Enjoying the good times while keeping a lookout for potential threats. However creative and rich it undeniably is, our watch industry remains dependent on exogenous factors over which it has about as much control as a silicon spiral would have on the venerable mechanism driving Big Ben. Grasping the fact that a single bank can win or lose in a half year an amount equal to the Swiss watch industry’s entire annual production certainly makes you stop and think. Within such a context, looking to the long terms is simply a matter of exercising a basic instinct for survival. This long-term quest is fuelled by technological innovation and the recruitment of new talents – themes that are dealt with in our Innovation and Economy columns. Since architecture is increasingly evoked by watch manufacturers in describing their creations, we have also named a new column after this field. Taking brands’ statements at first value, we asked the President of the Braillard Foundation to draw a parallel between three watches and the architectural works of which they remind him. Deeply sensitive to the aesthetic dimension of the art of watchmaking, particularly when it comes to admiring the hand-crafted decorations that set the crowning touch to a movement, we have in parallel decided to reinforce the concern for graphical details evinced in GMT by introducing “hand finishes” on some articles, in the form of tailor-made illustrations. Thus combining purpose with pleasure is certainly one way of making the most of the good times.