Watches, Stories, and Gear: The Decade in Photographs, a Smart Clock with Style, the Artemis Mission, and Much More

“Watches, Stories, and Gear” is a roundup of some of our favorite watch content on Worn & Wound, great stories from around the web, and cool gear that we’ve got our eye on.

This installment of “Watches, Stories, and Gear” is brought to you by the Windup Watch Shop.

Worn & Wound
Rewriting Horological History: London Watchmaking, Swiss Forgeries, and the Advent of Mass Production

For many, this weekend marks the start of a long holiday break, so we’ll begin with one of our favorite long reads from the Worn & Wound archive. This story about horological researcher Rebecca Struthers and her incredible discovery of how Swiss made fakes of English watches shifted the watch world’s perspective on when, exactly, mass production in watchmaking really began is one of our favorites from the last few years.

Read the full story here.

NASA
The Artemis Mission 

Vice
The Best Optical Illusion of the Year Will Mess With Your Head

Did you know that every year, the Neural Correlate Society sponsors a contest to name the world’s best optical illusion? Well, now you do. And this article from Vice goes into how this year’s winner was created, and includes a video of the illusion. If at first it doesn’t seem like much is happening, just give it about 30 seconds – I think you’ll be impressed with the creativity that went into making this.

Read the full story here.

The New York Times
The Decade in Pictures

The New York Times has unveiled their collection of the most significant photos of the decade. This is one that’s worth taking your time and browsing through slowly. The imagery is unforgettable, and will surely cause you to reflect over everything that’s happened in a decade that was, as they all are, tumultuous, wonderful, tragic, and beautiful,

Read the full story here.

Vulture
The 40 Best Christmas Movies of All Time

This being the last Watches, Stories, and Gear Column before Christmas, we’d be remiss if we didn’t share this thorough examination of the 40 best Christmas movies of all time. There are some real gems here, and probably the start of a good debate about placement, as well (are there really 25 better Christmas movies than Elf?). But, to answer the questions that likely popped to mind immediately: Yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie, and yes, it appears in the top 10 of this list.

Read the full story here.

The Verge
Citizen Smart Clock

Smart devices are everywhere, and Amazon’s Echo platform is one of the leaders in the segment. While here at Worn & Wound, we may never fully embrace the smart watch (at least at the expense of something more old fashioned), I think we can all get on board with a more attractive, classically styled smart clock. That’s what Citizen is offering here, with an Alexa-enabled wall hanging clock that looks just like any other (very nice) Citizen clock that isn’t connected to the world wide web. It’s a definite step up in style over the Amazon branded version, and proves that getting connected doesn’t mean sacrificing good design. 

Read the full story here.

Peak Design
Travel Tripod

If you’re a photographer on the go, you’ve probably experimented with all kinds of travel tripod solutions. There always seems to be a compromise – either they’re too big and bulk to be truly portable, or they’re so light and flimsy you think twice about pairing them them with your pricey gear. Peak Design’s Travel Tripod might be the solution you’ve been after. It’s made with high quality materials and has been engineered to do away with the negative space found in conventional travel tripods, providing an intuitive and elegant solution that will have you wondering why nobody had thought of this before.

Shop Peak Design here.