The ‘D-Day watches’ made from WWII helmets — and beach sand from Normandy

In an age when clocks are found in most pockets and on every screen, watchmaker Col&MacArthur’s selling point is not just time, but history itself.

Known for using unconventional materials — from Pearl Harbor seawater to meteorite moondust — in the name of horological storytelling, the brand is now commemorating the D-Day landings with a series of watches made from US soldiers’ helmets and haversacks, as well as sand from the beaches of Normandy.

“People are not buying this watch because it tells the time,” the company’s CEO Sébastien Colen said on a call from Belgium, where the former energy executive co-founded the company in 2013. “It’s because it is bringing them back somewhere in the past.”

Colen had spent three years developing a prototype for his Normandie 1944, a luxury watch