What is the Pink Dial Project?

You’ve probably read by now that Revolution and The Rake have partnered with Time+Tide, Fratello Watches, The Eye of Jewelry and Loupe This to create a charity auction this October named Pink Dial Project benefitting breast cancer charities. The idea was simple. It was to ask our favorite watch brands if they would make a pièce unique watch with a pink dial, which we would auction online on our friend Eric Ku’s new platform, Loupe This, with 100 percent of the proceeds donated to selected breast cancer charities.

Read the initial announcement, here.

The Pink Dial Project
Our partners who have made the Pink Dial Project a reality

The first thing I want to say is that I was absolutely blown away by the generosity and sheer creative brilliance of our partner brands. And I want to say a big thank you to my great friends Jean-Christophe Babin, Fabrizio Buonamassa and Antoine Pin of Bvlgari who have created a stunning unique Octo Finissimo in black with a pink sub-seconds track and seconds hand. In particular, I love the subtlety and elegance with which Buonamassa has integrated our theme into this watch that has become one of the new icons of our era.

Bulgari’s CEO Jean-Christophe Babin
Bvlgari’s CEO, Jean-Christophe Babin
Fabrizio Buonamassa, Director of Watch Design at Bvlgari
Fabrizio Buonamassa, Director of Watch Design at Bvlgari
Antoine Pin, managing director of Bvlgari’s Watch Division
Antoine Pin, Managing Director of Bvlgari’s Watch Division
Bvlgari Octo Finissimo Automatic pièce unique in black ceramic with pink small seconds track and hand
Bvlgari Octo Finissimo Automatic pièce unique in black ceramic with pink small seconds track and hand

I want to thank my pals Chris Grainger, Riccardo Soliani Brivio, Jessica Gasser and Walter Volpers of IWC for their spectacular unique execution of the all-new Big Pilot 43mm with a pink dial. The 43mm Big Pilot’s watch was already one of my favorite new releases of 2021, and I love this execution and how it is set off by its white textile fabric strap.

CEO of IWC Schaffhausen, Christoph Grainger-Herr
CEO of IWC Schaffhausen, Christoph Grainger-Herr
Associate Director Corporate Communication at IWC Schaffhausen, Riccardo Soliani Brivio
Associate Director Corporate Communication at IWC Schaffhausen, Riccardo Soliani Brivio
Senior Corporate PR Manager at IWC Schaffhausen, Jessica Gasser
Senior Corporate PR Manager at IWC Schaffhausen, Jessica Gasser
Associate Director for Product Management Technical at IWC Schaffhausen, Walter Volpers
Associate Director for Product Management Technical at IWC Schaffhausen, Walter Volpers
IWC Schaffhausen Big Pilot Watch's 43 pièce unique with pink dial
IWC Schaffhausen Big Pilot Watch's 43 pièce unique with pink dial

I would like to give a huge thank you to my buddy Max Büsser and Charris Yadigaroglou for the pièce unique M.A.D. 1 with a hot pink rotor and pink minute indicator. As you probably know, the announcement of the M.A.D. 1 recently broke the Internet, such was the frenzy it created. So I imagine bidding for this bad boy is going to be nuts. As Max has a policy of not normally making pièce unique watches, I have to acknowledge that this pièce unique M.A.D. 1 is going to be a future grail for collectors.

Maximilian Büsser, Founder of MB&F
Maximilian Büsser, Founder of MB&F
Charris Yadigaroglou, Head of Communications at MB&F
Charris Yadigaroglou, Head of Communications at MB&F
Pièce unique M.A.D.1 by Maximilian Büsser with pink rotor and hour ring
Pièce unique M.A.D.1 by Maximilian Büsser with pink rotor and hour ring

I want to thank my dear friend Jean-Marc Pontroue for the spectacular rose gold Panerai Luminor Due with a pink mother-of-pearl dial. As you know, Panerai launched a similar watch this year but with a white mother-of-pearl dial, so this pink dial version is the only one of its kind in existence and it is amazing.

CEO at Panerai, Jean-Marc Pontroué
CEO at Panerai, Jean-Marc Pontroué
Panerai pièce unique Piccolo Due in Goldtech and pink mother of pearl dial
Panerai pièce unique Piccolo Due in Goldtech and pink mother of pearl dial

I want to thank two of my favorite people, Chabi Nouri and Pétronille de Parseval, of Piaget for their resplendent pièce unique Limelight Gala with a hand engraved dial in white gold and a rose gold case set with a dazzling array of graduated pink sapphires and diamonds. This is one of the most beautiful jewelry watches I’ve ever set eyes on.

Piaget’s CEO, Chabi Nouri
Piaget’s CEO, Chabi Nouri
Pétronille-de-Parseval, Piaget's Managing Director in South East Asia & Australia
Pétronille-de-Parseval, Piaget's Managing Director in South East Asia & Australia
Piaget Gala pièce unique with diamonds and sapphires in a gradient of pink
Piaget Gala pièce unique with diamonds and sapphires in a gradient of pink

I would like to give a huge shout-out to Adrian Bosshard and Hakim El Kadiri of Rado who not only used their epic new Captain Cook High-Tech Ceramic as the platform for a unique watch, and they absolutely killed it with an epic combination of gray ceramic and a pink minute track, creating one of the coolest watches in recent memory.

CEO of Rado, Adrian-Bosshard
CEO of Rado, Adrian-Bosshard
Rado Captain Cook High-Tech Ceramic pièce unique with skeleton dial and pink rehaut
Rado Captain Cook High-Tech Ceramic pièce unique with skeleton dial and pink rehaut

I want to say “Danke schön” to my friends at Sinn, specifically Lothar Schmidt, Volker Wiegmann and Simone Richter who were the very first people to respond to our charity auction with the amazing U50 in black steel with a super racy hot pink dial. Since its launch, the U50 has been one of Sinn’s bestsellers, and I love that they chose this amazing purpose-built dive watch to fly the pink flag in support of breast cancer.

(L-R) CEO and Owner, Lothar Schmidt; Head of Marketing/Communication, Simone Richter; Volker Wiegmann, Marketing/Communication of SINN Spezialuhren
(L-R) CEO and Owner, Lothar Schmidt; Head of Marketing/Communication, Simone Richter; Volker Wiegmann, Marketing/Communication of SINN Spezialuhren
SINN U50 S Pink Dial pièce unique
SINN U50 S Pink Dial pièce unique

I want to give a huge thank you to the super cool Frédéric Arnault and Nicholas Biebuyck of TAG Heuer for their Aquaracer 36mm with a unique pink dial replete with diamond indexes and a ceramic bezel with pink minute markers from 0 to 15. This watch rocks.

Frédéric Arnault, CEO of TAG Heuer
Frédéric Arnault, CEO of TAG Heuer
Heritage Director at TAG Heuer, Nicholas Biebuyck
Heritage Director at TAG Heuer, Nicholas Biebuyck
TAG Heuer Aquaracer Pink Ribbon pièce unique
TAG Heuer Aquaracer Pink Ribbon pièce unique

Finally, I want to send major love to my brothers Julien Tornare and Romain Marietta at Zenith for creating the one and only Zenith Covergirl A3818 in steel with a pink dial, which I can only imagine will be another one of our hotly contested watches.

Julien Tornare, CEO of Zenith
Julien Tornare, CEO of Zenith
Romain Marietta, Zenith's Product Chief
Romain Marietta, Zenith's Product Chief
Zenith pièce unique "Cover Girl" with powder pink dial
Zenith pièce unique "Cover Girl" with powder pink dial

I would also like to thank Etienne Malec of Baltic, George Bamford and Nicolas Baretzki of Montblanc for their commitment to this initiative. While their watch renderings are not ready or can’t be shown for now because of embargo reasons, please expect them in the coming months. Also, please stand by for more announcements of participating brands. Anyone reading this in our watch fam, if you have a cool pink dial watch that you would like to donate, we would be overjoyed to make it part of the lineup.

Etienne Malec, founder of the hugely lauded Baltic Watches
Etienne Malec, founder of the hugely lauded Baltic Watches
George Bamford of the Bamford Watch Department (©Revolution)
George Bamford of the Bamford Watch Department (©Revolution)
Nicolas Baretzki, CEO Montblanc
Nicolas Baretzki, CEO Montblanc

Why Pink Dial Project?

So, why are we engaged in this initiative? Because we collectively feel that we have to do more to give back to the world we live in. In recent years, we’ve been inspired by the luxury watch brands that have made corporate responsibility, ethics, sustainability and humanitarianism a key part of who they are.

We were particularly impressed by the Bvlgari team who was already working with Save the Children, but during the pandemic led the way by transforming a scent factory into a sanitizer production facility, donating a high-tech microscope for COVID research, creating a virus eradication fund and, in particular, helping to fund the AstraZeneca vaccine that has now been injected into millions worldwide to eradicate COVID from our lives. We were impressed by Chopard, who became the first brand to use only ethically sourced gold in all their watches and were the first to use recycled steel, which appeared in their Alpine Eagle collection.

We love what Jean-Marc Pontroue at Panerai is doing in focusing on minimizing the consumption of virgin resources and were blown away by the Submersible eLAB-ID, which is the world’s most recycled watch featuring a case, dial, baseplate, luminous indicators and silicon components made from recycled-based material. Cyrille Vigneron of Cartier has made a bold ethical statement this year introducing the luxury world’s first solar-powered watch. And we applaud Blancpain and its Ocean Commitment Program dedicated to protecting, conserving and celebrating the single most important life source on the planet.

The Panerai Submersible eLAB-ID has its case, dial and even the bridges of its movement made of recycled EcoTitanium
The Panerai Submersible eLAB-ID has its case, dial and even the bridges of its movement made of recycled EcoTitanium
As an expression of its ethics, Cartier uses 95 percent recycled gold and has fitted its SolarBeat photovoltaic movement Tank Must watches with non-animal straps made from apple waste
As an expression of its ethics, Cartier uses 95 percent recycled gold and has fitted its SolarBeat photovoltaic movement Tank Must watches with non-animal straps made from apple waste
Blancpain Presents World Oceans Day 2021
Blancpain Presents World Oceans Day 2021

The point is, we are all journalists representing media companies that spanned online, social media and print media. But just because our focus is on communicating the enduring value and emotional allure of watches doesn’t mean we can’t also do something to benefit society. In fact, emboldened by the examples of the brands we’ve been reporting on, we decided it was our moral obligation to give back. And I would urge any successful media company to also think about ways they could similarly help out their local communities or broader causes such as breast cancer. From a personal perspective, my mother is a breast cancer survivor, and the fear I experienced when she was diagnosed was one major reason I moved back from the United States to Singapore, which eventually led to me starting Revolution.

One good question is, why have we decided to band together on this initiative? The simple answer is that by combining our audiences, we are able to reach a hell of a lot of people and raise awareness about this charity auction and the cause it supports. For example, just across Instagram, we are able to reach 975,000 highly engaged watch dudes and dudettes.

Our Pink Dial Partners

This may seem a little naïve or quixotic, but I don’t believe in traditional competition. I believe in uniting communities. I don’t believe that the watch journalism world is a zero-sum game; I believe that there is room for everyone to succeed. Sure, you have to be good at what you do, meaning you have to take it seriously and write or report with real passion, insight and original thought. And that’s exactly what I think my partners in Pink Dial Project do better than anyone else.

Amongst them is Andrew McUtchen, the founder of Time+Tide in Australia. One of my favorite TV shows is The Mandalorian, and the line that’s most memorable in that series is, “This is the way.” Last year, when the Australian bushfires broke out, Andrew showed us “the way” by immediately organizing a charity auction that raised over AUD 200,000 in support of the fight against the bushfires. This was a big inspiration for us to organize the Revolution and The Rake charity auction for COVID-19 Solidarity that eventually raised over USD 280,000. Again, I have to emphasize that the heroes in that initiative were the brands that gave us their amazing watches, from Georges Kern’s personal Breitling Navitimer to the Chopard Mille Miglia GTS Power Control “Grigio Speciale” Prototype that Ryan Reynolds wore in the Netflix film 6 Underground and much more.

One of the coolest guys in watch journalism is Robert-Jan Broer, the founder of Fratello Watches and also the creator of the hashtag “Speedy Tuesday.” Fratello is one of the best-written, most well-informed and smartest watch websites around. And, of course, in his capacity as Mr. Speedy Tuesday, I would say that RJ is the biggest community builder and one of the most knowledgeable guys when it comes to the Omega Speedmaster. He is also one of the nicest dudes around.

Founder of Time+Tide, Andrew Mcutchen (Image: timeandtidewatches.com)
Founder of Time+Tide, Andrew Mcutchen (Image: timeandtidewatches.com)
Founder of Fratello Watches, Robert-Jan Broer (Image: acollectedman.com)
Founder of Fratello Watches, Robert-Jan Broer (Image: acollectedman.com)

I think Eric Ku has to be one of the most legendary figures in watch culture today. He was instrumental in building the vintage Rolex culture in a revolutionary way. As a dealer and the owner of Vintage Rolex Forums, he did something extraordinary. He shared knowledge and offered up transparency about vintage Rolexes at a time when information was closely guarded by dealers. In so doing, he empowered the customer and enabled the creation of a true global culture. He is also one of the world’s most tasteful collectors and has been a fundamental part of building the recent rise in Cartier collectability. He will host the digital auction on his new site, Loupe This.

Finally, there is my friend Eléonor Picciotto, daughter of the legendary Parisian retailer Laurent Picciotto. Over the last decade, Eléonor has earned a reputation as one of the industry’s leading young journalists through her website, The Eye of Jewelry, and in her capacity as the watch editor for GQ France. Together, I couldn’t think of a better group of people to undertake this initiative with as everyone here likes to work their asses off but also knows how to have fun when the work is done. Most importantly, they are all genuinely nice people. I also want to shout out two people from my team at Revolution, my head of editorial Sumit Nag and my Revolution UK editor-in-chief Ross Povey, for playing a major part in putting everything together.

Watch supremo and master of the finer things in life, Eric Ku
Watch supremo and master of the finer things in life, Eric Ku
Founder of The Eye of Jewelry, Eleonor Picciotto (©Revolution)
Founder of The Eye of Jewelry, Eleonor Picciotto (©Revolution)

When Will It Happen?

The charity auction will take place in October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I know this because October is when Ralph Lauren has their yearly Pink Pony initiative. Incidentally, Ralph Lauren was also a major inspiration for this charity auction. People are generally unaware of how incredibly altruistic he is because he doesn’t do things for attention. For example, recognizing that cancer survival rates in Harlem, New York City, were lower than those in the Third World, he took it upon himself to build a cancer hospital there and help fund it through initiatives like Pink Pony. He once told me, “Wei, when people are unhappy, it’s usually because they spend too much time thinking about themselves and not enough time thinking about others.” And this has proven to be one of the most enduring truths I’ve learned. We haven’t fixed a specific date yet, but will probably run the auction on Loupe This during the last week of October to give any last-minute auction lots the opportunity to arrive.

When Will It Happen?

The charity auction will take place in October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I know this because October is when Ralph Lauren has their yearly Pink Pony initiative. Incidentally, Ralph Lauren was also a major inspiration for this charity auction. People are generally unaware of how incredibly altruistic he is because he doesn’t do things for attention. For example, recognizing that cancer survival rates in Harlem, New York City, were lower than those in the Third World, he took it upon himself to build a cancer hospital there and help fund it through initiatives like Pink Pony. He once told me, “Wei, when people are unhappy, it’s usually because they spend too much time thinking about themselves and not enough time thinking about others.” And this has proven to be one of the most enduring truths I’ve learned. We haven’t fixed a specific date yet, but will probably run the auction on Loupe This during the last week of October to give any last-minute auction lots the opportunity to arrive.

How Do You Bid?

It’s a pretty straightforward process: you enter your name and credit card details into the Loupe This system and start bidding. There will be some watches that I know will be the subject of some frenzied last-minute sniping, but when you’ve been outbid, you’ll get an email or text message from Loupe This to alert you and give you the opportunity to bid back.

Please understand that unlike other charity auctions, we do not keep a single cent. There are no additional fees of any kind. I remember when we were organizing our COVID-19 Solidarity Auction last year, we initially approached a well-known auction house to host it for us on their website. But they insisted on adding a buyer’s premium to which my response was, “Please pull your head out of your asses; this is a charity auction, you’re not supposed to profit. But maybe if you do good deeds this lifetime, you won’t be reborn through the cycle of karmic retribution as a dung beetle.” They didn’t get it and so we hosted on the Givergy UK platform instead, which just charged us a modest flat fee. This time around, thanks to Eric Ku, there are zero fees, and we will also show proof that all the money has been sent to the selected charities. A last note on the breast cancer charities: we are in the process of defining them and we will announce them soon. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions, please email us at [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected]

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