Mr Santos Dumont’s Jewellery

Over 100 years ago, if you claimed to be a real gentleman, you kept your watch away from the curios eyes. You were satisfied to look at it only when you wanted to know the hour and for the rest of the time you kept it in your pants pocket or waistcoat attached to a chain. The “shame” of having the watch “in sight” seemed hard to bear if you wanted the right attitude because, just as it is today, “a gentleman never hurries”. The only exceptions were the officers and especially the representatives of strictly time-related missions, such as pilots. Just that, also in this case, the pilot was associated with “massive” watches whose common design features did not represent “aesthetic” qualities, as they later became.
For Alberto Santos-Dumont, the situation became bizarre because he was on the border of the two worlds. He came from a very wealthy family in Brazil and had come to live in Paris as a result of efforts to heal his father taking advantage of the progress of medicine in Europe. He had every reason to be an impeccable gentleman and also all the reasons to join the “time-related” missions. In addition to having won the title of “the most coveted bachelor” in Paris, the passion for flying and machinery had turned Alberto into an incurable adventurer. He was not afraid to admit that he was guided by three major principles: Simplicity, Practice, and Innovation. He wanted to fly to get rid of society and to be able to think quietly. And to make his dream come true, he would design more than 22 flight machines, get numerous technological patents and test his own inventions at a time when the safety of the pilots was not yet under discussion.

The full story in MISTERWATCH No. 1 printed June edition 2019.