Tag Heuer Carrera Calibre 5 Anthracite Dial Leather Men's Watch WAR211CFC6336

TAG Heuer, the leading Swiss luxury watch company, and Parsons The New School for Design today revealed the winners of the "Art of Watchmaking," a 10-week competition that charged eight teams of Parsons product design students with reinterpreting TAG Heuer's classic Monaco chronograph. Each member of the three teams will receive a monetary prize and a TAG Heuer timepiece. Additionally, TAG Heuer has the potential to produce one of the first-place designs as a limited-edition piece.
The winners were selected by an illustrious panel of judges that included: Narciso Rodriguez, CFDA award-winning womenswear designer and Parsons alumnus; Renaud Dutreil, Chairman of LVMH North America and New School trustee; Ulrich Wohn, president & CEO of LVMH Watch & Jewelry North America; Marion Fasel, contributing jewelry editor, InStyle magazine; Michael Thompson, editor, International Watch magazine; Rama Chorpash, director of product design, Parsons; and Andre Fortier, vice president of after-sales service, TAG Heuer.

During the review, each of the student teams showcased three concepts, and discussed their inspiration, target consumer and design philosophy. Ideas ranged from a Monaco with a rotating case to designs inspired by the New York City transportation system. "The students' enthusiasm for this program was clearly evident in the quality of their designs," said Wohn. "They truly immersed themselves in the brand and presented ideas that embraced the avant-garde, daring spirit of TAG Heuer. We are inspired by the students' perspective on luxury timepieces and their unfettered creativity. It's nice to look at your brand through new eyes."
First-place honors went to the team of Yong Yi Lee, Yoav Menachem and Amit Ran, whose designs included a sleek, black model with a shield over the watch face and edition numbers to appeal to collectors; second-place honors went to the team of Enrique Diaz Rato de Zabala, Michelle Organ and You Jin Sung, whose designs included a black ceramic timepiece with neon accents; and third-place honors went to the team of Yusuke Sekiguchi, Christopher Beatty and Helen Kim, whose designs included a piece with naturally grown crystals in its dial.

"We partner with industry leaders like TAG Heuer because they provide our students the kind of professional challenges they'll face when they graduate," said Joel Towers, executive dean of Parsons. "These types of projects are integral to design education."
Added Chorpash, "This is a project that is ultimately about constraint. Our students were pushed to think innovatively about the design, while keeping in mind the parameters of the client's design brief and the technical requirements of the manufacturing process."
The partnership and competition—a first for TAG Heuer—began in early September, when TAG Heuer presented the 24 students with a comprehensive overview of the Monaco, which was first introduced in 1969 and shattered the conventional codes of watch design and engineering with the world's first self-winding automatic chronograph movement and waterproof square case.

Under the guidance of faculty members Anna Rabinowicz and Peter Allen, students were charged with creating their own iteration of the Monaco. Many aspects of the timepiece were open to interpretation, including the material choice, color and design of the dial, subdials, hands, indexes and folding buckle. However, students could not alter the distinctive shape of the Monaco's case, whose clean, geometric lines marked a radical departure from the rounded watch dials of the '60s and '70s.
The teams each rendered 100 original concepts, and throughout October and November, narrowed down these initial ideas into three final designs. During this time, students received constructive feedback from TAG Heuer executives during milestone visits, as well as toured the brand's New Jersey-based facility to experience firsthand the precision and craftsmanship that assembling a luxury watch demands.