In a watch, one of the most annoying components is the crown. It’s often hard to pull out, requires work with fingernails, and I imagine, if you’re a woman, it risks messing up the manicure or the varnish. Especially if the watch is the last thing that you take out of the drawer, and you…
In this watch, Ulysse Nardin does a lot of new stuff and presents it with a remarkable degree of understatement. Each of the watches is encircled by baguette diamonds, or coloured sapphires, but the particular setting technique and the fact that the stainless steel case, 45.8 mm in diameter, is coated in matt black rubber…
The Marine Chronometer series by Ulysse Nardin comprises mostly men’s models, but the two new pieces for this year are limited editions for women. A comparison between the men’s piece closest to these two new watches shows that they are very similar (see photo below), with the same 43 mm diameter case, the same dial…
Ulysse Nardin deserve commendation for creating a diver’s watch for women that is not just a scaled-down version of a men’s diver. It is a curious concept, because though it presents certain features typical of a diver’s watch – principally the unidirectional rotating bezel and screw-down crown – they don’t seem to have any real…
This is a watch with a lot of history behind it. The watch in something like its present configuration was launched by Ulysse Nardin in about 2000 and has since been made in many different models, but its origin runs right back to its 19th-century deck chronometers. In the photo below (from the book Ulysse…
Just like the two watches by Louis Moinet and Ulysse Nardin dedicated to oil barons that I wrote about a few days ago, these two pieces, by Richard Mille and Ulysse Nardin, are designed for another “captive audience,” men who have one thing on their minds. In their press release, Richard Mille says apologetically “Erotic…
Watches can play music in several ways. The most common is the minute repeater, which has up to four gongs, but the music that you can play on four notes is limited to things like the Westminster chimes. This watch by Ulysse Nardin is a modern version of a historic idea, a musical box combined…
Rather like the goat watches released earlier this year, this piece is aimed at a specific market, the oil barons of Russia, the United States and the Middle East. The dial is the inky black of crude oil, and the case and oil pumps are in gold or platinum. Strikes oil… and the hours The…
This platinum, 30-piece limited-edition watch by Ulysse Nardin combines two challenging complications, the minute repeater with Westminster chimes, and the tourbillon. In addition, the four figures on the dial, called Jaquemarts, are animated, moving their arms or trunk while the watch is chiming. The word Jaquemarts means “striking men” not in the sense of attractive…
The Freak was incredible when it was first presented, at Baselworld in 2001, and 14 years later it is still an innovative timepiece. Who knows what Ludwig Oechslin’s original inspiration was, possibly Corum’s baguette movement, but the idea of making the movement become the minute hand, so that it gradually rotates around the dial and…
Company profile: Ulysse Nardin was born on 22 January 1823 in Le Locle, Switzerland. After an initial training from his father Léonard-Frédéric, he worked as an apprentice under William DuBois. At the age of 23, Ulysse founded his own company in 1846, and his first watches were sold in South America by means of the…
The Ulysse Anchor Tourbillon is a remarkable watch incorporating bi-stable blade technology, similar in principle to the Girard-Perregaux Constant Escapement L.M. Ulysse Nardin became part of the Kering Group in August 2014 and so it is now in the same family as Girard-Perregaux and Jeanrichard. This piece was preceded by the prototype presented last year,…
We have just begun the year of the goat (19 February 2015-7 February 2016), and several watch brands have launched goat watches thinking specifically of the Chinese market. While I can understand this, to be honest these goat watches are so far removed from the brands’ habitual style that they may seem more of a marketing…
This article on the best perpetual calendar watches 2015 look at these challenging timepieces, which require a lot of movement development. A lot of information has to be displayed, and at certain moments, a lot of energy has to be available to change several indications at once. For example, at midnight on 31st December, day,…
Luxury group Kering have announced that they have acquired Ulysse Nardin. The watch brand will join Girard-Perregaux and Jeanrichard (Sowind), Boucheron and Pomellato, along with luxury brands Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Stella McCartney, Sergio Rossi and others. Founded in 1846, Ulysse Nardin was proud of its independence and its status as…