Any visitor to Franck Muller’s vast headquarters in Genthod, adjacent to Geneva, will vouch for the technical depth this manufacture exhibits throughout the facility. Case after case of watches set with tourbillons and multiple complications testify to decades of watchmaking with a distinctive style, typically built into the brand’s trademark Cintrée Curvex-shaped case.
But there’s much more to Franck Muller than its range of Master Bankers, large tourbillons and jaw-dropping skeleton models. Few watchmakers can match the wide-ranging fluency the brand also demonstrates year after year with its gem-set collections.
Two examples of the new Franck Muller Double Mystery Peony.
Franck Muller has again paired its technical chops with its gem-setting expertise with the release of the new Double Mystery Peony, which combines gemstone setting and its enchanting Double Mystery time display system.
In the Double Mystery collection, Franck Muller replaces watch hands with two rotating discs, each with an arrow-shaped indicator. Patented in 1998, the technique allows Franck Muller to experiment by setting a colorful spectrum of gemstones across and atop of the two rotating discs.
In this latest Double Mystery Peony, Franck Muller sets 662 diamonds and colored gemstones (4.87 carats) on each dial, all shaped and patterned across the dial to recall the namesake bloom. The watches, powered by an automatic movement topped with the Double Mystery complication, are offered in white gold and yellow gold and in 42mm and 39mm cases. Price: $88,700
Now available in a karat gold case, the Junghans Meister Fein Automatic adds a luxurious aspect to this German brand’s dressy Meister collection.
The Junghans Meister Fein Automatic.
With its long markers and hands framed within a slim bezel, the Meister Fein Automatic differs from the more directly retro Meister Automatic, which features 1950s-style dauphine-shaped hands and somewhat shorter markers.
The newer Meister Fein Automatic model is also somewhat larger at 39.5mm in diameter when compared to the 38mm of the Meister Automatic line, but both wear snug to the wrist with their small, curved lugs, curved crystal and slim cases.
By removing the word ‘Automatic’ from the dial and affixing its traditional logo just below the twelve o’clock position, Junghans underscores its minimalist tendencies, which arise from early 20th century German design philosophies.
Junghans attaches the watch to the wrist with an elegant, seam-free black alligator leather strap. The strap, like the case, is gently curved.
And finally, Junghans rebuilds a base ETA movement to create its J800.1 caliber, which features a spherical, two-arm rotor with a gilded Junghans star. These additions are clearly visible through the sapphire crystal caseback.
Junghans will make 100 pieces of this limited edition.
Price: $8,000
Specifications: Junghans Meister Fein Automatic
Movement: Self-winding ETA-based J800.1 with two-arm rotor designed specifically for this model, and a power reserve of up to 38 hours. Rhodium-plated with blue screws, Junghans-designed rotor with sunray brush finish, gilded and polished plate as bearing cover over the rotor bearing.
Case: 39.5mm by 11.0mm gold, 4-screw back, convex and sapphire crystal with anti-reflection coating on both sides. Water resistant to 30 meters.
Dial: Matte silver-plated, convex, diamond-effect strokes as hour markings, historical Junghans logo, hands with curved pointers.
Strap: Black alligator leather with 18-karat gold buckle.
Alexander Shorokhoff honors Austrian artist Gustav Klimt with Crazy Eyes, a chronograph dominated by a colorful dial and its two eye-like orbs. While these orbs replace the running seconds and chronograph minute subdials, additional ‘eyes’ seem to bounce around a dial further animated with colorful shapes and colors.
The new Alexander Shorokhoff Crazy Eyes, made in steel and in yellow-gold-plated 39mm cases (pictured).
The German-based Alexander Shorokhoff is also celebrating its 30th anniversary with Crazy Eyes, which could also describe how the Russian-born independent watchmaker often approaches creating his company’s watch dials. You might recall his Kandy and Levels models, just two of the colorful and Pop Art influenced watches included within the brand’s Avant-Garde collection.
Shorokhoff says that the “eyes” on this new watch’s dial are meant to “transmit a sense of joy, enthusiasm and mobility, literally dancing on the scene of the shiny dial.” He combines multiple layers on the dial using different materials, including mother-of-pearl, brass and luminescence.
At the top of the dial, however, Shorokhoff retains a prominent 60, which appears on all his designs to symbolize both the 60-second/minute position as well as the arts movements of the 1960s, where the watchmaker draws much of his inspiration.
Inside Shorokhoff fits a Russian-made Poljot caliber 3133, which his company has partially skeletonized, hand-engraved and refined. He explains that the caliber, now discontinued, is based on the Valjoux 7734 movement and was produced at the First Moscow Watch Factory from 1976 to 2004.
To complement the Crazy Eyes dial, Shorokhoff attaches a matching stingray strap colored bright yellow. He offers two 39mm case options, steel and plated gold, for those who want to extend the yellow color theme to the case. Each case option, however, will only be made in a limited edition of thirty pieces, with the gold-plated model priced with a $100 premium.
As Nomos carefully expanded its sports watch offerings in recent years, the German watchmaker has deftly balanced its traditional minimalist tenets with enhanced water-resistance and anti-shock requirements.
Collectors welcomed those sports models with open wrists. Nomos had finally combined its clean dial design spirit with a tougher and larger case design that sported a serious 300 meters of water resistance – all with a sleek steel bracelet.
The new Nomos Club Sport Neomatik 42 Date Blue.
This week Nomos expands its sports offerings with a new Club Sport Neomatik 42 Date Blue. As the name hints, the watch features a new, galvanized blue sunburst dial, which adds a new option to the black-dialed original.
But perhaps more critically, the debut highlights a new integrated steel bracelet that is not only more traditional in style than the first steel bracelet, it also likely enhances its acceptance to sports enthusiasts possibly wary of the original’s open lug design.
Nomos adds a new sunburst finish to the dial of Club Sport Neomatik 42 Date.
Nomos customized the bracelet for this debut, creating a classic brushed and polished three-link design with a folding safety clasp that sits right up against the case. Unlike the earlier bracelet, this one doesn’t allow any wrist to show between the case and the links.
A signal-red ring around the stem of the crown alerts the wearer if the crown is not screwed tight.
The handsome sunburst dial is set with white hands that glow blue and bold in the dark. As on the earlier models, Nomos equips the stem with a red ring that alerts the wearer if the crown is not tightened. Inside Nomos places its patented DUW 6101 date caliber from the Nomos Glashütte neomatik series. In part due to its thinness (at 3.6mm), it is well protected by the case, even with the clear sapphire caseback.
IWC adds two Ceratanium models to its Top Gun collection, and each debut also represents a specific technical breakthrough for the Schaffhausen-based watchmaker.
The new IWC Pilot’s Watch Timezoner Top Gun Ceratanium is the first Top Gun model with a Timezoner complication.
One of the pair, the Pilot’s Watch Timezoner Top Gun Ceratanium, includes a Timezoner complication, marking the first time IWC has placed its unique world time display system into a Top Gun watch. The second debut, The Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Top Gun Ceratanium, marks the debut of IWC’s first Ceratanium bracelet.
The Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Top Gun Ceratanium features IWC’s first Ceratanium bracelet.
You may recall that IWC introduced its black Ceratanium titanium-ceramic alloy in 2017 on its Aquatimer Perpetual Calendar Digital Date-Month Edition “50 Years Aquatimer.” IWC then added the proprietary alloy to the Top Gun collection two years later in the Pilot’s Watch Double Chronograph Top Gun Ceratanium.
IWC explains that Ceratanium combines titanium’s inherent lightweight and strength with a hardness and scratch-resistance similar to ceramic. The alloy is also skin-friendly and highly resistant to corrosion. Plus, the material is black, which makes for a perfect livery hue on any adventure or sports watch.
The Perpetual Calendar
IWC places its excellent 52615 caliber with Pellaton winding system (visible through the tinted sapphire caseback) into the new Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Top Gun Ceratanium (Ref. IW503604). The watch’s two barrels, in combination with its Pellaton winding system, offer an impressive seven-day power reserve.
The perpetual calendar is a complication that IWC has pioneered over decades. This example features a mechanical program that automatically recognizes different month lengths and leap years and will require no correction until 2100. The watch’s moon phase display, which depicts the moon as it is seen from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, is also unusually precise. It will deviate by one day after 577.5 years, according to IWC.
Price: $48,000 (Big Pilot’s Watch Perpetual Calendar Top Gun Ceratanium, ref. IW503604). A limited edition of 150.
The Worldtimer
As noted earlier, IWC’s new Pilot’s Watch Timezoner Top Gun Ceratanium (Ref. IW395505) is the first model in the collection with the Timezoner complication. The technology makes it particularly easy to set the watch to a different time zone. When pressing down and rotating the bezel, the watch’s hour hand, the 24-hour display and the date will move forwards or backwards in one-hour increments.
IWC has printed this dial in grey and generously coated the numbers 12, 3, 6 and 9 with a luminescent material. Here IWC uses its 82760 caliber, also with the Pellaton winding system, which boasts a healthy sixty hours of power reserve. The wearer can view the movement via the watch’s tinted sapphire glass caseback.
Price: $16,900 (Pilot’s Watch Timezoner Top Gun Ceratanium, ref. IW395505). A limited edition of 500.
