BY GARY GIRDVAINIS
UNDERCOVER
CHRONO
THE SEAMLESS D LOKE DRESS CHRONOGRAPH INTEGRATES TWO LEVERS
INTO ITS CUSTOMIZED CASE.
Full disclosure: I’m not afraid to say that presenting this particular watch is a
real treat for me, so I might not be entirely objective.
I’ve known Don Loke first as a client when he represented Parmigiani
Fleurier in their first foray into North America in the 1990s and as a friend for
more than twenty-five years since then. During these decades I’ve learned
much of my technical watch knowledge looking over Don’s shoulder as he
repaired and restored some of the most complicated vintage and modern
watches ever made.
Whether minute repeaters, perpetual calendars, or even a triple
chronograph pocket watch (never even knew that existed) Don can breathe
life back into them all and make them live again. Need a balance staff; he’ll
make it. Need a new retaining spring; he’ll fabricate and temper it. Geneva
stop works, no problem.
To be sure I’ve learned more about the mechanical side of watch making
from Don than any other source in my thirty years as a reporter on watches.
78 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | FALL 2019
This, in part, is why I chose him as a member of the iW advisory board.
Full disclosure aside, and with Don’s credentials as a master watchmaker
(Bowman School, WOSTEP, and more) confirmed, he’s also been in charge
of service and establishing North American distribution for prominent watch
brands including Breguet, Audemars Piguet, Daniel Roth, Gerald Genta and
Parmigiani Fleurier, among others. Loke is a former Technical Director of ETA
(now part of Swatch Group) Industries for the U.S. Market. He also served
as the Director of the American Watch & Clockmakers Institute (now AWCI).
Clearly a resume few can equal.
Like so many other watchmakers, Don has wanted for years to bring his
own watches to life and I am absolutely thrilled to premier the first of several
D Loke watches that will be released in the coming years.
Having kept this a secret for far too long, I am finally allowed to present
the D Loke Dress Chronograph.
OK – so where are the buttons? Clearly there are sub-dials that allude to
interval timing capability, but how do they work? Sure there are two crowns,
but one is for adjusting the time and setting the watch, the other for rotating