The 8th Edition of TEMPORIS GALA AWARDS took place at Athenee Palace Hilton in Bucharest, Romania, on 16th of May, with the status of leading Gala dedicated to watch industry. With this unique occasion, TEMPORIS magazine celebrated 12th Anniversary!
This year, the International Jury of TEMPORIS chose from a number of hundreds of watches, no less than 78 nominations for 13 categories. For the 2019 edition, these 13 categories have been enriched with a new one: TEMPORIS Best Sapphire Case.
After the complex selection process performed by the Jury, a relevant number of people passionate of watches took part on the voting process on www.temporis.ro.
The number of the jury members has increased to 17. TEMPORIS is proud to welcome master watchmaker Romain Gauthier and watch journalist Serdar Oal among the members. There are currently 14 countries represented in this jury.
During the Gala, we had the honor to share the greetings received from important names of the industry. We also had the great pleasure to induct in the globally unique
`TEMPORIS Hall of Fame` 4 big names in the industry: Laurent Ferrier, Anthony de Haas (A. Lange & Sohne), Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei (Urwerk). With this 4 new inductees, TEMPORIS Hall of Fame reached 26 members, as a new proof that is really representing the one and only international gallery of the best master watchmakers, designers and inventors in haute horlogerie! THOF become the ultimate recognition, the Oscar for the best professionals we owe the best pieces in HH. In the last 8 years, all these personalities visited Bucharest and participated to the TEMPORIS Awards Gala.
Both TEMPORIS Awards and THOF been established by Dan Vardie, the Founder of TEMPORIS media and TEMPORIS International Jury
Laurent Ferrier – “Thank you very much! I have to thank Dan and his entire team, you’ve done a great job. Dan is an excellent ambassador of haute horlogerie. It’s not easy to make a unique piece from a watch, as he also mentioned. I thank my team and my son, Christian, who is also my office colleague. He is deeply involved and creates wonderful things, although is not easy. But we hope that, for many year to come, to succeed in creating unique pieces. I also hope that this evening is not the last one of this event series. Thank you all!”
Anthony de Haas – “Thank you, I’m very honored and a bit surprised because I’m working for a brand as an employee, but a very special brand, a brand which is quite easy to fall in love with, especially if you have been in the factory and felt the passion. Now I’m standing here and I can only say that I thank you all!”
Felix Baumgartner – “Thank you very much for the honor, it’s very touching to be here at this nice event at this colorful place in Bucharest. I appreciate how you put value to our small industry in Switzerland. It’s touching. As you said, Dan, I come from a third generation watchmakers family, it’s very important for me that watchmaking can still continue today and that we can express ourselves through our work in watchmaking. So, it’s really touching to get this special honor. Thank you very much!”
Martin Frei – “Thank you all for this honor! I know that you want to hear the story of our watch which end up at the wrist of Iron Man after a spam email. It’s a very interesting and funny one. The email was found by our colleague Yacine. She was deleting the messages, one after the other and she saw this message from Marvel, they were asking if one of our watches was available. That’s how it started the relation with Robert Downey Jr., who is a watch collector. That’s a cool thing for us, that he wanted our watch for his film and it’s an advertising that didn’t cost us anything.”
Awards of 2019:
· TEMPORIS Watch of the Year 2019 – A. Lange & Sohne Datograph Perpetual Tourbillon.
Anthony de Haas, Director of Product Development at A. Lange & Sohne, said on the stage: “A big thank you to the jury and I’m very honored and happy to be finally made it, Dan. You have been pulling me I think 3 or 4 years to come over here and since I’m such a shy person, I needed this year to convince myself to come over here. And, to win the prize, I must say it’s for all the members of the team, a big thank you, it means a lot for us and the first thing I will do on Monday is share the prize with my team.”.
On his term Wilhelm SCHMID, CEO Lange & Sohne sent his personal message: “Dear Dan, thank you very much for the great news and it makes as all very happy and proud to have been awarded. “
· TEMPORIS Best Everyday Man’s Watch 2019 – IWC Pilots Watch Chronograph Top Gun Edition Mojave desert
“Thank you very much for this brilliant news!“ – Stefan Ihnen, Associate Director Research & Development, IWC Schaffhausen
· Best Everyday Lady’s Watch – OMEGA Constellation Manhattan
“A big thank you for this news. We’re thrilled that OMEGA’s Constellation won this important ladies’ category.“ – Raynald Aeschlimann, CEO Omega.
· TEMPORIS Best Holidays Man’s Watch – Seiko Prospex Sea
- TEMPORIS Best Electric Boy’s Watch – Seiko Astron SSH023j1 (Limited 1500 pcs)
“It is an honor …. I´m speechless… Thank you very much for these great and unbelievable news. We are more than pleased to hear that we won in two categories of the Temporis Awards. Please receive our deepest gratitude.“ – Patricio Testart, Marketing & Sales Manager Export Seiko
· TEMPORIS Best Bargain 2019 – Carl F. Bucherer Heritage BiCompax Annual Calendar
Mr. Sascha Moeri – CEO Carl F. Bucherer: “Receiving the TEMPORIS award in the category “Best bargain watch 2019” is a true honor for Carl F. Bucherer, and a wonderful appreciation of our commitment to always offer the most value for money. We make our timepieces for watch enthusiast that care more about spirit and values than status and prestige. Thus our guiding principle is to offer our clients unique design, useful functions,
outstanding mechanics, and utter precision at a very fair and competitive price. I would like to thank the jury as well as all the TEMPORIS readers for valuing our work and voting for our Heritage Bicompax Annual. It means a lot!”.
· TEMPORIS Bad Boy’s Watch 2019 – Urwerk UR111C
Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei, owners of Urwerk brand: “Thank you for believing in us to still have the age to be Bad Boys. I was very lucky last year to be invited to the birthday anniversary party of Philippe Dufour and I was sitting in front of Dan Vardie. It was an extremely interesting event. At the dinner we had an interesting conversation about watchmaking and I felt the power and energy which is incredible on Dan’s side. I’m wondering after that, Dan, what do you eat every day that you have such powerful energy? Thank you all very much!”.
- The `Jury Watch of the Year 2019` – for this prize the voting is made exclusively by the Jury members – Zenith Inventor,
· TEMPORIS Best Holiday Lady’s Watch 2019 – Hublot One click Marc Ferrero Turquoise
- TEMPORIS Best Electric Boy’s Watch 2019 – Tag Heuer Carrera Quartz
- TEMPORIS Best Smartwatch 2019 – TAG Heuer Connected Modular Golf Edition “Thank you dear Dan and I’m very pleased to hear about all the awards for our brands!“ –
Jean-Claude Biver, Chairman LVMH watch division
“Thank you very much for these very good news and we’d like to thank your international jury for such distinctions regarding our brands.” – Stéphane Bianchi, CEO TAG Heur & LVMH watch division
· TEMPORIS Best Sapphire Case – Girard-Perregaux Quasar
- TEMPORIS Red Carpet Lady’s Watch – Roger Dubuis Exacalibur Shooting Star Flying Tourbillion
· Temporis Best Complication Watch – Jaeger-LeCoultre Hybris Mechanica Master Grande Tradition Cyrotourbillion Westminister Perpetuel
“Thank you so much for the news. We are really happy and proud to be the winner of the Best Complication Watch of 2019 with the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Grande Tradition Gyrotourbillion Westminister Perpetuel” – Jenny WOHLFARTH – PR Manager Jaeger-LeCoultre
