A Letter to the European Watch Company Community

From the Editor-in-Chief of Crown & Caliber

Earlier this month, I was at a dinner at Chez Nous in New York where the conversation began, predictably, with watches. A vintage Rolex GMT made its way around the table, someone mentioned their first Patek, and within minutes we were debating dial variations, provenance, and whether that bracelet had ever seen a polish.

And then, as it always does, the conversation drifted. To the impulsive trip to Paris where that watch first appeared in a window, the bottle of Barolo opened on a Tuesday night, after the deal finally closed, at the neighborhood bistro where the steak tartare simply arrives.  

That arc — from the object to the life around it — is where Crown & Caliber lives.

For those of you who know European Watch Company well, you know its blog reflects the scholarship, expertise, and inventory that define EWC. Crown & Caliber is the sister publication: part of the same family, but editorially distinct.

Crown & Caliber doesn’t sell watches. We tell stories about the world in which they exist; the overlapping passions, natural intersections and adventurous pursuits of collectors and like-minded individuals seeking a life well-lived.

Horology remains central. Live on the website now is our examination of how the luxury watch market recalibrates in moments of cooling demand. There’s also Jonny Liberman’s take on defining a whiskey watch.

But Crown & Caliber also moves beyond the dial.

Joel Feder dove into the business of shipping superyachts across oceans. Award-winning automotive journalist Basem Wasef walked the factory in Molsheim for a firsthand taste of the final W16-powered Bugatti. There’s also GIA-certified gemologist Mirta de Gisbert’s exploration of the signet ring as a forged identity.

Timepieces are our anchor. Lifestyle is the current.

A few months ago, as I wandered through the delightful Atlantis Books, a cliffside bookstore in Santorini, I noticed how often watches appear in unexpected places: in travel photography, in chef portraits, in essays about architecture. Not because they are the point, but because they signal something about time, intention, and presence.

That’s the space we’re interested in.

To the European Watch Company community: Crown & Caliber exists for you, not as an extension of the EWC blog, but rather a complement to it, as a broader editorial home for curiosity, craftsmanship, and the rituals that give life texture.

If EWC is where you come to engage the object at its highest level, Crown & Caliber is where we explore the life lived with it.

We’re glad you’re here. And we hope you’ll join us there.

With appreciation,

Alexandra Cheney

Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Director, Crown & Caliber