Adam Clayton takes time to show off exquisite wristwatch collection

In the first of a new video series, GQ Talks Watches, with Charlie Burton, Clayton talks with great passion about his timepiece treasure trove, a collection he began on the Achtung Baby tour Walking through Berlin in the 1990s, he recalls: "It was very, very grim and it was a city in transition and I just stumbled upon a watch shop." It was there he treated himself to a 1950s Omega Cioccolatino watch in yellow gold Attracted by the sound of the watch, he explains: "This has a 'bumper movement'.

Rolex had kind of patented, the rolling automatic movement, so Omega came up with this other system and you can sort of hear that rattle it's a lovely little thing and a great watch to start off with." Asked how, with his notable spending power, he manages to keep his impulse under control, he says: "I definitely do have that itch and it starts to heat up a bit when people start to throw words like 'tourbillon' around and I am going, 'hmmm, that sounds interesting'," referring to a special watch mechanism that is said to be hugely difficult and costly to make On treating himself to a Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso Squadra Chronograph, he says: "This was really before I went to the tour where we had that big claw on the 360 [tour] because everything got kind of quite big, I wanted a watch that I could take on the road that was worthy of that engineering and technology." He never mixes his business with pleasure, preferring to go bare-wristed when performing: "I generally avoid wearing watches on stage I kind of feel that's the last place you need to know what time it is" Eric Clapton is a famous watch connoisseur and once had a Patek Philippe Ref 2499 in platinum, a model that has only ever been produced twice. Source