De Bethune bills its new DB25 GMT Starry Varius as the smaller (42mm) alternative to the 45mm DB25 World Traveller, which debuted in 2016. For the most part, that’s true, though you won’t find a series of city names positioned around the dial on this new dual-time model to quickly display global times.
The new De Bethune DB25 GMT Starry Varius.
The new watch, however, adds a GMT function to the displays, which smartly retains the original model’s multi-level, concentric spheres and its unusual miniature gold and blued-steel orb, dubbed the ‘microsphere.’
In its smaller guise (42mm by 11.8mm), the new watch also retains other characteristics De Bethune builds into its entire DB25 Starry Varius collection. These include a polished grade-5 titanium case, a starry sky accompanied by its Milky Way and De Bethune’s characteristic integrated, open-worked lugs.
Reading the dial
With the date visible in the central disc visa a jumping hand, the two time zones can be discerned with a check of the blued central hands (local time) and the mysteriously circling dual-metal orb (second ‘home’ time). You’ll even know whether it’s daytime or nighttime at home thanks to the orb’s two halves: one blue (evening) and the other pink gold (daytime). For added realistic affect, the slow-rotating microsphere very gradually reveals both sunrise and sunset.
De Bethune’s microsphere is an unusual miniature gold and blued-steel orb that displays both a second time zone and daytime and nighttime.
To add an even more poetic display to the dial, De Bethune places a polished pink gold sun in the dial’s center, just across from the beautifully blued and polished titanium miniature night sky dotted with white gold ‘star’ pins.
De Bethune powers its new DB25 GMT Starry Varius with its hand-wound Caliber DB2507, the independent watchmaker’s twenty-ninth movement.
De Bethune powers its new GMT Starry Varius with its hand-wound Caliber DB2507, the independent watchmaker’s twenty-ninth movement.
Visible through the watch’s sapphire caseback, the movement operates by drawing on an extensive list of advanced features, all of which again underscore De Bethune’s well-earned reputation for technical mastery.
Just a partial list of these features includes: A titanium balance with white gold inlays, a balance spring with a De Bethune flat terminal curve, an escape-wheel made of silicon and a regulator held in place by a triple pare-chute system which combines a titanium bridge held in place by a leaf-spring system. The movement’s two barrels, which are partially visible from the caseback, boast an impressive five-day power reserve. Price: $110,000.
Through a new in-store digital application, Bulgari watch customers can now design their own Bulgari Octo Roma Naturalia, a 44mm manual-wind watch with a tourbillon and eye-catching stone-set bridges and mainplate.
One of three base models of Bulgari’s Octo Roma Naturalia, showing malachite version in a rose gold case.
The Bulgari app, called Maestria, allows the budding watch designer/owner to choose from three decorative natural stones: onyx, lapis lazuli and malachite. Any of these three stones can be placed onto the Octo Roma Naturalia’s skeletonized bridges/markers and on the mainplate within a rose gold, titanium or platinum case.
This version of the customizable Bulgari Octo Roma Naturalia shows a black titanium case with onyx.
Available since April at Bulgari boutiques, and planned for the brand’s high-jewelry events in the future, the Maestria process starts when a Bulgari salesperson logs on and leads the customer through a series of steps that offer the customer a choice of stone, case material, case setting (including diamonds) and any engraving on the back.
Bulgari explains that once the design is chosen, its watchmakers will select the customer’s favored stone, which will then be hand cut and polished. When this step is complete, watchmakers will then insert thin slices of the same stone onto the skeletonized components as both markers and as the watch’s mainplate.
An additional slice of the chosen stone will also be inserted into the movement itself. All watches will be set with the Bulgari manual-wind caliber BVL206 with flying tourbillon.
In all, Maestria will offer the customer thirty customizable variations of the Octo Roma Naturalia. Base prices: $89,000 (onyx in titanium), $129,000 (malachite in rose gold) and $243,000 (lapis lazuli in platinum with diamonds).
The customizable Bulgari Octo Roma Naturalia, with lapis lazuli and diamonds set within a platinum and gold case.
To celebrate the tenth anniversary of its line of Golden Bridge automatic watches, Corum launches the Corum 10th Anniversary Golden Bridge Automatic Collection. And with the new collection, Corum treats the wearer to a more expansive view of the watch’s unusual baguette-shaped in-line movement.
One of four models in the new Corum 10th Anniversary Golden Bridge Automatic Collection.
Developed as a manual-wind movement in the 1970s by Vincent Calabrese, who patented the design in 1977, Corum debuted the minimalist caliber within its collection in 1980 as the Golden Bridge, with movement parts made of gold.
The watch was a hit, and Corum created an impressive range of Golden Bridge iterations in the years after 1980. Then, in 2011 and after four years of research, Corum developed an automatic version, wisely showcasing the watch’s floating linear movement by creating an oscillating weight on rails to power the new automatic Golden Bridge.
New tonneau cases
Now, ten years after that debut, Corum celebrates with four new tonneau-shaped Golden Bridge models that frame the movement, which again features main plates and bridges made from 18-karat gold.
This precious-metal caliber is now both protected by and clearly visible through a large panoramic sapphire crystal and caseback. Corum cut the new crystal from a single piece of sapphire, extending it from the top crystal to the sides of the watch to allow for a 360-degree view of the movement.
Corum cut the new crystal from a single piece of sapphire, extending it from the top crystal to the sides of the watch.
Corum sets the sapphire in either a titanium or gold case measuring 37.2mm by 51.8mm, larger than we’ve seen for previous Golden Bridge automatic models. The new case size effectively creates a larger stage for the star of the watch, the movement, which is set vertically from the 12 o’clock position to the 6 o’clock position, where you’ll find the crown.
For the dial, Corum created another unusual visual treat: a ‘floating harness’ system to display its hand-applied indexes. Corum notes that “because there is no dial to affix the indexes to, the harness system links to the movement base so that the markers seem to be floating in space.”
Smoked crystal
For yet another unusual view, turn the watch over. From the back Corum shows off its Caliber C0313 through a smoke-hued sapphire crystal. The movement boasts forty hours of power reserve, a variable inertia balance wheel, a miniaturized barrel and main plate and even more precious metal: the linear oscillating weight is made from platinum.
From the back Corum shows off its Caliber C0313 through smoke-hued sapphire.
Corum is making its 10th Anniversary Golden Bridge Automatic Collection with four distinct editions: a blackened titanium and 18-karat gold model in a limited edition of 150 pieces, and a full blackened titanium version in an edition of fifty pieces. Two more models echo these cases, but are set with diamonds and are offered in more limited numbers. Corum will make 100 pieces of the diamond-set titanium-and-gold version and only twenty-five of the diamond-set titanium watch.
Prices start at $29,000 and rise to $41,900 for the rose gold model with diamonds.
A small watchmaking venture started as an experiment continues to design watches that offer simple solutions and unorthodox displays for complex timekeeping functions.
By James Henderson
This year marks the fifteenth anniversary of one of the longest running experiments in the watch business. Back in 2006, Ludwig Oechslin (of Ulysse Nardin fame and until 2014 curator of the Musée International d’Horlogerie (MIH) in La Chaux-de-Fonds) and his fellow Ochs und Junior co-founders asked the watch world a contrary question – if you could buy a watch with complications that were distilled down to their most basic level, would you?
Dr. Ludwig Oechslin
Then they took it a few steps further. What if the case was not polished, but somewhat, well, basic?
In other words, what if you could buy a watch conceived by one of the most famous watch creators of recent times, one that possessed marvelous complications that apart from the dial of the watch, remained hidden away beneath a solid caseback?
In a world where watches are meant to be highly polished and eerily similar in look and feel, what if you went a different way?
The famed 39mm Ochs und Junior Annual-Calendar. Check out this video of Ludwig Oechslin explaining the date spiral for his perpetual calendar, which is also relevant for his moon phase watch.
Fast-forward to 2021. While the experiment continues, it appears to be a resounding success with Ludwig Oechslin and Ochs und Junior continuing to swim against the mainstream. Here’s a short, three-part history of the idiosyncratic watchmaker.
The Foundation
This period involves Ludwig Oechslin, Beat Weinmann and Kurt König (the owner of Embassy, the Lucerne-based jewelry store that Beat Weinmann was working for at the time). Ochs und Junior produced a very small number of esoteric watches. These were known to a small group of collectors.
The Ochs und Junior Two-Timezones Date with rose gold PVD.
The Growth Period
This was when Ulysse Nardin was brought in as a partner and Ochs und Junior set up shop in a studio space, a little bit off the beaten path in Lucerne.
The Ochs Period
In 2019, after a lot of thought and consultation within the family, Kornelia Imesch and Ludwig Oechslin bought all the shares of Ochs und Junior. But it is important to note that this was only done once it was clear that some of the “Junior Ochs” would join the company.And to that end, it has been agreed that two of the younger Oechslins will be joining the team, which is now based in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
Inside the Ochs und Junior Annual Calendar.
Ochs und Junior today is a family company, led by Dr. Ludwig Oechslin. The rest of the band includes Christian Gafner, who is head of brand and design, Violaine Baudouin, the marketing chief, and Louise Krank (a junior), communication designer. The company’s watchmakers are Jost Schlatter and Masaki Kanazawa, who is a Master Watchmaker for Ludwig Oechslin’s special projects.
Ludwig Oechslin’s ideas will continue to set the tone moving forward, which is really what has made Ochs und Junior what it is today. As the company evolves, it continues to grow through experimentation. Below are some of Ochs und Junior’s most recent designs.
All three Ochs und Junior Calendario Cent’anni models.
This 100-year calendar, designed by Ludwig Oechslin, features a dial with indication of hours, minutes and seconds in addition to correct date, month, leap or non-leap year. The 40mm watch is titanium and is powered by a Ulysse Nardin UN-320 automatic movement. The Arabic character or indices with hour/minute hands are coated with SuperLuminova.
The Calendario Cent’anni (CCAII), a 100-year calendar.
Here’s how it shows the time and date:
The dates (28, 29, 30 or 31 days of any month) are visible for 100 years, without needing correction for the length of any month (including February in leap years), and are displayed via a traveling, rectangular dot on the date spiral.
The month and leap years are on a central rotating disk. The leap year and the three following years are displayed on a decentralized disc, rotating together with the position of the month-display. Finally, the central hour and minutes with the seconds rotating are seen on a small disk at 6 o’clock.
The Calendario Cent’anni (CCAI), or 100-year calendar.
Prices begin at CHF 15,230 (approximately $16,600).
This watch is designed to help savor a favorite day of the week, allowing the wearer to set six “standard” days and one “extra special” one. It colorfully indicates hours, minutes and seconds, and all seven weekdays by clockwise rotating dot between 1 o’clock and 7 o’clock.
The trio of Settimana models. They colorfully indicate hours, minutes and seconds, and all seven weekdays by clockwise rotating dot between 1 o’clock and 7 o’clock.
The titanium-cased Settimama measures 36mm in diameter and is powered by a Sellita SW 200-1 automatic movement. The watch is available in three limited color versions of 11 pieces each. Prices start at CHF 3,046, or approximately $3,300.
The new Moonphase Trilogy. All are 39mm and cased in titanium
The 39mm moonphase Emerald Green model features a lacquered dial with black galvanized moon disk and golden markers and hands. It also features a jade-stone as the sun at the 12 o’clock position.
Option one features a black galvanized dial and red lacquer-coated moon disk with red markers and hands with a case of black PVD-coated titanium. Another option has a red lacquer-coated dial with black galvanized moon disk, black markers and hands in a titanium case. Option number three has an emerald-green lacquer-coated dial with black galvanized moon disk, and gold colored markers and hands. This emerald green watch will feature a jade sun at the 12 o’clock position. The straps are made from red or black textile with a titanium buckle. Prices: CHF 7,400, or approximately $8,100.
The Ochs und Junio Moonphase with black galvanic dial.
And there are more interesting developments to come, but suffice it to say after fifteen years Ochs und Junior is here to stay.
For its new Grand Central Cintree Curvex, Franck Muller watchmakers found an innovative way to place the hour and second hands around the tourbillon cage, highlighting the large central tourbillon and a stunning guilloché dial.
The new Franck Muller Grand Central Cintrée Curvex, available in a variety of dial colors and case metal options.
That tourbillon (while large, the tourbillon here is not the brand’s largest) is housed in a redesigned Cintrée Curvex case with a separate bezel, allowing the crystal to reach the strap. Furthermore, Franck Muller has separated the bezel from the case, allowing for a series of impressive two-tone treatments.
This design totally changes the aspect of the original Cintrée Curvex and fully highlights the curves of this newly shaped watch.
And, in an unusual move, Franck Muller powers the new Grand Central Cintrée Curvex with an automatic movement. Many traditional tourbillon watches rely on manual-wind calibers.
The watch’s caliber (FM CX 40T-CTR) is visible through the sapphire caseback, showing the traditional decorations, including Côte de Genève and sunray brushing.
Franck Muller wisely allows a clear view of the caliber (FM CX 40T-CTR) through a sapphire caseback, showing the traditional decorations, including Côte de Genève and sunray brushing. Prices: From $124,400 to $134,400.
Specifications: Franck Muller Grand CentralCintrée Curvex
Case: 58.70mm x 40.16 mm x 7.73 mm (various metals) with stainless steel internal bezel. Sapphire crystal. Water resistant up to 30 meters. Functions: Hours, minutes and seconds on the central tourbillon.
Movement: FM CX 40T-CTR Self-winding mechanical movement with bidirectional rotor system. Power reserve is 4 days. Balance wheel frequency set at 18,000 alternations per hour.
Décor: Côte de Genève on bridges, sunray brushing on the rotor and barrel cover, spotting on the bottom plate. Chamfering on the bridges and rotor board. Rhodium plating and 24-kt. gold finish on textual engravings.
Bracelet: Hand-sewn alligator strap with gold folding buckle.
An additional slice of the chosen stone will also be inserted into the movement itself. All watches will be set with the Bulgari manual-wind caliber BVL206 with flying tourbillon. 
