Watch special 2022 |
“Welcome to the ice cave, right in the middle of the Mer de Glace,” begins Laurent Lecamp. The managing director of Montblanc’s watch division is almost shouting to be heard as he braves a tempestuous wind and ice spray. The largest glacier in France, the ‘sea of ice’ is 7 km long and 200 m deep and is located in the Chamonix valley, where some of the world’s famous mountaineers mastered ice walking. Which brings us back to Lecamp’s storytelling — months ahead of Watches & Wonders, he chose this location to talk about his debut collection at Montblanc since taking over as watch head.
It is also the perfect backdrop for the passing of the baton from legendary mountain climber Reinhold Messner to mountaineer Nimsdai Purja. Messner was one of the first to climb Mount Everest without the assistance of supplementary oxygen in 1978, and in 2020, Montblanc created the 1858 Geosphere in his honour. Meanwhile, among the watches launched at Watches & Wonders last week is the 1858 Geosphere Zero Oxygen watch. This May it will be tested by mountaineer Nimsdai Purja in an ascent of Mount Everest, again, without supplemental oxygen.
