Hodinkee
Just Because: What Watch Does Rexhep Rexhepi Make For Himself? This Unique One.
You can learn a lot about someone from the smallest clues. For instance, on the Friday before the GPHG awards, I was walking with a friend across Pont des Bergues in Geneva, and we bumped into the watch dealer and collector Daniel Bourn. We caught up quickly; I introduced the two, and as we walked away, my friend said: "[blank early decade] [blank brand], call me." In five seconds, I learned more about my friend than I knew through all the watches he's shown me from his collection. I learned how he saw himself. The same goes for seeing Rexhep Rexhepi's personal pièce unique platinum Chronomètre Contemporain II, a few hours prior. I won't rehash the details of the CC2. We've written about it (here, and here, and it's shown up here, and a couple of times here, and here too). This specific example first popped up on my radar from photos when it was on display at Ahmed Seddiqi's "Mavericks of Time" event in Abu Dhabi on October 29th and 30th. Ben and I were curious whose watch it was—there are a handful of unique CC2s that we've seen around, but this one wasn't familiar. A few days later, we got our answer. The watch was back in Geneva, on the wrist of its owner, the same guy with the name on the dial: Rexhep Rexhepi. Every other time I've seen him, he's been wearing a prototype rose gold CC2 or a Rolex ref. 1019 Milgauss (a reminder that we're still hoping to see his OnlyWatch Antimagnétique again). It's not lost on me that a lot of watchmakers take a long time before ...
