John Reardon was just out of college when he joined the watch department of Sotheby’s in New York and became part of the team that sold the Patek Philippe Henry Graves’ Supercomplication pocket watch for a world record $12 million in 1997.
After four years with the auction house, he joined his beloved Patek Philippe and spent a decade supporting the brand’s authorized dealer network in the United States.
During that time he published a three-volume opus titled Patek Philippe in America, and established himself as the country’s foremost authority on the watchmaker.
The auction world came calling again in 2016, and Mr Reardon returned to become international head of watches at Christie’s for six years before leaving in 2019 to set up his own business, Collectability, which acts as a consultant, historian, educationalist, trader and fixer for a network of top-end Patek Philippe collectors.
The New Jersey-based business was joined by Tania Edwards, who had previously spent over 30 years, mainly as senior vice-president of marketing, at Patek Philippe USA.
All that expertise and experience has been distilled into a new Dennison A.L.D. watch created in collaboration with Collectability and infused with 1970s vintage Patek Philippe-style opulence.
Dennison has burst onto the microbrand watch scene with the A.L.D.’s slim, cushion-shaped cases and striking stone dials — designed by feted Swiss sketcher Emmanuel Gueit — hailed as an instant classic by collectors.
The business is actually a revival of a historic Anglo-American watch case maker that was a major player in the early 20th century.
Mr Reardon came across the brand and its managing director Stéphane Cheikh at a watch auction in Geneva last year and loved his watches and the history behind the brand so much he bought one for himself and his children.
The two kept in touch and the idea of a collaboration hatched to produce a watch that maintained the accessibility of a CHF 700 quartz-based watch but in a style that could as easily be worn by a Patek Philippe collector or somebody just starting out on their watch-loving journey.
“This collaboration breaks the mold, offering a design and price point that make the perfect watch not a future aspiration but an immediate reality. It’s not for the next generation. It’s for now,” Mr Reardon says.
The 37mm x 33.65mm x 6mm watch has a two-tone blue sunray dial inspired by some of the rarest pieces in Collectability’s archives that combines with the historic case shape to create a fusion between vintage and modern styles.
There are steel or gold-treated steel models, both housing Swiss Ronda Quartz 1062 movements.
Worn on a croc-style blue leather strap, the watch is retailing for five days only for $690.
in both stainless steel and gold PVD, the Dennison + Collectability watch combines timeless elegance with daily wearability. Its modern two-tone sunray dial draws inspiration from the rarest pieces in Collectability’s archives, evoking the design language of the 1960s and 1970s while maintaining the aesthetic blueprint of Dennison’s acclaimed A.L.D. Collection by Emmanuel Gueit.