Tudor marks its 100th birthday by reviving a dormant marque, the 1990s Monarch and capturing the formative 1920s taking another strong step outside the Black-Bay-box.
https://t.co/VgjapuJnoJ
Take a moment to watch this prophetic exchange between Shaq and KAT from last February.
This was brutally honest advice from an NBA legend.
We are now watching it manifest into being, with the Knicks en route to a championship and KAT as MVP. And doing it against the freak of nature that is Victor Wembanyama.
Shaq: “At the beginning of the game, I said you were playing soft because I’ve seen you at times when you play great. And what you must understand in New York is that you need to be great for your guys to win a championship. If you guys win a championship, of course they’re gonna talk about Brunson, but it’s you and your play; you have to be dominant. You responded very, very well; you played very well. You played in the paint. That’s how you should play. You should always play.”
KAT: “For sure, but what you said too is, if we win a championship, they can talk about anybody as long as we get a ring, that’s the most important thing, I don’t care. I don’t care about any of that.”
Shaq: “No, but you’ve got to play great. One-two punch, and you’re part of that one-two punch.”
KAT: “Hell yeah, but I wanna make sure that we all understand that the main goal here is to win. It don’t matter who gets the credit or whatever.”
Shaq: “It’s not about credit. Nope, you got to play great.”
KAT: “Sure, I hear you. Legend, I agree with you.”
In other words, Shaq challenges KAT to toughen up and find his eye of the tiger. To drive the ball into the paint more, to stop whining about fouls and no calls and get back on defense. If he wants to win a championship, the Knicks need him to be aggressive both physically and mentally, it can’t just be Jalen Brunson.
KAT pushes back. Says it doesn’t matter who gets the credit, Brunson can have all the credit.
But Shaq doesn’t accept that answer. Because he knows what kind of greatness it takes to win a championship. And eventually KAT realizes he’s right.
A woman mailed Michael Jackson a gun, her photo, and a letter telling him to kill himself at a specific time. The song he wrote about her is sitting at #1 on Spotify right now, 43 years later.
It started in 1981. She began sending Michael letters claiming he was the father of one of her twins. He had never met her, so he ignored the whole thing. The letters kept coming anyway. Then one day, a package showed up. Inside was her photograph, a gun, and a note instructing him to kill himself at a particular date and time. She planned to kill “their” baby afterward, so they could be together in the next life. The Jacksons later found out she had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. That is where the line “the kid is not my son” came from.
The bass line you hear in the first eight seconds is one of the most famous in pop history. They almost didn’t find it. The bassist Quincy hired, a guy named Louis Johnson, walked into the studio carrying every bass guitar he owned. Michael made him play the same line on each one until they settled on a Yamaha. Then they layered a synthesizer playing the exact same notes on top, which is why the bass has that thick, almost glowing sound.
The drum sound took even more obsession. Quincy Jones told his engineer Bruce Swedien he wanted a sound so distinct you’d know the song from the first three drum hits. So Bruce actually built a wooden platform for the entire drum kit. He put a flat piece of wood between the snare drum and the hi-hat cymbal to keep them from interfering with each other. He also built a custom cover for the kick drum, with a small slot for the microphone. Michael had programmed the beat on a drum machine when he wrote the demo at home. When it came time to record the album, drummer Ndugu Chancler walked in and played the same pattern on a real kit. He nailed it in three takes.
Then came the vocal. Michael sang the entire main vocal in one continuous take. For the extra harmonies and adlibs on top, Quincy made him sing through a six-foot cardboard tube rigged up in the booth. Michael was also getting vocal training every single morning while they were making the album.
The song hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1983 and stayed there for seven weeks. Yesterday it hit #1 on Spotify Global with 6.02 million streams in a single day, the highest the song has ever climbed on the platform.
Watched few podcasts with Audemars Piguet’s CEO Ilaria Resta.
AP x Swatch collab seems to be about selling to women, which she says is AP’s most “underdeveloped” opportunity.
Royal Pop can ride the Labubu keychain wave.
Women are <20% of AP sales but clear trend for the demographic. She says 45% of women will own a mechanical watch by 2030. Growing interest in complications but current designs don’t fit the wrist well. AP working on watched with smaller dimensions.
Resta took over as CEO in 2023 after spending past two decade building brands in beauty products (Firmenich) as well as hair products and homecare (P&G).
One of her first moves was to stop classifying AP watches as either men’s or women’s.
AP currently sells 50,000 watches a year and does ~$3B (compared to Rolex, which sells 1.2 million units a year and does $13B+ annual). Seems AP has room to increase supply without becoming too ubiquitous and tapping women’s market makes a ton of sense.
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Interview (2025): https://t.co/52C2S5ov4c
CNBC with some watch stats: https://t.co/uOwKR1PWdW
Everyone thinks the AP x Swatch "Royal Pop" dropping May 16 is just AP chasing MoonSwatch hype.
Maybe. But the timing is interesting.
AP just lost trademark fights in Japan (2024) and the US (2025). The courts ruled the octagonal bezel and tapisserie dial aren't "distinctive enough" to legally own.
Translation: knockoffs are coming, and AP can't really stop them.
So is it a coincidence that AP's now teaming with the one brand that can flood the market with a million "official" Royal Oak-shaped watches before the fakes do?
Maybe Swatch is actually defending brand.
F.P. Journe présente le lauréat du concours Jeunes Talents de cette année : Shin Ohno, 27 ans, pour sa création, Fuyu-Geshiki (« Paysage d'hiver »).
Inspiré par le paysage hivernal de Nagano, sa création réunit une grande et petite sonnerie, une répétition aux quarts et un tourbillon. Il a réalisé tout le processus de développement, de la conception du mouvement à la fabrication des composants dans son atelier, sans utiliser de mouvement de base.
Bravo à lui !