Men of great accomplishment often pursue surprisingly successful side projects -- witness Bob Schieffer's honky-tonk prowess, and the 18-wheeled acumen of Karl Malone. For a watch with a similar pedigree, try LIP, available in NYC after a 30-year hiatus.

A venerable French brand, LIP is reintroducing a collection of timepieces originally crafted in the '70s by a cadre of non-industry illustrators and designers -- most prominently Roger Tallon, who designed the TGV (the train that quickly zooms Frenchmen to the nations that hate them). Each stainless steel model is leather strapped, with minimalist analog designs ranging from the Baschmakoff (wide band, hidden face), to the Mythic (square recessed face, three disc spin movement), to the tri-chrono'd Boogie -- perfect for nervously checking the time while a coked-up Alfred Molina jams Night Ranger. The collection has but one digital: a sweet, square-faced jobby with a simple LED readout -- at the time so cutting edge its early adopters risked being burned at the stake.

LIP also purveys the Mach 2000, a more techno-futuristic line comprised of asymmetrically-faced watches whose time is set by oversized, "protruding colored balls" -- curiously, the subject of your own surprisingly successful side project.