Credits: Article and images by Wei Koh @ Revolution Watch Magazine. See the original article here - https://revolutionwatch.com/jacob-co-bugatti-tourbillon/
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“I don’t want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.” These words, uttered by one of my favorite characters, Frank Costello (played by Jack Nicholson) in Martin Scorsese’s 2006 film The Departed, could easily have come from Jacob Arabo, a man who, through his sheer force of will, testicular fortitude, unrelenting drive and a flair for larger-than-life design, has created one of the most exciting watch brands on the planet. While other brands make their bones in the rarefied milieu of watch nerd gatherings, Jacob & Co. has over the past years staked its claim and waged its game of horological one-upmanship on the one piece of real estate where it is the undisputed champ: the red carpet.
Whether it’s at the Met Gala, the Academy Awards or innumerable movie premieres, Jacob devotees such as Conor McGregor, Matthew McConaughey and Rihanna can be seen brandishing their Jacob & Co. ticking finery on their wrists or, in the case of Bad Girl Riri, around her neck at the Louis Vuitton show in Paris. And so it seems that Jacob’s environment — that of the world’s biggest stars — is indeed, very genuinely, a product of him. However, all that megawatt glamor belies some very real horological ambitiousness. Not in the traditional, Geneva Seal, swan-neck regulator, cloisonné enamel sense, but by blazing his own path, which I can only say is pushing complications into all-new unexplored directions, yielding watches that are objects of fantasy with a unique contemporary machine-art edge.
Nowhere is Jacob’s horological drive more apparent than in his collaboration with supercar maker Bugatti, which has resulted in the mind-bending Chiron Tourbillon that features a W-shaped engine-block automaton.
Now, automatons are usually figurines ranging from butterflies to couples caught up in connubial activities and are, in general, whimsical and somewhat backward looking. It was Jacob who first turned the entire concept of automatons on its head by creating a miniature transparent sapphire crystal replica of a Bugatti W16 engine that would ignite into action at the owner’s command. It was, in concept, totally genre defying. It was, in execution, pretty damn visually spectacular. Perhaps most importantly, it was a watch related to a supercar brand that brought a level of ambitiousness and a sense of connection that was truly purposeful.
Credits: Article and images by Wei Koh @ Revolution Watch Magazine. See the original article here - https://revolutionwatch.com/jacob-co-bugatti-tourbillon/