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The Watches

Ochs und Junior Adds Blue PVD to Mesa

With the new Mese 2.22, boasting an unusual, minimalist analog date display, independent Swiss watchmaker Ochs und Junior launches its first watch with a PVD dial. 

On the watch’s unusual blue PVD dial (and module) you’ll see white indexes, white hands and a white date indicator dot, which cleverly replaces the traditional date display window style.

The new Ochs und Junior Ochs Line Mese 2.22.

Each dot is actually a hole exposing a white SuperLuminova disc below. The viewer determines the date simply by noting which dot around the dial perimeter is white. Using the ten-minute markers as easy reference points, the full 30-day month is indicated via the 31 dots.

Designer Ludwig Oechslin created the indicator by arranging the holes in a gentle spiral, with the 31st hole overlapping the first. A curved dash on the disk below the dial ensures that only one of the two holes will indicate the date at the start of the month (either the 1st or the 31st), but not both at the same time.

The dial and module for the Ochs und Junior Ochs Line Mese 2.22.

The time is read in the traditional manner. The exact minute and seconds  can be read by the ring of holes spaced at two-minute intervals. These perforations mark even-numbered minutes while the adjoining spaces denote odd-numbered minutes. (Check out this video of Oechslin explaining the date spiral for his perpetual calendar, which is also relevant for this Mese model.)

La Chaux-de-Fonds-based Ochs und Junior was founded in 2006 by renowned scholar and watchmaker Ludwig Oechslin, alongside Kurt König, managing director of Swiss watch retailer Embassy, and Beat Weinmann.

The Ochs und Junior Mese 1.22 debuted this past April.

This newest Ochs und Junior Ochs Line Mese 2.22, a 39mm titanium watch, follows the earlier Mese 1.22 debut in April. It highlights a new ‘Yves-Klein blue’ in PVD made by Positive Coating, La Chaux-de-Fonds. Ochs und Junior pairs the bright new color with blue-black Ecopell Enzian Nappa leather strap, handmade by Berne-based designer Sabina Brägger. 

Inside, Oechslin’s module is paired with an automatic ETA 2824-2, and both are fit within the two-part titanium case designed by Ludwig Oechslin with visible machining marks. Price: CHF 3,500. 

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The Watches

Ulysse Nardin Sets a Rainbow of Gems into Two Watches

Ulysse Nardin adorns its 39mm Lady Diver and 45mm black DLC titanium Blast Tourbillon X with purple, green, blue or pink gemstones to create a rainbow effect that echoes the iridescent rainbow colors of silicon.

The new Ulysse Nardin Blast Rainbow Tourbillon X.

The newly sparkling bezels and dials, which debuted during Geneva Watch Days, are meant to celebrate Ulysse Nardin’s pioneering use of silicon components. 

You may recall that in 2001 the Le Locle-based watchmaker was the first to debut a watch (the Freak) with silicon escapement components, jump-starting a technical revolution in the use of the material throughout the high-end Swiss watchmaking industry.

Ulysse Nardin sets the newest Blast Rainbow Tourbillon X with fifty rubies and sapphire baguette gemstones on its bezel and indexes.

The Blast Tourbillon X itself features a skeletonized X bridge and a black rectangular frame that geometrically opens views into the automatic flying tourbillon caliber UN-172. The impressive movement (pictured below), with its platinum micro-rotor and silicon escapement wheel, anchor & balance spring, is cased in black DLC titanium and sealed with a black ceramic polished and sandblasted upper case.

Ulysse Nardin’s Caliber-UN-172 with flying tourbillon.

Ulysse Nardin offers this new, glittery Blast Rainbow Tourbillion X as a limited edition of fifty. It arrives with a waterproof velvet rubber strap or a black alligator strap, together with a black DLC titanium and black ceramic self-deploying buckle. Price: $89,700.

The new Ulysse Nardin Lady Diver Rainbow is offered with a steel case or a blackened 39mm steel case.

The new 39mm Ulysse Nardin Lady Diver Rainbow, offered in either a steel case or a blackened steel case, is adorned with forty stones (ruby, aquamarine, topaz, tsavorite and sapphire) that the watchmaker has set on a concave unidirectional bezel. Eleven diamonds serve as indexes on the white-dialed or black-dialed watch.

Water resistant to 300 meters, the Lady Diver Rainbow is powered by Ulysse Nardin’s UN-816 automatic movement with silicon escapement components.

The watches, each limited to 300 units, will arrive attached to a white or black rubber strap. Price: $13,600. 

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Alpina

Alpina Re-Sizes its Regulator

Alpina relaunches its Extreme Regulator, first seen in 2005, with a new dial and a smaller cushion-shaped case.

Alpina’s new Alpiner Extreme Regulator.

The new model, which debuts this week at Geneva Watch Days, is called the Alpiner Extreme Regulator and is now set in a more widely appealing 41mm steel case, considerably smaller than the 48mm case of the initial model and the 45mm size of more recent examples.

The Regulator was considered a flagship model when Alpina launched it as the Avalanche Extreme Regulator seventeen years ago. But even with a new size, the latest model evokes a similar assertive, modern appeal. 

Behinds its regulator display of separate hours, minutes and seconds hands, the new Alpiner Extreme Regulator maintains its adventure-focused mission with a thick screw-in crown and caseback, and a strong 200-meter water resistance rating.

Strong Dial

Likewise, the dial projects strength. Alpina’s triangle logo is employed as a grid across the dial, symbolizing Alpine peaks. The grey pattern captures light, creating a more visually compelling dial than the initial models, on which the logo decorated only the center of the dial. Alpina adds even more visual texture with the case finish, which is nicely brushed, with polished corners.

Atop the grey ‘peaks,’ Alpina places highly luminescent hands in an almost typical regulator layout, with a large central minutes hand and separate hour and seconds subdial.

The hour subdial on regulator clock dials is classically positioned along the central axis at the top or bottom. Alpina however positions the hour subdial between the 9 o’clock and 11 o’clock positions, focusing the eye more clearly toward the minutes hand.   

Inside the Alpiner Extreme Regulator Automatic Alpina retains its time-tested automatic ETA-based AL-650 caliber, the movement that powered the 2005 Regulator.

Alpina’s choice to host a regulator dial within its bedrock collection has long set the Geneva brand apart from many watchmakers offering affordably priced Swiss sports watches.

The choice to revive the regulator is equally courageous, especially given the regulator’s niche appeal among collectors, especially at this price range. But at first glance, Alpina’s update, with its appealing new case size and terrific dial design, offers more than enough well-considered change to meet that challenge. 

Alpina is limiting the Alpiner Extreme Regulator Automatic to 888 pieces. Price: $2,195.  

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The Watches

Frederique Constant’s Change of Heart

Frederique Constant unveils a new look for its Classics Heart Beat Manufacture collection, revealing a new dial, new indexes and a retro 39mm case.

The Frederique Constant Classics Heart Beat Manufacture in a 39mm steel case. The new design is also offered with a pink gold case.

Perhaps the most notable change in the new design, which debuts this week during Geneva Watch Days,  is how the Geneva-based watchmaker is exposing the watch’s escapement, or ‘Heart Beat.’

Rather than the ‘comma-shaped’ aperture at the 12 o’clock position that characterized the dial of the Heart Beat collection since 2004, the new collection erases the comma in favor of a true circle that is now positioned at the 6 o’clock position.

The first Frederique Constant Heart Beat models in 1994 quickly became a signature design for what was then a young watchmaking company. The look has been emblematic for the company in the years since, and Frederique Constant has used the design to introduce its FC-910 manual-wind manufacture caliber in 2004, as well as its FC-930, the watchmakers’ first automatic caliber, a few years later.

Original size

The aperture update is only one aspect the Heart Beat’s redesign. A 39mm case size is a return to the original dimension of the Heart Beat Manufacture models, which have been offered in larger sizes in recent years. And the 2022 collection also boasts more classical Roman numerals on the dial, paired with thinner indexes.

Frederique Constant notes that the new, subtler indexes overlay a lacquered white dial and are paired with traditional railway markers, echoing watches of the early 20th century.  Finally, Frederique Constant revives the same hand design it used in 2004, with a slender leaf shape for the minutes and “heart” hand for the hours.

The onion crown on the watch, which will be retained on the new collection, winds an automatic FC-930-3 manufacture caliber, which offers a thirty-eight hour power reserve. Frederique Constant decorates the movement with fine pearling and Côtes de Genève stripes, visible through the open caseback.

Frederique Constant is offering the new Classics Heart Beat Manufacture, in two limited series’. The first is cased in pink gold on a brown alligator strap and limited to 93 pieces ($17,995). The second is made of steel on a black alligator strap and limited to 930 pieces ($4,395).  Availability is in December 2022

 

 

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The Watches

Moser Debuts Stealthy Streamliner Tourbillon

H. Moser & Cie combines two of its trademark minimalist components into one of its best-known collections to create the new red gold Streamliner Tourbillon Vantablack, which is also the first non-steel model within the award-winning Streamliner collection.

The new H. Moser & Cie. Streamliner Tourbillon Vantablack.

For this debut, the Schaffhausen-based independent watchmaker places its highly efficient, dual-hairspring automatic HMC 804 one-minute flying tourbillon caliber beneath a Vantablack dial, a design that features high-tech Vantablack, an ultra-black coating that absorbs more than 99 percent of all light.

The resulting ‘black hole’ dial beautifully contrasts with the finely wrought tourbillon at the 6 o’clock position, all framed by the Streamliner’s striking, Deco-influence cushion-shaped 5N red gold case.

H. Moser has created at least two Vantablack dials for watches in its Streamliner case. You might recall that H. Moser presented what may have been a precursor to this model with the steel-cased Streamliner Tourbillon with a Vantablack dial for the 2021 Only Watch charity auction. H. Moser also displayed a non-tourbillon iteration earlier this year at Watches and Wonders in Geneva when it displayed a one-off Streamliner ‘stealth concept’ watch.  

Here H. Moser & Cie. carefully enhances a sharp black/gold contrast by fixing the dial’s red gold indexes from the back of the dial so that they appear or disappear against the Vantablack. All this is framed by a case that H. Moser finishes with vertical brushing alternating with polished lines — an effect mirrored along the fully integrated red gold bracelet.As noted, H. Moser’s automatic HMC 804 caliber powers the watch and is equipped with a double hairspring made by H. Moser & Cie.’s sister company Precision Engineering AG. This component, just one of many technical highlights found throughout H. Moser’s designs, reduces friction and improves the movement’s accuracy and isochronism. (See below for full specifications.) Price: $119,900. 

 

Specifications: H. Moser & Cie Streamliner Tourbillon Vantablack

(Reference 6804-0400)

Movement: HMC 804 automatic Manufacture caliber, frequency of 21,600 vibrations/hour,  automatic bi-directional pawl winding system, oscillating weight in 18-karat red gold with engraved H. Moser & Cie. logo, power reserve of three days, original double hairspring, one-minute flying tourbillon at 6 o’clock with skeletonized bridges.

Case: 40mm by 12.1mm 5N red gold topped by a slightly domed sapphire crystal, screw-in crown adorned with an engraved M, see-through sapphire crystal case-back, water-resistant to 120 meters.

Dial: Vantablack,  hour and minute hands with Globolight inserts, indices secured from the back of the dial using a plate.

Bracelet: Integrated in 5N red gold, folding clasp with three blades in 5N red gold, engraved with the Moser logo. 

Half-links available.

Price: $119,900. 

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