Harry Winston
Z-Factor – Harry Winston’s Project Z
Harry Winston
Z-Factor – Harry Winston’s Project Z
Zalium was developed by Ronald Winston, son of the founder of the House of Harry Winston. Ronald was an accomplished chemical engineer and shared his father’s keen intuition for being able to identify great diamonds apart from good ones.
As a chemical engineer, he was initially working as a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where his focus was rocket propellants. It is there that he became an expert on the subject matter of zirconium alloys, which are commonly used in jet and rocket engines. It is known that the metal and its alloys tend to be able to retain its material within the sort of engines that Ronald would have been working on.
But knowledge of physical and chemical properties aside, it is only someone with an upbringing the likes of Ronald Winston’s, who would have been able to put two and two together to realize that the material therefore presented the possibility to create robust wristwatches. Upon further study it was determined that zirconium is also non-reactive and hypo-allergenic, which is why it is also used in surgical implants and instruments; it’s harder than titanium and almost as light. Ronald Winston also noticed that the metal had a certain sheen that would be desirable on wristwatches. So, there was a decision made to amplify this by forming a compound with aluminum, and thus we have Zalium, a proprietary alloy belonging to the House of Harry Winston.
Project Z1
In this manner, Harry Winston set itself a pace to release one new Project Z timepiece annually, progressing the entire narrative. But, of course, it was the Project Z1 that set the tone for everything else that was to come.
Project Z2
Project Z3
Project Z4
Project Z5
Project Z6
It’s not fully known why the Project Z was given a hiatus at this point, with no additions made to the collection from 2011 into 2013. Eventually, when the next chapter was launched, it was 2014 and was called the Project Z8. It most likely had to do with the fact that the company was acquired by Swatch Group in 2013, but still no publicly known reason for why three years and the Z7 was skipped.
Project Z8
Project Z9
Project Z10
Project Z11
Project Z12
Project Z13
Project Z14
Project Z15
Fourteen chapters in, and with a relatively regular release schedule, the Project Z endeavor of Harry Winston’s has been on a great trajectory with a very solid identity established to date, beyond just the use of the proprietary alloy a proprietary alloy, Zalium. Therein, while the House has not yet said that there is an end in sight for Project Z, we can surely expect Project Z16 in the coming year.