The Impossible Collection of Watches

For this update to the 2014 original edition, British historian and journalist Nicholas Foulkes has selected the 100 breakthrough timepieces developed since the advent of the twentieth century, weighing the virtues of rarity, costliness, innovative functions, historical importance, grand provenance and pleasing design. The watch—a microcosm of hundreds of minute components interacting harmoniously with each other and bound within a case of precious metal—has the power to awaken emotions, excite the imagination and inspire the same passion as great art. Beautiful timepieces invite us to join a story, and the narrative that these 100 examples unfold is that of one of the most exciting and dynamic periods in human history.
These miniature machines reflect the twentieth and twenty-first centuries’ incredible technological advances and social changes, from the invention of the airplane to the effects of two world wars to the advent of space exploration and the dawn of the digital age. Featuring illustrious names such as Audemars Piguet, Cartier, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Richard Mille, Rolex and Vacheron Constantin, these 100 timepieces include new additions like the 1925 Patek Philippe Ref. 97975, the earliest known perpetual calendar wristwatch, the 2014 Van Cleef & Arpels Midnight Planétarium and the 2022 Jacob & Co. Opera Godfather Musical Watch. This handcrafted Ultimate Collection volume features hand-tipped images and is presented in a luxury clamshell case.

Complimentary white gloves and a signature canvas tote bag are included with each purchase from Assouline's Ultimate Collection

About The Author:

Author, historian and journalist Nicholas Foulkes is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair, Financial Times How to Spend It, GQ and The Rake magazine. Best known for his trilogy of nineteenth-century British histories, Last of the Dandies, Dancing into Battle, and Gentlemen and Blackguards, he has published around thirty books on history, the arts and style. Among his recent works are a biography of the painter Bernard Buffet (Random House), a biography of Princess Ira von Fürstenberg (Harper Collins) and Time Tamed, a history of humankind’s calibration of time from the Paleolithic era to the moon landings (Simon & Schuster). His books for Assouline include Bals: Legendary Costume Balls of the Twentieth Century (2011), Swans: Legends of the Jet Society (2013) and Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso (2020).