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Only Watch 2023 Favorites: Ulysse Nardin  

We continue to highlight a few of our favorite watches from among the more than sixty watchmakers that have created timepieces for the Only Watch charity auction, which commences Sunday, November 5, in Geneva. Christie’s will auction these incredible one-of-a-kind watches to raise funds that benefit research in the battle against Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

While you may have seen a few of the watches set for auction earlier this year when Only Watch announced them, we thought you’d enjoy seeing many of these impressive designs again just ahead of the event.

The watches are currently touring the globe. After concluding their U.S. visit at Christie’s in New York on September 17, the tour will visit Monaco next, followed by stops in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Dubai and back in Geneva. See the Only Watch website for tour dates and details.

In this post we highlight the entry from Ulysse Nardin. 

For Only Watch 2023 Ulysse Nardin create the Freak S Only Watch (above), an iteration of the Freak S launched in 2022. This one-of-a-kind edition features a colorful interpretation of the watch’s UN-251 caliber, with red, pink, blue, green, yellow and orange coloring based on the Only Watch colors.

To review, the Freak S is a 45mm carrousel watch in a black DLC titanium case with no hands, no dial and no crown. Two bridges rotate around its center to indicate the hours and minutes. An arrow shows the hours while the nose cone of the spaceship indicates the minutes.

Furthermore, while a classic tourbillon balance wheel makes one rotation per minute within a cage, here entire movement makes a complete turn on itself in one hour. To set the time the wearer rotates the bezel in a clockwise or counterclockwise direction.

Estimate: CHF 160,000 – CHF 200,000.

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Only Watch 2023 Favorites: Hublot 

We continue to highlight a few of our favorite watches from among the more than sixty watchmakers that have created timepieces for the Only Watch charity auction, which commences Sunday, November 5, in Geneva. Christie’s will auction these incredible one-of-a-kind watches to raise funds that benefit research in the battle against Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

While you may have seen a few of the watches set for auction earlier this year when Only Watch announced them, we thought you’d enjoy seeing many of these impressive designs again just ahead of the event.

The watches are currently touring the globe. After concluding their U.S. visit at Christie’s in New York on September 17, the tour will visit Monaco next, followed by stops in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Dubai and back in Geneva. See the Only Watch website for tour dates and details.

In this post we highlight The MP-15 Takashi Murakami Tourbillon Only Watch (pictured above) by Hublot and the artist, another exceptional piece in the auction this year. Like many in this year’s auction, it glows with bright color and requires a high technical level of workmanship.

This sapphire-cased watch showcases a unique central tourbillon especially conceived for this watch. In addition to showing Hublot’s technical acumen, the idea here is to show that the tourbillon represents the heart of the person who buys it at the auction.

Murakami explicitly requested the inclusion of a central tourbillon, which is now Hublot’s very first central tourbillon.

In this design, the cannon pinion and the hour wheel had to be pivoted around the tourbillon support by creating a co-axial construction. This was made possible thanks to the central flying tourbillon that is seemingly suspended in mid-air with two hands passing under its cage to indicate the hours and minutes.

These hands gravitate towards twelve luminescent indices that echo the colors of the 2023 edition of the Only Watch. And with two barrels, the manual movement offers an incredible 150-hour power reserve. Mounted in series but on a single plane, these barrels can be admired through the sapphire case back.

Estimate: CHF 350,000 – CHF 400,000.

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Only Watch 2023 Favorites: Bulgari

We continue to highlight a few of our favorite watches from among the more than sixty watchmakers that have created timepieces for the Only Watch charity auction, which commences Sunday, November 5, in Geneva. Christie’s will auction these incredible one-of-a-kind watches to raise funds that benefit research in the battle against Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

While you may have seen a few of the watches set for auction earlier this year when Only Watch announced them, we thought you’d enjoy seeing many of these impressive designs again just ahead of the event.

The watches are currently touring the globe. After concluding their U.S. visit at Christie’s in New York on September 17, the tour will visit Monaco next, followed by stops in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Dubai and back in Geneva. See the Only Watch website for tour dates and details.

In this post we highlight Bulgari’s Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Only Watch (above), a unique version of its groundbreaking ultra-thin tourbillon watch created using Italian green marble and given 110 facets.

The green marble, named Verde di Alpi, comes from the Aosta Valley, the natural passage linking Switzerland and Italy through the Alps. Green is offset with white veins, which Bulgari symbolizes as serpentines of alpine forests and snowy peaks.

The watch’s 40mm black DLC titanium polished case and bracelet is covered with the green marble in a layer of 0.4mm – 0.5mm.

The dial also features a thin marble wafer (0.6-mm). Similarly, Bulgari set the bracelet’s front and side links with a sliver of marble, leaving only the interior surface in black DLC titanium. Inside is Bulgari’s ultra-thin BVL 268 hand-wound manufacture ultra-thin mechanical movement with flying tourbillon. The full case measures only 1.95 mm thick.

Bulgari notes that the purchaser of the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon Only Watch will be offered one night in Bulgari’s newest hotel in Roma as well as lunch or dinner with one person from Bulgari Horlogerie Top management and the visit of the Villa Albani Torlonia to see a collection of marble sculptures.

Estimate: CHF 150,000 – CHF 250,000.

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Only Watch 2023 Favorites: Chopard

 

We continue to highlight a few of our favorite watches from among the more than sixty watchmakers that have created timepieces for the Only Watch charity auction, which commences Sunday, November 5, in Geneva. Christie’s will auction these incredible one-of-a-kind watches to raise funds that benefit research in the battle against Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

While you may have seen a few of the watches set for auction earlier this year when Only Watch announced them, we thought you’d enjoy seeing many of these impressive designs again just ahead of the event.

The watches are currently touring the globe. After concluding their U.S. visit at Christie’s in New York on September 17, the tour will visit Monaco next, followed by stops in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Dubai and back in Geneva. See the Only Watch website for tour dates and details.

In this post we highlight the entry from Chopard, The L.U.C 1860 Only Watch Edition featuring an ice green-toned solid white gold guilloché dial. The watch is essentially a reissue of the very first L.U.C timepiece from 1997, the L.U.C 1860.

The watch’s 36.5mm case is made of Chopard’s own Lucent Steel while the movement inside is Chopard’s superb chronometer-certified L.U.C Caliber 96.40-L. The movement is wound by a gold micro-rotor and equipped with the two barrels that contribute to its strong 65-hour power reserve.

Chopard explains that it chose the dial color here to “evoke the beauty of green icebergs, which are found exclusively in the Antarctic. Icebergs are the real celebrities of polar regions and are mostly white or blue in color. However, like an artist, Nature is capable of producing splendid green icebergs that scientists sometimes call “jade bergs”. This color simultaneously symbolizes the melting of glaciers, thus illustrating major environmental challenges and endowing this creation with distinctive symbolic value.”

The The L.U.C 1860 Only Watch Edition has also earned the Geneva Seal, a rare feat for a steel-cased watch. The Seal, or Poinçon de Genève, guarantees the quality and smooth functioning of watches assembled in Geneva.

Estimate: CHF  25,000 – CHF 35,000.

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Only Watch 2023 Favorites: TAG Heuer 

We continue to highlight a few of our favorite watches from among the more than sixty watchmakers that have created timepieces for the Only Watch charity auction, which commences Sunday, November 5, in Geneva. Christie’s will auction these incredible one-of-a-kind watches to raise funds that benefit research in the battle against Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

While you may have seen a few of the watches set for auction earlier this year when Only Watch announced them, we thought you’d enjoy seeing many of these impressive designs again just ahead of the event.

The watches are currently touring the globe. After concluding their U.S. visit at Christie’s in New York on September 17, the tour will visit Monaco next, followed by stops in Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Dubai and back in Geneva. See the Only Watch website for tour dates and details.

In this post we highlight TAG Heuer, which is debuting a unique TAG Heuer Monaco Split-Seconds Chronograph (above), debuting a brand-new movement. 

TAG Heuer uses a special variation of titanium referred to as Texturized Titanium to create a crystalized effect throughout the case. Constructed using four pieces of sapphire as well, the case allows provides a spectacular dynamic effect as the material catches the light.

TAG Heuer’s Movements Director Carole Kasapi and her team created the new movement inside. The caliber TH81-00 is a mechanical split-seconds chronograph movement, developed in collaboration with Vaucher, the movement is made of titanium and is the lightest automatic chronograph movement ever crafted by TAG Heuer.

The watchmaker worked with Artime artisans to apply a graté damier finish to key parts of the movement, complimented by black polishing, anglage, perlage, and brushed finishing.

The total finishing time exceeded twelve hours. The TAG Heuer shield is applied to the rotor and is adorned with the official colors of Only Watch for 2023, hand painted by André Martinez.

 

Estimate: CHF 150,000 – CHF 300,000.

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