From Andy Warhol to Keith Haring, artists have been designing wristwatches with scant regard to horological memes. In every case, the watch has merely been a canvas, as with Warhol’s Manhattan photographs or Haring’s graffiti. For Bryan Ferry, art college-trained in painting and sculpture but known best as a musician, his collaboration with H. Moser & Cie was far more fundamental.
What Ferry created – with no experience in the design of watches nor an obsessive interest in watch history, but using his own sense of aesthetic correctness – was a perfect dial for a pocket watch circa 1905, adorned with his own choice of hands, colour details and font, as well as the strap. Its debut at SIHH was a triumph, and Revolution was privileged to meet with Ferry and Edouard Meylan, CEO of H. Moser & Cie, at the Salon.
Meylan was already familiar with Ferry’s work, both as a member of Roxy Music and through his 15 solo albums. “When we met,” Meylan says, “I was touched by his passionate character, by his enthusiasm and interest in everything. Watchmaking obviously fascinates him.”
Ferry explains that: “We had a mutual friend in Michael Moszynski of London Advertising Ltd. Moser is one of his clients.” Meylan adds: “Michael was the man behind a very unusual visual concept for us. He thought we would get on and so he introduced us to Bryan.”