If you’re showing your new watch to a #watchnerd (yes, it’s a thing), the first thing they’ll do, instead of admiring the dial, is to turn it over. To pass muster with these #snobs (not so much of a thing), a “proper” watch will be powered by a mechanical movement and they’ll know because it will usually be displayed through a clear caseback – much like a Ferrari’s mid-mounted V8 engine, growling through its glass cowling. Now, imagine you had Ferrari designing a Hublot watch…

A mechanical movement is a beguiling thing to behold as well as listen to, ticking away at 28,800 vibrations per hour. It’s hundred-odd tiny parts are all machined laboriously and precisely from steel or brass, polished to varying degrees of shimmer and shine, then hand-assembled by one of the world’s most skilled workforces in light-drenched mountain-top ateliers.

There’s romance, heritage and eternity all to be found in a Swiss movement’s constellation of parts – its wheels, cogs, springs and levers squeezed into a space the size of a five-franc coin. A joyous anachronism in this digital world. But such precise micro-engineering comes at a price. If you can’t afford it, or simply don’t care for mechanics, have no fear – there’s no shame in a quartz movement, despite what those snobs tell you. Quartz will only lose a minute a year, and will never need to be wound up (until the battery runs out of course). It’s also darned clever in its own right, with more and more of its own rose-tinted heritage.

Automatic for the People

An automatic mechanical movement is the most common, fitted with an off-kilter weight, or “rotor” that swings with the movement of your arm and keeps the winding barrel tightly wound. The winding spring powers a gear train to which hours, minutes and seconds hands are attached. The movement of the geartrain is regulated by the ticking “escapement” at the other end.

Read the Manual

Manually wound mechanical movements are increasingly popular, as the lack of rotor permits a clearer view into that mesmerising constellation of moving parts.

Battery Included

Quartz technology was first reduced to the size of a wristwatch as recently as the Sixties, using the 32kHz vibration of the crystal when a current passes through to regulate the “tick” of a watch – the infinitely more precise equivalent of the 4Hz oscillating balance wheel ticking in a mechanical movement.