This watch, in a 46mm red gold case, 12.28 mm thick, has a lot of traditional watchmaking features, but its open-dial design gives it a modern appearance. The design is cleverly laid out with perfect symmetry, revealing how energy flows from the first mainspring barrel (on the right) on to the second barrel on the…
The Octo family by Bulgari was launched in 2012 and it is becoming a central pillar of the brand’s watch collection. Many new models were presented in 2015, all based on the slim case architecture that reached a high point last year with the presentation of the world’s thinnest tourbillon. The case was designed (and…
One of the watches in the celebrations for the 40th anniversary of Bulgari Roma, the Bulgari Roma Tourbillon Finissimo is a super-slim tourbillon with a manually-wound movement just 1.95 mm thick, world record thinness for a flying tourbillon. The balance runs at 21,600 vph (3 Hertz)and has a power reserve of 52 hours. The case…
GaGà is an Italian brand founded in 2004, making colourful quartz and mechanical watches, and it presented a preview of its Quirky skeleton tourbillon at Baselworld in 2014, intended as a celebration of the brand’s tenth anniversary. Quirky has a movement by Swiss company Hysek, and it is immediately recognizable for its bridges that have…
This year’s version of the Neo-Tourbillon by Girard-Perregaux is similar to the 2014 version with gold case, but the use of titanium with black DLC makes it even more modern in looks, a dark stage on which the lovely silvery tourbillon acts out its magic, apparently floating in mid-air. The curved bridges are a modern…
Chronométrie Ferdinand Berthoud is a new brand owned by Chopard, whose Co-President Karl-Friedrich Scheufele acquired the right to use the name in 2006. Like other analogous relaunches of watchmakers of the past, such as Arnold & Son and Graham, Ferdinand Berthoud is not just a way of purchasing a chunk of watchmaking history: it reflects…
Only a few people know just how a watch like this comes into existence. I can only guess: I imagine Richard Mille sketching something rapidly on the back of an envelope, the idea of a watch that looks like it’s burning inside, flames coming up from deep inside the movement and consuming the dial. The…
Histoire de Tourbillon is one of the most technical watch series by Harry Winston, and it may continue even beyond this piece, number 6 in the series. The other Harry Winston series that intrigues watch-lovers all over the world, Opus, will possibly see the latest Opus 14 launched before the end of the year (as…
Romain Jerome does steampunk exceptionally well. The idea of steam-age machines that have gone far into the future, retaining all their romantic smoke, rust and brass produced an entire genre in art and movies, and in a way, mechanical watches are already steampunk in themselves, anachronistic survivors of a mechanical age in an electronic…
At SIHH in January, Richard Mille announced that at that show they would be presenting just two watches, with others arriving later, so as to ensure the appropriate amount of media attention for each piece. True to their word, they are now providing a first look at the RM 27-02 tourbillon made in cooperation with…
Who is going to buy a watch costing 280,000 Swiss francs with a depiction of an oil rig on the dial? People who measure time not in hours and minutes, but in barrels. Like the Ulysse Nardin Hourstriker Oil Pump , this piece is specifically designed for the markets of Russia, the Middle East and…
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…
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,…
I particularly liked the presentation of this watch by de Grisogono at Baselworld. I think it was Michel Nieto (Head of Commercial and Watches at de Grisogono) talking, and he said, ”Fawaz Gruosi said that he wanted to launch the company in the men’s segment. So he said, ‘I want to start with something extremely…
In its 60th anniversary year, Corum caused quite a surprise at Baselworld 2015 by introducing a series of quartz watches, vastly extending the price range of its watches. Another significant move was the return to the nautical pennant hour markers that have become one of the brand’s distinctive characteristics. This tourbillon watch, made to celebrate…
This watch by De Bethune, presented at Baselworld 2015, has a lot of the classic De Bethune features, in part because it is an anniversary piece, marking ten years from their first DBS made for the 2005 Only Watch charity auction. The new DBS Tourbillon retains some of the features of the original, such as…
The original titanium version of the HM6 Space Pirate by MB&F recently won a “Best of the Best” award at the Red Dot design competition in Essen, Germany. The jury said “The distinctive shape of the clockwork simply fascinates, and its mechanism mesmerises. Featuring the appearance of a friendly being from another world, this wristwatch…
This is a remarkable watch, a one-off piece by Parmigiani Fleurier that combines beautiful decorative techniques with a movement combining a minute repeater, a chronograph, a tourbillon and a perpetual calendar. Just one made. The artistic side, with the white gold sculpted carp on a grande feu enamelled dial, is a tribute to sculptor and…
The name is very symbolic. L.U.C. is a reference to Louis-Ulysse Chopard, the watchmaker who founded the brand in 1860; 1963 is the year in which Paul André Chopard sold the company to Karl Scheufele, transferring ownership from one private family to another. With all this history, it is not surprising that Chopard developed a…