Frozen in time: The craze for classic watches - as clocked by their foremost chronicler

A new book by Clement Mazarian explores the enduring human drive to seek out the finest models

The steel Submariner Milsub Rolex, made for the British Royal Navy. Photo: Christies

The stock car driving lessons that Paul Newman took to prepare for the lead role in the 1969 film Winning ignited a passion for motorsport that became a big part of the actor's hypnotic charisma.

Less keen on Newman's penchant for speed was his wife, Joanne Woodward, who after watching her co-star hurtling around the racing circuit bought him a Rolex Daytona engraved on the back with the words "DRIVE CAREFULLY".

The legendary timepiece – featuring three black dials on a cream-coloured face encased in a stainless steel rim – radiates coolness, just like its late owner, and was a constant companion in magazine photoshoots. So synonymous was it with the Hollywood idol that the watch became known as the Paul Newman Daytona.

“It is the most expensive watch in the world because of Paul Newman,” Clement Mazarian, 35, a renowned expert and author of a new book on collectors' timepieces, tells The National. “I love the history of watches and the Rolex Daytona has a special history for collectors.”

When it went on sale at Phillips auction house in 2017, the lot was expected to fetch around $1 million, but as the hammer came down, an unnamed collector had bid a world record $17.8 million.

It’s fitting then that Newman’s Rolex Daytona adorns the front and back covers of Mazarian's Exceptional Watches, which was published this week and is devoted to the stories and inner workings of 90 era-defining models, from the early 1900s to the present day. He laments that none of the watches belongs to him, but says the book documents his dream collection.

The timepieces that grace the pages are actually owned by collectors or dealers who are friends of Mazarian, each showcased with intimate photographs by still-life specialist Henry Leutwyler that also reveal the exquisite craftsmanship.

The selection for what is halfway between an art book and a book on watchmaking reflects a love that began aged 14 when Mazarian's grandfather gave him an Omega.

“I didn’t understand why I loved this watch but I began to study watchmaking, on internet forums and online, while my friends were collecting Pokemons,” he says.

Years later, Mazarian turned to collecting and selling watches when failing his university law exams made him “the bad guy in the family” in the eyes of his lawyer parents.

The introduction of his new volume acquaints readers with Mahatma Gandhi’s Zenith Vox alarm pocket watch and the role it played in the ascetic lifestyle of the Indian lawyer and social activist. Despite eschewing worldly goods, he nevertheless cherished and relied on the watch to maintain his routine, which involved rising at 4am.

Readers are then guided through milestones such as the first wristwatch, a Cartier made in 1904 for the pioneering aviator Alberto Santos-Dumont, one of the many timepieces that have had a prominent role in extraordinary human adventures, and the Hamilton Pulsar, the first digital watch with an LED display, which went on sale in 1972.

Buzz Aldrin will always be known as the second man to set foot on the lunar surface, but the Omega Speedmaster he was wearing was the first watch to arrive on the Moon, on July 21, 1969. The man whose shadow he has lived in, Neil Armstrong, had left his in the command module.

Testing on climbers taking part in the pioneering Himalayan expeditions of the 1950s helped with the development of the Rolex Explorer. Sherpa Tenzing Norgay was wearing a Rolex when he stood atop Mount Everest.

A Rolex Submariner accompanied explorers Auguste and Jacques Piccard on their descent to the Mariana Trench, 10,916m beneath the ocean's surface and the deepest point on the planet.

The aesthetic nature of watches is encapsulated in the shape of the 1968 Patek Philippe Golden Ellipse, the design of which is inspired by the mathematical principle of the “golden mean”. This ancient Greek formula is at the root of some of the greatest works of art and architecture in history.

There’s a bit of light relief at the outset of Mazarian's exploration because he has particular affection for a watch produced by Ingersoll in 1933 after securing the rights from Walt Disney to use the image of a character recognised by 98 per cent of American children - more, the author says, than Father Christmas. Five million were eventually sold.

“I decided to have some fun and that's why I started the book with a Mickey Mouse watch. It is not a watch that made history, but, for me, the Mickey Mouse watch is cute and everyone had a Mickey watch at the time.”

In the book that often feels like a history of the world told through 90 timepieces, Mazarian makes reference to the complex personal life of President John F Kennedy, secret at the time but chronicled after his assassination in 1963.

A Rolex Oyster Perpetual Day-Date was said to have been given to Kennedy by his purported mistress Marilyn Monroe, engraved on the back with "JACK With love as always from MARILYN May 29th 1962", the day she famously sang Happy Birthday, Mr President. It’s a great story but Mazarian points out that the serial number indicates it was made after both had died.

“What I love is history and legend in watchmaking but it’s like in the famous stories of the Westerns – sometimes I prefer the legend,” Mazarian says.

What is true, though, is that Kennedy's wife, Jackie, an enduring style icon, favoured a Cartier Tank LC that is also featured in the book, as did the French actress and film producer Catherine Deneuve, former US First Lady Michelle Obama, and Diana, Princes of Wales, who owned two.

Despite its glamorous associations, the fact that its square design was inspired by the First World War Renault FT-17 battle tank perhaps sums up the combination of the beauty and the mechanical in many of the watches selected by Mazarian.

The book comes at a time when the decorative value of watches and their popularity among collectors is on the rise, while their utility for telling the time has been diminished by the ubiquity of smartphones.

Gangs of “Rolex rippers” who have been terrorising luxury watch owners in London have been incentivised by a global market in pre-owned watches that consultants Deloitte say is predicted to grow to $40 billion.

“Humanity has always been interested in time and it’s part of our lives, but everyone now has an iPhone so they can see the time.

“So we are asking more of a watch. Yes, we want the time but we want something else. It’s like clothes – the first clothes were to be worn but now we want nice tailoring. I think that historic timepieces, if they are in good condition, will always find someone to buy them.”

While watches “can be considered art”, Mazarian says “you can never forget the mechanical parts”. In fact, the movements of watches, the synchronised elegance of which invariably lies hidden in day-to-day life, are laid bare in the book with detailed exploded illustrations that punctuate the photographs.

At the heart is the main plate on which the gears and other moving parts are anchored, transmitting energy to the hands. The shape and configuration drives the movement and Mazarian explains that experts, or the most well-informed collectors, can immediately recognise a make just by looking at the inner workings.

Of course, not all 90 watches contained moving parts. The electronic Hamilton Pulsar, for example, made use of the latest innovations of its time with 44 chips, an integrated circuit and 4,000 connecting wires. It was an immediate success.

Mazarian spent several years working as a watch dealer, travelling the world in search of the finest timepieces, and now sells them to private clients internationally through his company, Collection Personelle.

Asked which watch he chooses to wear, he names the Rolex Submariner 5513, first introduced in the early Sixties and among the brand's many models popularised by James Bond.

“When I started to be passionate about vintage watches, I did not have a lot of money to buy expensive watches. I said to myself, ‘One day you will have a 5513.’ For me, it is the vintage watch.”

'Exceptional Watches: From the Rolex Daytona to the Casio G-Shock, 90 rare and collectible watches explored' (Octopus Publishing Group, £50), written by Clement Mazarian with photography by Henry Leutwyler, is available in hardback now.