A few brands work on completely new depictions of time, and Manufacture Contemporaine du Temps are a member of this exclusive club. They make around 100 watches per year and so they’re all pretty special. The Sequential Two was presented at Baselworld in 2014, and this year, it has been introduced in two new limited…
The First Lady Jewellery Automatic by Vulcain is a women’s watch set with a cascade of blue sapphires and green tsavorites that look as if they are tumbling down from the sky and filling the dial. It’s like a static version of the Chopard “Happy Diamonds” idea. The jewels extend onto the bright steel bezel…
The alarm could possibly be the oldest watch complication. Some of the earliest clocks didn’t have hands at all, but just a striking mechanism to mark the time of services. Vulcain’s Cricket watch with alarm function first appeared in 1947, and it has remained the brand’s most iconic model. This year, Vulcain has introduced a…
Company profile: Vulcain began as a workshop founded in 1858 by Maurice Ditisheim, in La Chaux-de-Fonds. He made fine pocket watches, and the workshop expanded to become Manufacture Ditisheim. Its complication watches received prizes at several World Fairs. The brand Vulcain first appeared in 1894, registered by Ditisheim in 1900. The brand’s fame increased considerably…
The 50s Presidents’ Watch Classic Automatic is Vulcain’s entry-level watch, a three-hand timepiece with date. Its 1950s look is determined above all by the graduated dial, in two colours, blue or brown, with matching calf leather straps. It has a slim case, 8.6 mm thick, in stainless steel, 42 mm in diameter, and a sapphire…
The Lady Fabergé collection has been expanded with these new pieces that combine a youthful, pop style with a prestige mechanical movement. Fabergé is the brand famous for the eggs made for the Tsar of Russia, and so the egg motif appears in several places: the shape of the case, the Breguet hands that have…
Table clocks give brands the chance to do stuff they can’t do in wristwatches, because there is much more space, and no ergonomic restrictions. MB&F’s Melchior is a good example, and now Ulysse Nardin have created a futuristic table sculpture, the SuperCat. The SuperCat was presented at Baselworld in March 2016, but it is a…
Jade is one of the few women’s watches to have been designed with specific consideration for female users. According to legend, it was Chai Schnyder (at that time chairwoman of Ulysse Nardin) who asked her husband Rolf Schnyder (then president and CEO) for the crown function selector and indicator back in 2002. Its main characteristic…
Ulysse Nardin are sponsoring the America’s Cup team Artemis, and this watch Classico America celebrates the sponsorship agreement, along with the history of the race itself. It depicts the schooner America, which won a regatta around the Isle of Wight organized annually by the Royal Yacht Squadron. America had been built by John Cox Stevens,…
For the first time in the Diver collection by Ulysse Nardin, this watch has an in-house movement, the UN-150. There are two versions, both limited editions, with 300 pieces in steel, and 99 pieces in rose gold. The hammerhead shark was chosen as a motif because the hammerhead is a gentle shark, but has a…
The Freak by Ulysse Nardin is a bit like Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, in that there is so much to understand that you can only stand in awe at what it achieves. In the case of the Freak, the genius was Ludwig Oechslin who designed the first Freak, presented at Baselworld in 2001. The concept…
Without doubt one of the 2016 watchmaking highlights, the Grand Deck Marine Tourbillon by Ulysse Nardin is like having a J-class yacht on your wrist. With teak decking and a boom indicating the minutes, pulled by tiny cables running through pulleys, like the ropes on a sailing boat, the watch is an unusual concept, beautifully…
The Marine Chronograph Annual Calendar is a typical Ulysse Nardin product, in that it offers a lot of innovation and originality at a comparatively low price. It has an in-house chronograph movement, and an annual calendar that can be adjusted forwards and backwards, a system invented by Ludwig Oechslin. All at a price of €11,900…
At 56 grams the Rado HyperChrome Ultra Light is about half the weight of most watches. Made of lightweight materials such as hardened titanium and silicon nitride for the case and anodized aluminium for the movement bridges, the watch is also reduced to the essentials in terms of visual appearance, one of the brand’s principal…
This watch was already part of the Patek Philippe range, but this year it has been introduced in a rose gold case, accompanying the existing versions in yellow and white gold. It is a hand-wound chronograph whose design is perfectly matched to its function. This makes it different to many chronograph watches in which the…
Longines continues to look back into its past and revive vintage models. Why? Because that’s what their market wants. The Heritage Railroad was a great success at Baselworld, meaning that they received an encouraging volume of advance orders from distributors. This piece has the same sort of vintage feel, in this case running back to…
Watch companies have different approaches to re-editions. IWC, for example, prefers to redesign its historic pieces so that there is at least something new and you can easily tell the difference between the old and the new watch. Longines, whose new watches are predominantly classical pieces inspired by products from its past, prefers to retain…
In 1878, Longines made a pocket watch with its own 28 calibre movement, the first of its chronograph movements. It was used on American racecourses, and from the start this was its intended use, as shown by the engraving of a horse and jockey on the caseback. The remarkable thing about that pocket watch is…
All of the watches by Angelus have a high content of originality, from the U10 launched in 2015 that marked the company’s return to business, to this year’s three models. It is above all with the U30 Tourbillon Rattrapante that Angelus and its new owners are saying “We are here.” The U30 is a show…
The dream of a totally transparent watch For the classical watchmakers, there was a parallel between the movement of the watch and the orbits of the planets and their moons, and so perhaps today some watchmakers still secretly dream of a movement in which the gears and hands are floating in space, silently revolving like…