![]() About Time was Something To See, like Damien Hirst’s diamond skull in the 2000s, or Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds at Tate Modern in 2010-11. “A work of art in its own right”, one contemporary critic wrote “perhaps the most avant-garde collection of timepieces in the history of the watch,” a horology writer said in a review of a Grima monograph last year. The collection had been launched at Goldsmiths’ Hall in London in the presence of Princess Anne, shown there for three days, and then transferred to Jermyn Street, attracting acres of press and onlookers. Substituting thin slivers of semi-precious stones for watch glass, and using highly adventurous shapes, Grima had succeeded. About Time was a collection of 55 watches created with Omega, the Swiss watch company, recreating the extravagance of luxurious 17th-century. ![]() In May 1970, however, Grima was exhibiting something special. His shop, with its arty steel-and-slate exterior and Perspex spiral staircase, was a hip interloper on the street of stuffy gentleman’s tailors, but even so, its prices meant it rarely attracted what you’d call crowds. Grima was a celebrity jeweller, an Anglo-Italian whose radical, modern designs had made him an 18-carat fixture of Swinging London. ![]() If you had happened to be walk along London’s Jermyn Street one day in May 1970, you might have bumped into a crowd of young, fashionable men and women waiting outside Andrew Grima’s shop at No. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |