Maurice Lacroix has worked with movement specialist Sellita to create a new skeletonized version of the watchmaker’s best-selling Aikon. And unlike most of the watchmaker’s existing skeletonized watches, this new model, the Aikon Automatic Skeleton 39mm, with its namesake 39mm diameter case size, is the smallest –and first unisex – open-worked watch within the full Maurice Lacroix collection.
The new Maurice Lacroix Aikon Automatic Skeleton 39mm.
Collectors familiar with Maurice Lacroix know that it has a long history of making skeleton watches. Especially within its Masterpiece collection, this contemporary manufacture has long offered alluring open-worked dials alongside a host of interesting models with multi-hand retrograde functions.
Noting that it wanted to create an affordable skeleton watch with the brand’s existing high quality-price ratio, Maurice Lacroix aimed to work with Sellita to “apply its expertise to the creation of a new, contemporary model with smaller case dimensions.”
With this new Aikon Automatic Skeleton 39mm, the company adds to existing work with the movement specialist to create Automatic ML115 (base SW200). With considerable transparency, circular grained finishing and combined sun-brushed and sandblasted décor, the new watch successfully says ‘contemporary’ within an often very classic mechanical watch category.
Thus, instead of delicate filigree we see curved, matte-finished bridges that nicely expose the movement’s gearing and escapement while maintaining the torsional strength needed in a casually sporty watch.
Maurice Lacroix also fits the Aikon Automatic Skeleton 39mm with the brand’s Easy Strap Exchange system which allows the wearer to swap the bracelet for one of the leather or rubber strap options without using any tools.
As one of the few top-tier watchmakers also well versed in jewelry making, Piaget has always been able to combine both creative realms when designing watches. We’re accustomed to seeing technically advanced horology while being assured that Piaget’s jewelers will inevitably frame – and enhance – its creative time displays with finely set gems.
The new Piaget Polo Skeleton Diamond Paved.
With its newest Polo Skeleton Diamond Paved, a highly jeweled 42mm white gold version of the famed cushion-shaped-bezel watch, Piaget introduces the first gem-set Polo model that utilizes its next generation skeleton movement, Caliber 1200S1, which builds on many years of openworked movement expertise.
Piaget designed the new movement, here colored slate-grey, to enhance the original 1200S, itself a skeletonized version of the famed Piaget 1200P ultra-thin automatic caliber. It maintains the 2.4mm thinness of the 1200P.
Piaget has enhanced the anti-magnetic properties of the caliber while maintaining the movement’s off-center oscillating weight. And the caliber still retains a strong forty-four hour power reserve and a thirty-meter water resistance rating.
The new gem-set Polo Skeleton, a 2022 Watches & Wonders preview, is still quite thin, measuring 7.35mm thick (compared to 6.5mm for the non-set Polo Skeleton model), despite now hosting 268 brilliant-cut diamonds.
The watch comes with a white gold polished and satin-finished ‘H’ design integrated bracelet that Piaget has set with an additional 1,478 diamonds. As befits a jewelry house that works within a horological legacy, Piaget finishes the setting with a ‘reverse’ diamond set into the crown.
Bell & Boss expands its BR 05 collection with two models that offer luxurious options within the BR 05 design, which features a round-edged square case, wide bezel and round dial notably held together with a fully integrated bracelet.
The new Bell & Ross BR 05 Skeleton Gold, here on a black rubber strap.
One model, the BR 05 Skeleton, is now available with a full gold 40mm case and gold bracelet. While we’ve seen gold models within the BR 05 collection, this debut finds the skeletonized version with the precious dress for the first time.
This new gold case underscores the BR 05’s mono-case design. Fully 155 grams of gold encase the openwork dial, which gleams with its own gilded attributes.
All the dial’s appliqué indexes and skeletonized hour and minutes hands are coated with gold, as is the movement itself. Bell & Ross then smartly inlays a strip of white SuperLuminova on the hands and indexes with to enhance nighttime visibility.
The movement, a Sellita-based Bell & Ross BR-CAL.322, is wound by a 360° rose gold-plated oscillating weight that has been open-worked. And finally Bell & Ross and imprinted a metallized logo on the watch’s sapphire case-back.
Bell & Ross will make ninety-nine BR 05 Skeleton Gold models with the new gold case. The watch will be offered on the integrated gold bracelet ($34,700) and also with a black rubber strap ($23,700).
BR 05 Diamond
Those who prefer diamonds to gold for their luxury statement can now choose from among three steel-cased Bell & Ross BR 05 Diamond models, which sport the gem set into the bezel around a sunray black BR 05 three-hand dial with date.
The new Bell & Ross BR 05 Diamond, here on a rubber strap.
Bell& Ross offers three options, all with a fully diamond-set bezel. One model sports a black rubber strap ($10,700) while another attaches a steel bracelet ($11,200). The third new Bell & Ross BR 05 Diamond adds includes the steel bracelet but also adds diamonds to the bracelet’s central links ($21,500).
Inside Bell & Ross places its automatic Sellita-based BR-CAL.321 wound with a 360° oscillating weight visible through a sapphire back.
Watchmakers have been multiplying their automotive and motorsports collaborations in recent years. Here, we review a few prominent timekeeping/racing alliances.
By Y-Jean Mun-DelSalle
In this final installment of our series outlining automotive-wristwatch partnerships, we highlight Girard-Perregaux and Richard Mille.
Girard-Perregaux
Girard-Perregaux has signed a multi-year agreement as the official watch partner of British automotive manufacturer Aston Martin Lagonda and the Aston Martin Cognizant Formula 1 team. Both brands are commemorating milestones this year: founded in 1791, the Swiss watchmaker is one of the oldest fine watchmaking manufactures still in operation and celebrates its 230th anniversary, while Aston Martin marks its return to Formula 1 after a hiatus of over sixty years.
For the 2021 F1 season, Girard-Perregaux branding appears on Aston Martin F1 car rear-view mirrors and team uniforms. Girard-Perregaux’s and Aston Martin’s design teams have participated in high-level discussions on movements, esthetics, functionality, material usage and ergonomics.
Several limited-edition timepieces will be unveiled, the first of which was released last June.
The Girard-Perregaux Tourbillon with Three Flying Bridges Aston Martin Edition.
Revisiting a Girard-Perregaux legend, the Tourbillon with Three Flying Bridges Aston Martin Edition is an 18-piece skeletonized high-end timekeeper with no dial or bezel. Three black PVD-treated titanium bridges appear to float between panes of sapphire crystal.
Back view of the Tourbillon with Three Flying Bridges Aston Martin Edition.
The lightweight, 79-component tourbillon cage weighs in at only 0.25 grams, thereby reducing energy consumption, while the micro-rotor’s vertical flank is etched with the Aston Martin name filled with white luminescence.
In a world first, Girard-Perregaux introduces an innovative material never used before in watchmaking on its calf leather strap: a central insert in rubber injected with white gold.
“Rarely do we work with others to reinterpret the Three Bridges, explains CEO Patrick Pruniaux. “However, on this occasion, we have made an exception, mindful of Aston Martin’s prowess for design.”
Later in 2021, a second timepiece will be launched, from another of the manufacture’s iconic collections. We can also expect to see Girard-Perregaux clocks in Aston Martin road cars.
Girard-Perregaux has a long history of collaborations with the automotive universe. During the mid-1990s, then owner and car enthusiast Luigi Macaluso began a ten-year partnership with Ferrari, and together they produced the highly-successful Ferrari watches.
“Girard-Perregaux has had strong ties to the automotive world in the past, which we were keen to reactivate in a stronger way,” notes Clémence Dubois, Girard-Perregaux’s chief marketing and product officer.
Richard Mille
Calling its timepieces ‘racing machines on the wrist,’ Richard Mille is no stranger to the automotive world, with friends and partners like Jean Todt, Alain Prost, Felipe Massa, Sébastien Loeb and the Venturi Formula E team. The brand even owns an all-women LMP2 racing team.
After discussions for Richard Mille’s collaboration with both Ferrari’s racing and road car divisions were initiated last summer, this year it is partnering two F1 teams – Scuderia Ferrari and McLaren Racing – while continuing personal relationships with F1 drivers Fernando Alonso and Mick Schumacher.
The Ferrari F1 SF21 is Scuderia’s 2021 Formula 1 race car.
The new multi-year tie-up extends from Formula 1, WEC endurance programs and Competizioni GT to the renowned Ferrari Challenge single-model championship for gentlemen drivers worldwide as well as for the Ferrari Driver Academy. Starting in 2022 Richard Mille will launch a series of watches bearing the famous Ferrari Prancing Horse logo, developed by Richard Mille’s team in Switzerland and Ferrari’s designers and engineers.
Ferrari F1 Racer Charles Leclerc, wearing the RM 67-02.
“Richard Mille has since its inception been viewed as the Formula 1 of watchmaking,” says Tim Malachard, Richard Mille’s marketing director. “The inspiration of materials and technology found in F1 being applied to produce extremely technical, ergonomic and light timepieces. It is also not a secret that those who like cars and motor racing are also fans of watches. Ferrari and Richard Mille share many common values, and many of our customers are owners of either brand, so another good reason to collaborate over the next few years.”
The RM 40-01 Automatic Tourbillon McLaren Speedtail.
To mark its fifth year of partnership with McLaren Automotive, Richard Mille launched the RM 40-01 Automatic Tourbillon McLaren Speedtail last May in tribute to the fastest road-going car the British carmaker has ever built, with a top speed of 250 mph. The watch is available in a limited edition of 106 timepieces to match the exclusivity of the 106 Speedtail hypercars.
The platinum and red gold winding rotor on the RM 40-01 is inspired by the Speedtail’s hood.
“There are many similarities between the way that Richard Mille and McLaren approach common design and engineering challenges, such as saving weight, reducing vibrational impact and minimizing resistance,” says Rob Melville, McLaren automotive’s design director.
The Speedtail is a streamlined hypercar that is the fourth car in McLaren’s Utimate range.
The watch’s lines mimic the car’s teardrop shape – significantly wider at 12 o’clock than at 6 o’clock – and its bezel indentations evoke bonnet openings while its pushers recall air outlets behind the front wheels.
The watch also debuts numerous firsts in a Richard Mille-manufactured automatic tourbillon: in-house power reserve display, oversize date and function selector complications. Richard Mille’s casing department required an unprecedented 2,800 hours over eighteen months to perfect the contours of the titanium and Carbon TPT case, with the conception of five prototypes before the optimum shape was reached.
As the case tapers between the bezel and caseback, Richard Mille developed an innovative upper crystal glass featuring a “triple contour” to protect the movement.
Y-Jean Mun-DelSalle is a freelance journalist and editorial consultant who has lived on three different continents. She meets with inspirational individuals in pursuit of excellence: emerging and established artists, designers and craftsmen, engaging entrepreneurs and philanthropists, and the movers and shakers of the world today. She contributes regularly to regional and international titles such as Artsy, Asia Tatler, Design Anthology, Forbes, Portfolio, Robb Report, Shawati’ and Vogue, shining a spotlight in particular on art, architecture, design, horology and jewelry.
Among its many 2021 debuts, Chronoswiss launches a royal blue version of its SkelTec model, a manual-wind watch with eye-catching contemporary openwork design and coloring that the Lucerne-based watchmaker initially debuted in 2020.
The latest Chronoswiss SkelTec features a blued case and inner minutes track.
From its skeletonized lugs to a star-shaped mainspring barrel, the Chronoswiss SkelTec exposes its components, including the balance wheel, barrel, winding gears and gear train, with a decidedly contemporary flair. Even the bezel on the 45mm case serves up an updated version of the classic Chronoswiss fluted case.
This latest version, called SkelTec Azur, lays out its inner self in a new deep blue framework.
Chronoswiss head of design Maik Panziera explains that the watchmaker created this intense blue case and interior minutes track through the use of chemical vapor deposition (CVD), a modern finishing technique that effectively replaces traditional mineral-based techniques.
The blued 51-part case frames a 166-part hand-wound Chronoswiss C. 304 movement built with an X-shaped monobloc construction that aligns the primary timekeeping components along a vertical axis.
Note that the minutes track, essentially what little exists of a dial, is held in place by four small triangular bridges at the 11, 1, 5 and 7 positions. Chronoswiss then attaches a black central X underneath the nicely contrasting white lacquered hour and minute hands, which are filled with green SuperLuminova.
Chronoswiss contrasts the watch’s blue and black color scheme with a rhodium-plated star-shaped mainspring top, moving wheels and pivoting pins.
If its more traditional décor you seek, turn the watch over.There, through the screwed-down case back with sapphire crystal, you will see a classic mainspring barrel back with a satin-brushed finish and chamfered, polished angles.
Chronoswiss is offering the SkelTec Azur as a limited edition of fifty, each equipped with a calfskin and textile strap specially made for the SkelTec collection. Price: $22,400.
Movement: Manufacture caliber C.304, hand-wound, skeletonized, 166 components, open balance wheel, skeletonized spring barrel, 28,800 vph frequency, 48-hour power reserve.
Case: 45mm by 7.5mm steel with 51 parts, middle part DLC-coated stainless steel, sand blasted matt finish; bezel, screws and back ring stainless steel with blue CVD-coating; bezel polished with double anti-reflective sapphire crystal, screw-down case back with satin finish and sapphire crystal; onion crown; water resistance up to 50 meters, screw-in lugs with patented Autobloc system.
Dial: Skeletonized, matt blue CVD coating, Skeletonized hands with lacquered, SuperLuminova inlays.
