Transparency is one of the buzz words today, transparency in business, politics, health… and the same is true in watches, where skeleton watches are becoming more and more popular. The Aerowatch Renaissance Orange Tornado (shown on the left) is a development on the Renaissance series developed in 2009 (on the right, Renaissance Big Mechanical Skeleton), and its large PVD-coated 45-mm case frames a movement in which the skeletonization has created a series of circular waves emanating outwards from the balance. The entire gear train is open to view, and you can even glimpse the mechanism that couples and disengages the crown wheel for time adjustment. You can see the balance spring at the top, and the degree of tightness of the spring can be used to estimate the power reserve. When the watch is running, the balance and the small seconds at 6 o’clock provide a constant sense of movement. Hands and hour markers are orange (they have some SuperLuminova for night-time visibility), and these coordinate with the orange stitching on the strap. The straps have curved spring bars, improving the joint between strap and case.

The movement is NAC-coated, skeletonized and finished by hand, and it can be seen from both front and back, through the sapphire watchglass and caseback. The movement is the Unitas 6498, hand-wound, running at 18,000 vibrations per hour, with a power reserve of about 46 hours. The watch has the reference A 50931 NO08, and the retail price is CHF 2,380  or €2,390. Further information from www.aerowatch.com

Below, detail of the crown wheel winding mechanism: