Monthly Archives: May 2017

parmigiani fleurier toric chronometre collection

PARMIGIANI – TORIC CHRONOMETRE

MASTERLY DESIGN

When he created the first model in the Toric collection, Michel Parmigiani, the founder of the brand of the same name set up in 1996, took inspiration from the field of art, and even of history and nature. He borrowed the straight ribs and fluting on antique Greek columns and the contours of shells in designing the bezel for the Toric timepieces, which included a type of gadroon around a ribbed, hollow strip. This visual signature has been applied to all the collection, including the new Toric Chronomètre watch.

parmigiani fleurier toric chronometre collection

With a slim case that has been slightly reworked to embrace contemporary aesthetic codes, it is 40.8mm wide and available in white or rose gold. It houses the calibre PF331, manufactured by Parmigiani, and visible through the sapphire case back. This self-winding mechanism, certified as a chronometer by the COSC, runs at 28 800 vibrations per hour (4Hz), and its double barrel provides a power reserve of 55 hours.

The dial on the Toric Chronomètre model is dressed in a black that is as deep and intense as lacquer or a grained white with delicate silvery tints. It features an hour rim with Arabic numerals along the minute track circling the chapter ring. At the centre of this disc with its simple aesthetics are a couple of javelin-style golden hands for the hours and minutes, along with a second hand. The date is displayed against a black or white background in a wide counter at 6 o’clock, at the bottom of the dial, showing the date over three days.

Price: 18 500 CHF

By Sharmila Bertin

frederique constant pillar

Frederique Constant Sponsors New York City Premiere Of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

New York, NY (May 24, 2017) – This week, Frederique Constant presented the New York City premiere of the highly anticipated 5th installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

The exclusive night commenced with appearances from the blockbuster’s leading cast: Orlando Bloom, Javier Bardem. Kaya Scodelario and Brenton Thwaits.

Frederique Constant continues its support of the Hollywood industry through key moment and initiatives as well as through the brand’s global charity ambassador and Oscar Award Winning actress, Gwyneth Paltrow. Sharing similar passions around the importance of philanthropy, Frederique Constant supports one of Paltrow’s favored organizations, DonorsChoose.org; a philanthropic organization that makes it easy for anyone to help a classroom in need, supplying the tools and experiences that children need for a great education.

frederique constant pillar

“We were pleased to present the Pirates of the Caribbean NYC premiere,” says Morgane Leynaud, “Frederique Constant Marketing Manager. “Frederique Constant has always shared a great appreciation for the movie industry and intends to continue touching key moments in entertainment.”

Special VIP guests included Patti Smith, Gina Gershon, Paul Haggis, Sarita Choudhury (Homeland), Kathleen Turner, Hill Harper (Homeland), Steve & Maureen Van Zandt, Linda Wells, Simon Kirke, Jon Kilik, Alexandra Agoston, Sante D’Orazio, Krystal Joy Brown, Jamie Cepero, Geoffrey Fletcher, Tabitha Simmons, Candy Pratts Price, Kiera Chaplin, RJ King, Clara McGregor, Eleanor Lambert, Dale Moss, Lorraine Schwartz, Jazmin Grimaldi, Ian Mellencamp, Louisa Warwick, Tara Westwood, and Timo Weiland

www.frederiqueconstant.com

blancpain villeret quantieme phase de lune collection

BLANCPAIN – VILLERET DATE MOONPHASE

WHEN THE MOON TURNS MISCHIEVOUS

Nearly forty years ago, Blancpain reintroduced the moonphase into its watch collections, a complication that had been set aside for some time, even though it embodies the strong and historic links between watchmaking and astronomy. This year, two women’s watches from the classic Villeret range have proudly adopted this oh so poetic mechanism.

Blancpain’s moon is something mischievous and terribly feminine. Isn’t it said that the silver sphere has feminine qualities, while the sun is more masculine? On both versions of the Villeret Date Moonphase model, there is no doubt about it: the queen of the night has a perfectly feminine face, with closed eyes lined with a fringe of thick eyelashes and delicately outlined lips. A beauty mark – what the French call a mouche, a small spot cut out of taffeta or black velvet or drawn with a pencil, and worn by all the beauties of the 18th century – is shown above the upper lip, highlighting the moon’s mischievous spirit.

blancpain villeret quantieme phase de lune collection

The moonphase indication is in an open fan-shaped counter at 6 o’clock and displayed through a mechanism incorporating a wheel with 59 teeth. A complete lunar cycle includes 29.5 days, so the mechanism can display two lunar months, with two moons depicted on the sapphire disc and surrounded by stars.

The moonphase complication, as well as the date shown by hands, and the “traditional” time functions (hours, minutes and seconds), are driven by the calibre 913 QL, made by Blancpain. This automatic movement has a power reserve of 40 hours and its gold rotor is visible through the sapphire case back.

The case is 29.2mm wide and 10.36mm thick, and comes in a steel or rose gold version crowned by a bezel set with 48 diamonds. This glittering ring surrounds an ivory-tinged dial. The smooth, enamel-like disc is decorated with an hour rim made up of four Roman numerals with silver or golden indices and eight small diamonds. In the centre, two leaf-shaped hands display the hours and minutes, together with a second hand and a fourth hand tipped with a red crescent marking the date.

Price: 15 500 CHF (steel version sold in a gift box containing five interchangeable straps) – 17 800 CHF (rose gold version) blancpain.com

By Sharmila Bertin

richard mille rm-050 jean todt

RICHARD MILLE – JEAN TODT 50TH ANNIVERSARY

MECHANICAL ATTRACTION

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the FIA President Jean Todt’s amazing career, his friend Richard Mille has devoted three limited series to him.

Fine watchmaking and motor racing have a lot in common. The materials that appear in racing cars explore a new means of expression in a movement or case. The three Jean Todt 50th Anniversary watches embody the close bonds that tie the two worlds just like the friendship between Jean Todt and Richard Mille. All three are in the FIA President’s favourite colours. The sporty-souled RM 11-03 Flyback Chronograph is inspired by motor racing with a self-winding calibre in grade 5 titanium and a case in Quartz TPTTM. This super-strong yet light composite with unique properties is made by interlaying 600 layers of 45 micron silica filled with a blue resin exclusive to Richard Mille. The whole thing is then heated to 120°C before being worked on to achieve the end result.

richard mille rm-050 jean todt

This amazing movement appears again in the RM 056 Jean Todt 50th Anniversary which stands out for the build and curviness of its sapphire case. It takes over 1000 hours of processing including 430 hours of grinding and 350 hours of polishing to make. There are 150, 5 and 3 of the RM 11-03, RM 050 and RM 056 Jean Todt 50th Anniversary respectively.

Price: 153,500 EUR (RM11-03) – 1,097,000 EUR (RM 050) – 2,121,000 EUR (RM 056) richardmille.com

By Dan Diaconu

louis moinet space mystery caseback

LOUIS MOINET – SPACE MYSTERY

FATAL ATTRACTION

As a tourbillon celebrates the mysteries of gravity, Louis Moinet takes us to a new aesthetic world.

“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe,” said the American astronomer Carl Sagan. The same goes for making a watch and that’s surely why the Space Mystery by Louis Moinet is inspired by the cosmos with a never-before-seen celestial design. The deep and intense “Magic Blue” dial brings to mind the starry sky. An interstellar feature appears in the form of a majestic tourbillon and its oversize cage at 13.59mm in diameter. Another star catches the eye at 9. The perforated dial gives a glimpse of a real C chondrite meteorite fragment which may contain fossilised extra-terrestrial molecules. No wonder the watchmakers at Louis Moinet have unleashed their stratospheric imagination!

louis moinet space mystery caseback

There are 4 versions of the Space Mystery’s 46mm watch. The white and rose gold models are beautifully hand-engraved or completely smooth. There are 8 of each limited edition model available.

Price: 175,000 CHF (rose or white gold) – 195,000 CHF (engraved rose or white gold) www.louismoinet.com

By Dan Diaconu

corum bubble 47 squelette collection

CORUM – BUBBLE 47 SKELETON

A FABULOUS FRAME

The Chaux-de-Fonds brand has turned one of its signature models into a colourful openwork timepiece. Some of the movement has been brightened up to give our wrists a fresh look this summer!

The Bubble watch by Corum has seen it all, done it all…nearly! Its unique personality enables it to be whatever it wants to be depending on its mood or fancy. The Bubble is joyful first and foremost. Games of chance, shape or material: this watch has been a bold billiard ball, an optical illusion mosaic of cubes, an unknown planet, a red python, an iris, a dice and a shimmering sky blue disc.

Summer is on its way so Corum has stripped down its star model to the bare minimum to reveal some of its movement and to adorn it in flashy colours. Vibrant blue is paired with two eye-catching hues on the three Bubble 47 Skeleton watches.

corum bubble 47 squelette collection

The timekeeping trio is brought to life by the self-winding CO 082 calibre on an ETA base. The movement fuels the hour/minute/second functions (in the centre of the dial), buzzes at 28,800 vph (4Hz) and provides a 42-hour power reserve.

The 47mm steel or black PVD-coated steel case features the iconic domed sapphire crystal with a magnifying effect. A spyglass in sapphire crystal covers the back.

The dial-free Bubble 47 Skeleton plays with its mechanical movement’s architectural features to form a watch face. The components in the foreground are blue whilst those in the background are green or purple (exc. the monochrome model). The hours, minutes and seconds are tracked by two statement leaf-shape hands and a lollipop central seconds hand in rhodium or black coated in white, green or purple Super-LumiNova®.

A blue vulcanised rubber strap with a deployment clasp gives a comfortable fit to the new watch from Corum.

Price: 6,500 CHF

By Sharmila Bertin

audemars piguet royal oak perpetual calendar closeup

AUDEMARS PIGUET – ROYAL OAK PERPETUAL CALENDAR

THE POWER OF CERAMICS

Audemars Piguet made its first perpetual calendar wrist watch in 1955. A limited edition of nine gold pieces opened the way for this useful complication and has led, over 60 years later, to the Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar.

Launched at the beginning of the year at the Salon international de haute horlogerie (SIHH) in Geneva, this new Royal Oak Perpetual Calendar has an all-black case and dial.

audemars piguet royal oak perpetual calendar closeup

True to the aesthetic codes of the Royal Oak collection, the watch features the famous octagonal bezel equipped with eight screws to crown the black ceramic watch case. The case is 41mm wide, is waterproof down to 50m and has a sapphire glass back. This means part of its mechanism is visible – namely, the calibre 5134, designed and made in Audemars Piguet’s Vallée de Joux workshops. The self-winding mechanical movement has a gentle rhythm of 19 800 vibrations an hour (2.75Hz) and provides a power reserve of about 40 hours.

On the anthracite grey dial, we naturally also find the famous relief “Grande Tapisserie” chequerboard pattern dial. On the disc adorned with small squares are four round bevelled silver counters. The perpetual calendar is laid out as follows: the day of the week is at 9 o’clock, the date at 3 o’clock and the months, including leap-years, at 12 o’clock. A hand with an arrow tip is placed at the centre to show the week number (out of 52) on the black chapter ring, while at 6 o’clock is a shining moon phase. The hours and minutes are displayed by two central hands travelling round an hour rim with white gold indices.

Prix: 85,000 CHF

By Sharmila Bertin

patek philippe 5372P-001 closeup

PATEK PHILIPPE – 5372P-001

A BLUE FEAST FOR THE EYES

With the 5372P-001, Patek Philippe blends its magnificent split-second chronograph calibre and perpetual calendar with one of its most beautiful platinum cases.

This is the story of an encounter. Between a prestigious movement and a platinum watch case of a rare elegance, designed in 2015. Although its width is far from imposing (38.5mm), its curves, concave bezel and hollowed, satin sides attracted watchmakers who decided to place inside it a manual-wind calibre and its 476 components, along with split-seconds monopusher chronograph complications and a perpetual calendar. A challenge? Perhaps, but this is Patek Philippe!

patek philippe 5372P-001 closeup

And so this association has taken shape this year with the 5372P-001 model. The link between the famous calibre CHR 27-525 PS Q and the watch case is given material form with a sublime, light-filled, sun-blue dial made on an 18-carat gold plate. Days, months, leap years and a day/night indication are displayed in discreet counters. A hand points to the date in a disc at 6 o’clock, while the chronograph counters are at 3 and 9 o’clock. Above the crown, a single monopusher shows how measuring short time intervals using the chronograph can be carried out in perfect simplicity with a single press of the button.

Despite the watch’s small size and the large amount of information on the dial, readability is close to perfection. Certain marvellous developments illustrate Mark Twain’s famous saying, “They did not know it was impossible, so they did it“. For the watchmakers at Patek Philippe, their expertise most certainly guided this association and resulted in a marriage of convenience, because the in-house spirit truly presides over this model!

Price: 473 250 EUR patek.com

By Dan Diaconu

jaeger lecoultre duometre quantieme lunaire closeup

JAEGER-LECOULTRE – DUOMETRE QUANTIEME LUNAIRE

TIMEKEEPING AND ELEGANCE

With this apposite version of the Duomètre Quantième Lunaire, Jaeger-LeCoultre shows how aesthetic choices can influence the clarity of the dial.

Playing with contrasts to affirm your personality. The principle, used in the world of fashion, also applies in top-of-the-range watchmaking. And so Jaeger-LeCoultre has given a new face to its Duomètre Quantième Lunaire, first launched in 2010. The recipe is simple. The hand-grained and silver finish on the original dial has given way to a grey opaline, similar to a grey magnetite, a mineral in the spinel family. The result? The watch has gained in personality, while reading the time information is now a pure joy thanks to the contrast produced by the rose gold hands and indices.

jaeger lecoultre duometre quantieme lunaire closeup

The Duomètre Quantième Lunaire still displays the hours and minutes, the date and the moon phase on two separate discs. The seconde foudroyante hand that moves in leaps of 1/6th of a second has kept its strategic and purely aesthetic position in another disc at 6 o’clock. This sublime watchmaking composition is the setting for a large central second hand of great finesse.

Excellence is still the watchword for the mechanism, protected by a case that is also made of rose gold. The timepiece is powered by the innovative 381 Jaeger-Lecoultre movement and its Dual-Wing architecture, which stands out through the presence of two independent sources of energy. A first barrel, dedicated to the balance, guarantees precision, while another is used to display all the time data. This unique architecture means that when the crown is pulled out, the balance continues to work. When combined with the presence of a “jumping seconds” system that can be used to stop the two second hands at the same time and reset them to zero, it guarantees perfect synchronisation when resetting the time.

Price: 40 400 EUR www.jaeger-lecoultre.com

By Dan Diaconu

breguet marine equation marchante 5887 closeup

BREGUET – MARINE EQUATION MARCHANTE 5887

THE SOLAR TIME REFERENCE

In the Breguet watch collections, the Marine Équation Marchante 5887 stands out with its unexpected new-look display of the equation of time.

Equation of time watches show the difference between average solar time and real solar time, the one used in our daily lives. Breguet has decided to give it a new look with a “running” (marchante) equation of time. In concrete terms, the Marine Équation Marchante 5887, with the help of two totally independent rotation mechanisms, shows both civil time and real time with two separate minute hands. The “running” solar hand is distinguished by a facetted sun at its tip, showing the minutes in solar time at a glance. The two hands display the real gap between the two kinds of time.

breguet marine equation marchante 5887 closeup

Another strong point for the Marine Équation Marchante 5887 is a perpetual calendar that is automatically corrected according to the length of the month. Two counters, one between 10 and 11 o’clock and the other between 1 and 2 o’clock, show the days and months, respectively. The date is displayed on a retrograde scale on a arc between 9 and 3 o’clock.

The watch is available in two versions. One has a platinum case of 43.9mm in diameter and a blue dial made of gold. The other is dressed in rose gold and has a silver-gold dial. They are both driven by an exceptional mechanism, the calibre 581DPE, individually numbered and manufactured by Breguet. The precision of this self-winding movement is improved by the presence of a 60-second tourbillon and a silicon balance. This mechanism is visible through the case back and has a comfortable power reserve of 80 hours, displayed discreetly on the dial in a counter between 7 and 9 o’clock.

Price: 209 500 EUR (rose gold version) – 224 500 EUR (platinum version) breguet.com

By Dan Diaconu