Credits: Article and images by Ian Skellern @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2023/11/20/must-see-for-everyone-horological-neophytes-all-industry-professionals-including-marketing-communication-admin-and-press-this-talk-by-stephen-mcdonnell-is-for-you-dont-miss-th/
2023 is my sixth Dubai Watch Week and one of the highlights of the fair (the best on earth by far) is the Horological Forums, which range from discussion panels, interviews, debates, watch presentations, and personal life stories, to just plain fun.
I estimate I’ve seen – and have personally moderated 10 of them – around 80 of these ‘events’, and many have been very, very, good: either. But at the 2023 fair, I saw one that just blew me away (and I’m a jaded old industry veteran).
Stephen McDonnell at Dubai Watch Week 2023
It was a presentation by Irish movement constructor Stephen McDonnell, who among his many other accomplishments created the movements for the MB&F Legacy Machine Perpetual, which won the prize for Best Calendar Watch in 2016, and the MB&F LM Sequential EVO Dual Chronograph, which took the GPHG’s top prize, the Aiguille d’Or, in 2022.
In his presentation, McDonnell walked us through how he developed the movement for the MB&F sequential from the first sketch to the finished watch. And if you think that’s something you are unlikely to find interesting, let alone compelling . . . trust me, you are wrong.
I know McDonnell, I have interviewed McDonnell for many hours, I wrote the press release for the MB&F Perpetual, and I thought I had a pretty good idea of what goes into developing a complicated movement, and I arrogantly/conceitedly/naively (take your pick, there are no wrong answers) thought that I had a pretty good idea of what he would say. I couldn’t be more wrong.
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Credits: Article and images by Ian Skellern @ Quill & Pad. See the original article here - https://quillandpad.com/2023/11/20/must-see-for-everyone-horological-neophytes-all-industry-professionals-including-marketing-communication-admin-and-press-this-talk-by-stephen-mcdonnell-is-for-you-dont-miss-th/
