Bulova adds a new, five-link integrated bracelet to three new models inits CURV collection, the watchmaker’s series of models that feature an unusual double-curved sapphire crystal and a dramatic curvature in the case radius.
One of three new Bulova CURV chronographs.
The new chronograph models include two in 45mm stainless steel cases available with semi-translucent dials in a choice of green or gray with rose gold details. A third debut is a two-tone 45mm model combining steel and rose-gold, topped with a semi-translucent black dial.
On each model, the 45mm case and double-curved crystal is additionally offset by an unusual 55mm curvature in the radius to create a case shape that curves to hug the wrist.
Each new dial on the trio of debuts offers a peek into the proprietary quartz movement plate below it via a translucent circular ring just round the chronograph sub-dials. Bulova finishes each dial with a striped pattern and prominent hour markers.
The chronograph display is a standard one with elapsed chronograph time shown in 12-hour, 60-minute, and 60-second intervals. The chronograph 60-second sub dial at 6 o’clock doubles as the seconds hand.
Bulova’s CURV is outfitted with brand’s proprietary high-speed quartz movement that vibrates at 262kHz, a frequency eight times greater than a standard quartz movement, enhancing its precision to plus or minus five seconds per month. All Bulova CURV Chronographs are water resistant to 30 meters.
Storytelling and imagery are important players in communication, creating connection, emotion and, as a result, remembrance.
Watches and Wonders 2023 in Geneva was rife with stories, often told most dramatically by the watch brands’ respective exhibit space. From the fantasy of jewels at Van Cleef & Arpels to A. Lange & Sohne’s Odysseus Chronograph, there was a lot to take in and even more to inspire.
The Montblanc booth at Watches and Wonders 2023 featured an oversized nib as a pendulum.
Walking into the Montblanc booth, for example, was like entering a mountain landscape, where shades of gray, white and wood conjured the primary palette and motif of this year’s watch debuts. The bold imagery also served as a link between the art of writing—Montblanc’s foundation in pens since 1906—time, and the theme of exploration. And owing to the brand’s reputation in handcrafting its pen points, the centerpiece was a dramatic oversize Montblanc nib pendulum, which uninterruptedly drew mountain scenes on a round canvas suggestive of a watch dial.
Each watch in the new Montblanc 1858 Zero Oxygen 8000 Capsule Collection features a Sfumato dark grey Glacier pattern dial, replicating the color of the rock and ice at 8,000 meters.
Montblanc’s Managing Director Watch Division Laurent Lecamp emphasized the importance of imagery and storytelling to share important themes. “Story is the soul of the world of Montblanc,” he explained to me during our recent interview. Thus the company often engages high-profile individuals, fans of the brand, to help recount the narrative.
The back of the Montblanc 1858 Geosphere 0 Oxygen 8000 pictures K2, the world’s second-highest mountain.
Reinhold Messner and Nimsdai Purja, mountaineers and Montblanc “Mark-Makers,” inspired Montblanc’s intricate art-inspired booth space, as well as the new watches in the collection. Even the walls told a tale, incorporating the men’s words taken from their written accounts of climbing expeditions.
The new Montblanc 1858 Geosphere 0 Oxygen The 8000, with MB 29.25 automatic worldtime movement.This Montblanc 1858 Iced Sea Automatic Date Boutique Edition comes in a 41mm stainless steel case.
Following suit, the 1858 Zero Oxygen The 8000 watch collection on display for the first time revealed colors that recall the rock and ice found at high altitudes, made using zero oxygen technology.
The new Montblanc 1858 Geosphere Chronograph 0 Oxygen The 8000 LE 290 44mm .
All four of the Montblanc 1858 Zero Oxygen 8000 Capsule Collection debuts join Montblanc’s Zero Oxygen series. The collection’s timepieces boast zero oxygen inside their cases to not only eliminate fogging, but also to prevent oxidization.
The new Montblanc 1858 Unveiled Secret Minerva Monopusher Chronograph LE 88. Inside is a reversed Minerva caliber.
Taking the imagery one step further, the very beautiful and complex Montblanc Unveiled Secret Minerva Monopusher Chronograph, while not specifically among the 8000 Capsule Collection models, nonetheless displays a distressed steel case created partly by tumbling and brushing the metal with quartzite straight from the company’s namesake mountain, Mont Blanc.
One year after debuting the world premiere Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante, Parmigiani Fleurier this year follows up with another premiere jumping hand watch, the Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante.
The new Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante.
The new watch echoes last year’s GMT by performing a classic timing function with a new, simpler operation. Where that earlier model allowed for a hand-based display of GMT time, the new watch allows the user to check elapsed minutes on-demand via a second minute hand hidden directly under the primary minute hand.
Instead of turning a calibrated bezel (as on a dive watch), the user simply presses a pusher to move the second, gold hour hand to the desired time.
With the Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante, it’s the movement’s control of the second minute hand that performs the elapsed time display, not the user’s bezel-read calculation. The elapsed time is indicated when the primary minute hand reaches – and covers – the gold minute hand.
This display can be used for any fine calibration of the minutes over a specific period of time, or for any occasion or event requiring measurement of the minutes count, such as for cooking times or game times.
To use the function, the wearer can move the rose gold hand in either five-minute increments (via the pusher at 8’o’clock) or one-minute increments (via the pusher positioned at 10 o’clock). Once the two hands meet and superimpose, the period of time to be measured will have elapsed.
At any time, the wearer can return the gold hand to its position hidden underneath the rhodium-plated primary minute hand by pressing the crown-integrated pusher, in a similar way to the split-seconds function.
As on last year’s Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante, this new hand-based time counting function is only visible when activated.
The movement that makes these functions possible, new caliber PF 052, is powered by an elegant rose-gold micro-rotor and is fully visible from the back of the 40mm steel case.
The functionality here is of course paired with the watchmaker’s high-end workmanship and finishing. These include a hand-cut Grain d’Orge guilloché dial in a sand grey color and 18-karat gold hands and markers. As on all Tonda PF models, the knurled bezel is platinum.
The new Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante is a welcome, ingenious addition to Parmigiani Fleurier’s new series of hand-based complication displays.
Price: $30,600.
Also new in 2023
In addition to the headliner Tonda PF Minute Rattrapante, Parmigiani Fleurier debuts a platinum-cased Tonda PF Flying Tourbillon with a stunning Milano blue dial ($163,700), a premiere all-platinum Tonda PF Microrotor model with time and date only ($92,800), and a trio of perpetual models displaying time using the Islamic, Chinese and Gregorian calendars.
The new Tonda PF Flying Tourbillon.The new all-platinum Tonda PF Microrotor.
The watchmaker also adds a rose-gold edition of last year’s premiere PF GMT Rattrapante, complete with a rich Grain d’Orge guilloché dial in Milano blue,($65,500) plus a rose-gold edition of its always impressive Tonda PF Split-Seconds Chronograph ($169,100).
A new rose-gold edition of last year’s premiere Tonda PF GMT Rattrapante.The Parmigiani Fleurier Tonda PF Split-Seconds Chronograph, now in rose gold.
Bulgari focuses on its eight-sided Octo Roma collection for early 2023 as it launches the collection’s first chronograph. In addition, look for three new Bulgari Octo Roma Automatic dial options and four Octo Roma Tourbillon watches, each with its own technical twist.
Octo Roma Chronograph
As an early 2023 focus debut, the new Octo Roma Chronograph introduces a new Bulgari movement, Caliber BVL 399, visible through the watch’s clear sapphire back.
The new Bulgari Octo Roma Chronograph, here with a blue dial. It’s also offered with a black dial.
Two models are included in the debut, one with a black dial and one in blue. Both feature an eye-catching Clous de Paris, or hobnail, pattern that appears as small pyramids across the dial, here broken only by the three sunburst-pattern chronograph subdials.
Bulgari has been especially careful designing the pushers, which are nicely integrated into the 42mm by 12.4mm steel case. The pushers are only slightly visible, seemingly flowing from the angled lugs directly to the crown protector.
The new Bulgari Octo Roma Chronograph also features a screw-in steel crown with a ceramic insert, is water-resistant to 100 meters and offersSuperLumiNova-filled metallic hands, indexes and numerals.
Bulgari attaches the watch to the wrist with a polished and satin-brushed stainless-steel bracelet with a folding clasp and includes an easily interchangeable rubber strap with each watch.
Price: 9,900 euros.
The new Bulgari Octo Roma Automatic, here with a white dial and rubber strap.
Octo Roma Automatic
Sporting the same fetching Clous de Paris dial treatment as the new chronograph, the three new automatic models each offer a three-dimensional dial option to the Roma Automatic collection. Differing ambient light levels will subtly alter the character of the dial, though the large 12 and 6 and the long hour markers allow time to be read quickly at any angle. The hands, hour markers and Arabic numerals are enhanced with SuperLumiNova.
Bulgari offers three colors with the new dial pattern: blue, anthracite and white.
This 41mm by 9.1mm steel watch with three hands and date is powered by the existing in-house Caliber BVL 191 movement decorated with Côtes de Genève motif, visible through the clear sapphire back.
Bulgari equips both the Octo Roma Automatic and the Octo Roma Chronograph with a tool-free interchangeable wristband system. Each watch is also water-resistant to a depth of 100 meters.
Price: 7,900 euros.
Four Octo Roma Tourbillon Watches
Two of the Tourbillon models, the Octo Roma Precious Naturalia (165,000 euros) and Precious Tourbillon Lumière (190,000 euros) both feature minerals within their cases or dials.
The Bulgari Octo Roma Precious Naturalia features a slice of tiger’s eye on the caliber and the indexes.
The former includes polished tiger eye on its caliber, mainplate and indexes while then latter glows with diamonds set across a 38mm rose gold case.
The Octo Roma Precious Tourbillon Lumière features a new 38mm case size.
Two Bulgari Octo Roma tourbillon debuts are especially contemporary. One, the 44mm Octo Roma Papillon Tourbillon (130,000 euros) is a black DLC titanium-cased, jumping hour model named in reference to the Daniel Roth precursors of yore. Sporting a very rare central tourbillon, the watch shows the hour through a fixed window at noon, while the minutes are displayed on a semicircle graduated from 0 to 60 and alternately traversed by two diamond-shaped hands.
A sketch of the Bulgari Octo Roma Papillon Tourbillon. Images coming soon.
The second contemporary model is an Octo Roma Striking Tourbillon Sapphire (85,000 euros) that revives an earlier flying tourbillon chiming model, but with a newly refined black DLC titanium and sapphire case. We’ll have more information and images of these two new models in future posts.
Among its 2023 Watches and Wonders Debuts, Chopard adds an ultra-thin small-seconds model to its high-flying Alpine Eagle collection.
The new Chopard Alpine Eagle 41 XPS.
The new watch, the Chopard Alpine Eagle 41 XPS, comes a year after Chopard debuted a small-seconds display within the Alpine Eagle Flying Tourbillon. The new watch expands an already impressive list of Alpine Eagle variations, including models with a flyback chronograph movement, a high-frequency caliber and the recent flying tourbillon.
This series places Chopard’s superior L.U.C 96.40-L movement in a 41mm by 8mm steel case, topping it with what Chopard calls its “Monte Rosa Pink” dial.
Chopard explains that the new dial color is inspired by natural Alpine colors and is named to evoke the pinkish shimmer after which the second highest mountain range in the Alps is named.
The Chopard L.U.C caliber inside the new watch, like so many of Chopard’s excellent in-house movements, offers a much-welcomed long power reserve of sixty-five hours thanks to its two stacked barrels based on Chopard Twin technology.
Chopard also equips the movement with a stop-seconds function that is backed up with a chronometer certification by the Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute. (Note the “Chronometer” inscription on the dial below the logo.) In addition to its chronometer certification, the watch is finished to Geneva Seal haute horlogerie standards.
Chopard makes all its steel Alpine Eagle models with its own Lucent Steel A223, a particularly shiny and element-resistant alloy. Other characteristics of the collection include: a round case with stylized flanks, a crown engraved with a compass rose, a bezel with eight functional screws set at a tangent, a stamped colorful ‘eagle’s iris’ dial, luminescent indications and a metal bracelet. Price: $22,500.
Also New in 2023
During Watches and Wonders 2023 Chopard also debuted a new 25mm Happy Sport collection the debuts in four variations featuring a choice of materials, straps – including a new double tour option – and diamond settings. Prices start at $4,450.
One of four new 25mm options in the new Chopard Happy Sport collection.
In addition, look for Imperiale, a rose-gold-cased 25-piece limited edition in ethical 18-karat rose gold models with a lotus flower motif.
The new Chopard Imperiale.
The flowers bloom against the sky backdrop that appears to change thanks to a rotating day-night mechanism. Price: $90,700.
On each model, the 45mm case and double-curved crystal is additionally offset by an unusual 55mm curvature in the radius to create a case shape that curves to hug the wrist. 
Bulgari attaches the watch to the wrist with a polished and satin-brushed stainless-steel bracelet with a folding clasp and includes an easily interchangeable rubber strap with each watch.
