrated, adjusted, and finely finished 1920s-era watch components.
In hand and on the wrist
If you do much watch photography, you quickly learn that there are some watches that look best in the diffuse yet directional light of the light tent and that others really hit their stride in direct light, whether indoors or out.
While I was quite pleased with how the Old School looked in studio conditions, a quick stroll into the back garden provided another, quite happy perspective.
This is a watch that comes to life on the wrist: as seen in the photo above, taken in dappled sunlight under the canopy of trees reflected in the crystal, the gold frosting shimmers, rhodium areas sparkle, and hands pop.
Direct light also makes the midnight-blue enamel filling the indices more evident, making the dial a bit livelier and linking dial and hands more directly than is easily seen in subdued light.
Direct light also plays beautifully off the deep vertical brushing of the case band, a bonus for anyone who happens to catch a glimpse of this watch as it sneaks out from under the cuff.
Back inside, I flipped the watch over in bright office lighting and was so impressed by the vivid look that I grabbed an impromptu phone camera shot – perhaps not the most technically pleasing image, but one that I hope gives a sense of how the movement finishing catches and throws light.
————————————————————————————————
Credits: Article and images by @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2024/01/18/a-collectors-view-old-school-by-massena-lab-and-luca-soprana-reprise/