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The Watches

Chopard Commemorates the California Mille 

The annual California Mille classic car rally ran in late April with Chopard again (for the fifth time) as the rally’s Official Timer. In addition to its timing duties, the Swiss watchmaker has launched a commemorative watch to mark the 2023 event: The Mille Miglia GTS Automatic Chrono California Mille 32nd Edition, a 44mm Lucent Steel certified chronometer dressed in grey with Hagerty Motorsports black and blue racing stripes.

The Chopard Mille Miglia GTS Automatic Chrono California Mille 32nd Edition.

As is typical of Chopard’s always notable racing-themed chronographs, the dial on this latest example is meant to recall the dashboard of a classic car. Thus, you’ll see the bright red accents on the California Mille logo and the tip of central sweep-seconds hand contrasting nicely with the grey dial and the racing stripes.

Additional racing themed designs are seen around the dial, with the watch’s thin black bezel displaying a tachymeter scale with contrasting white graduations that can be used to measure average speed ranging from 60 to 400 km/h by means of the chronograph seconds hand.

Inside, Chopard provides an COSC-certified ETA Valjoux-based automatic caliber with a 48-hour power reserve. Sturdy mushroom-type pushers are knurled on top to assist with a grip while in use. Likewise, Chopard adds a large crown with a ratcheted edge to ensure a good grip.

Finally, the Mille Miglia GTS Automatic Chrono California Mille 32nd Edition timepiece is fitted with a black calfskin strap lined with rubber. In keeping with the codes established at the birth of the Mille Miglia collection, the lining is patterned like the tread of 1960s Dunlop Racing tires.

Chopard offers its Mille Miglia GTS Automatic Chrono California Mille 32nd Edition as a limited edition of thirty pieces. 

Price: $8,500.

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The Watches

Porsche Design Celebrates the Rennsport Reunion 

To celebrate the upcoming Porsche Rennsport Reunion, slated to begin later this year (on September 28) at Leguna Seca in California, Porsche Design launches a U.S. limited edition watch: the Chronograph 1 – Rennsport Reunion 7 Edition.

The new Porsche Design the Chronograph 1 – Rennsport Reunion 7 Edition.

As an enhanced edition of the famed Porsche Design Chronograph 1 from 1972, the watch retains the original’s pioneering black livery. But instead of the original’s PVD steel case, the new models are forged using a more scratch-resistant titanium carbide case. But the revived watch still enthralls with same matte black dial, red chronograph seconds hand and 41mm case size as the original.

For this special edition, Porsche Design engraves a ‘7’ on the strap to celebrate the seventh Porsche Rennsport Reunion. 

Turn the watch over to see more commemorative markings, including a platinum-colored winding rotor in the form of the RS Spyder wheel rim with a colorful Porsche Crest (used exclusively for this edition). The rotor winds the superb COSC-certified Porsche Design caliber WERK 01.140.

Porsche Design offers customers two bracelets with this commemorative watch. Buyers receive a classic black titanium bracelet and the sporty black leather strap with stitching and Race-Tex in blue (and the embossed “7”). Porsche Design makes its strap materials from originals used in the interiors of Porsche sports cars.

The Porsche Design Chronograph 1 – Rennsport Reunion 7 Edition is priced at $12,500 and is limited to seventy-five pieces in celebration of 75th anniversary of Porsche. 

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The Watches

Bremont Celebrates Coronation With Commemorative MBII

To celebrate tomorrow’s coronation of King Charles III, British watchmaker Bremont has launched the MBII King Charles III, a commemorative watch within the brand’s military MBII “Martin Baker’ series.

The new Bremont MBII King Charles III.

Offered as a limited edition of fifty, the new 42mm steel watch (available through Bremont boutiques and the Bremont website) makes its allegiance clear with a stainless steel closed caseback nicely engraved with the official King Charles III Coronation Emblem.

A long-time supplier of specialized watches to numerous branches of the British military, Bremont previously also supplied a watch to royalty. In 2011 Bremont supplied a pocket watch to Prince Philipe as part of the celebrations for the late Queen’s Jubilee. Bremont was also commissioned by Jaguar to create bespoke car clocks for Queen Elizabeth II’s fleet of Jaguar automobiles.

Bremont maintains a classic livery for the MBII King Charles III watch, offering a tasteful white dial with luminescent hands and date display.

The only nod to royalty on the dial is the regal purple seconds hand. Inside Bremont fits its ETA-based, chronometer-rated Caliber 11 1/2’’’ BE-36AE automatic movement.

Bremont will also include a commemorative coin with the MBII King Charles III watch. The coin will also be included with any non-customized Bremont watch purchased in the near term and while coin supplies last.

Bremont explains that the coin is inspired by the concept of a traditional military challenge coin and features the official Coronation Emblem of HM King Charles III.

Price: $4,995. 

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The Watches

Louis Vuitton Adds Fluorescent Colors to Sapphire Tambour Moon

Louis Vuitton extends one of its most dramatic ongoing collections, the Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon Poinçon de Genève, adding two hard-to-miss new models. 

One of two new Louis Vuitton Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon models, each cased in fluorescent sapphire.

In addition to the collection’s existing clear, blue- or pink-tinted sapphire-cased models, Louis Vuitton now adds one new watch cased in fluorescent green sapphire and the other in a fluorescent yellow sapphire case.

Touted by Louis Vuitton as “the first watch collection with a sapphire case to bear Geneva Seal,” the new The Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon “Poinçon de Genève” debuts are brilliant in their new color.

Created by heating aluminum oxide at temperatures of around 2,000° Celsius, the sapphire cases are each cut from a from a single block of colored synthetic sapphire. 

The material protects Louis Vuitton’s LV90 caliber, a high-performance openwork movement regulated by a flying tourbillon. The hand-wound movement offers a superior power reserve of eighty hours.

Louis Vuitton explains that each case requires 420 hours of complex operations on digitally controlled machines working with diamond tools. “The 10mm thick monobloc part alone, comprising the case middle, the bezel and the glass, requires 100 hours of milling and 150 hours of polishing. The case back needs fifty hours of machining and sixty hours of hand and machine finishing to become fully transparent and ready for assembly. Finally, the transparent bridge bearing the LV logo takes twenty hours of cutting and forty hours of manual finishing,” according to the manufacturer.

Louis Vuitton attaches the case to a leather strap using black PVD-treated titanium lugs, attached by screws. The watch’s indexes and brand-name lettering are lacquered in white for the green sapphire version, and black for the yellow sapphire model. The 42.5mm by 9.9mm case is water-resistant to 30 meters thanks to a transparent gasket.

Created in a limited production of twenty for each color, each new Tambour Moon Flying Tourbillon Poinçon de Genève watches is priced at 400,000 euros.

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Featured News

Watches and Wonders 2023: The Chopard Alpine Eagle with Small Seconds 

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.

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