Ali in Wonderland
This is the story of the facetious watchmaking brand Ali & Co, somewhat loosely based on Lewis Carroll's “Alice in Wonderland”. It's about a hidden Mastercard and a magical and mysterious display.
By Dimitra Fréchelin Darmanger
“What day of the month is it?” the Mad Hatter asked Ali. He had taken his watch out of his pocket and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then and holding it to his ear.
Ali considered a little, and then said “The fourth”.
“Two days wrong”, sighed the Hatter.
Ali had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity: “What a funny watch!” he remarked. “It tells the day of the month but it does not tell what o’clock it is!”
“Why should it?” muttered the Hatter. “Does your watch tell you what year it is?”
“Of course not!” Ali replied very readily.“But that's because it stays the same year for such a long time together”.
“Which is just the case with mine”, said the Hatter.
Ali sighed. “I think you might do something better with the time”, he said, “ than waste it in askingriddles that have no answers.”
“If you knew Time as well as I do”, said the Hatter, “you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him. And I dare say you never even spoke to Time.”
“Perhaps not”, replied Ali,“but I will see to it that I do”.
Many monthslater, Ali kept hispromise to the Mad Hatterby introducing two watchmaking projects, the Mysterali and the Alicious, at Baselworld 2016.
Ali & Mastercard
Designed, conceived and developed in Switzerland, the Ali & Co watches have a special feature: their synthetic strap is embedded with a Prepaid Mastercard chip. Their design is signed by Eric Giroud and their movements were produced by the Swiss Soprod.
These pieces allow their owners to make a purchase just by swiping their strap on the payment terminal. Indeed, a regular Prepaid Mastercard comes with the watch and the credit is transferred to the buyer's account via a secure digital platform. The strap embedded with a Prepaid Mastercard chip will automatically be replaced when the battery of the quartz movement is changed after three years.
Mysterali
Its mystery lies in its round-shaped, patented Swiss quartz movement, which is the first ever to feature a two-sided display. The hands float on the transparent dial, with no apparent attachment point.
In line with the historical tradition of mysterious watches and clocks, the Mysterali is a reversible watch; that is, it displays time on both sides. On the front side, the numerals and the hands follow the usual clockwise layout (1, 2, 3) whilst on the back everything is reversed (12, 11, 10). Mysterali may seem to count time backwards, but in reality it displays the same time as the front dial.
The collection consists of four variations in a round steel case, which feature an index flange and matching-color straps.
Alicious
To make it more accessible, Ali & Co fixed the price of the Alicious at CHF 79 – in the under CHF 100 price segment. Unlike the Mysterali, it houses two independent quartz movements and displays time in two different ways.
The front side looks quite simple with its analogue display and only one special feature: the minute hand is of the same color as the indexes. The case back is more original – an arrow indicates the hours whereas the minutes appear in an aperture at 6 o'clock.
Available in four two-toned versions, the case is made of a synthetic material that allows for reasonable 11.8-mm thickness.
And so, in Wonderland
An unparalleled story is told
Of Ali and its money timepiece
Whose adventures never grow old