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Watches and Wonders 2023: Montblanc Tells a Story

By Nancy Olson

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.

 

 

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Featured News

Franck Muller Presents Colorful Grand Central Tourbillon Series

At its annual World Presentation of Haute Horologerie (WPHH) a few weeks ago Franck Muller unveiled seventeen new models, including numerous updates to its Curvex CX series of emblematic ‘Curvex’ tonneau-shaped watches.

The new Franck Muller Curvex CX Grand Central Flash Tourbillon, available in a variety of case metals and with colorful markers and straps.

Here we’ll detail the new Curvex CX Grand Central Flash Tourbillon, one of the focus debuts in 2023 for Franck Muller.     

Inspired by futuristic car designs, Franck Muller created the new Curvex CX Grand Central Flash Tourbillon to highlight its hot, award-winning central tourbillon design while also expanding the collection’s case material options.

You may recall that with the existing Grand Central Tourbillon series Franck Muller’s watchmakers found an innovative way to place the hour and second hands around the tourbillon cage, highlighting the large central tourbillon and – for its debut series – a guilloché dial.

Now Franck Muller places the same technical design into a much more contemporary setting, surrounding the skeletonized tourbillon with brightly colored fluorescent indexes set into a deep matte black dial. The series includes models cased in titanium, steel and carbon composites. 

Franck Muller explains that the new design is meant to focus the eye to center of the dial to highlight the Central Tourbillon.

To assist, Franck Muller also added a fluorescent arrow to the tourbillon’s cage bridge to act as the seconds indicator. “This arrow rotates around the Central Tourbillon like an electron around its nucleus,” notes Franck Muller’s in-house description. 

The Curvex CX case is an effective frame for the tourbillon. The watch’s sapphire crystal extends all the way to the bracelet, and the watch’s fairly thin bezel also maintains the focus on the dial, while also can be treated with either a matching or contrasting finish.

Franck Muller maintains a technical mind-set by attaching many of the new watches to colorful textile straps. 

Price: $130,600. 

Other 2023 Curvex CX Debuts

Also new in 2023, Franck Muller adds its Giga Tourbillon to the Curvex CX collection to create the new skeletonized Curvex CX Giga Tourbillon (below).

In addition, Franck Muller expands the Curvex CX collection to include two new sizes, 30mm and 33mm, which makes the collection now available for feminine or smaller wrists.

The new Franck Muller Curvex CX Lady.

Also new in 2023, look for a more subdued model in the collection, the Curvex CX Piano ($9,400 to $18,100), which offers glossy black dial with no markers. This classy model accentuates a stunning black lacquér dial and is offered in a variety of case metals.

The new Franck Muller Curvex CX Piano, available in steel and gold cases.

We’ll have more about these additions to the Curvex CX collection, plus details about the new Skafander watches and a host of new Vanguard watches, in future posts.

A selection of 2023 Franck Muller debuts.

Next week, we’ll start with details on one of those new Vanguard models that includes three variations cased in Damascus steel. In the meantime check the Franck Muller website for details about these all the other WPHH 2023 debuts. 

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The Watches

Reservoir Launches ‘Black Sparrow’ Pilot Tribute

Reservoir pays tribute to Eugene Bullard, an African-American pilot who fought for France during World War I, with the new Reservoir Black Sparrow, the latest model in the French watchmaker’s retrograde minute, jump hour collection.

The new Reservoir Black Sparrow, here in a black PVD case.

The U.S.-born Bullard carried out around twenty aerial combat missions during WW1 and was described as a “true French hero” by Général de Gaulle, earning the nickname “The Black Sparrow of Death”.

Eugene Jacques Bullard, the first African American combat pilot, who fought for France in WWI.

Reservoir designed the Black Sparrow’s dials to recall the colors and styles of WWI cockpits, which collectors may also recognize from early 20th century pilot watches.

 

All maintain the Reservoir jump hour dial layout, which indicates minutes via a large hand sweeping 240-degrees across the dial and jumping back to restart each hour. Hours are shown digitally in the aperture at the 6 o’clock position.

The launch encompasses a new 42mm steel or black PVD case and black or sand-colored dials with Art Nouveau-inspired luminescent numerals. Reservoir mounts these on a black or brown Barenia leather strap.

All the debuts picture a propeller and wings laser-printed onto the watch’s clear sapphire caseback.  Reservoir explains that the propeller and wings is a popular military insignia used to identify various aviation-related military units especially the French Aeronautique Militaire.

Through that back you’ll see the Reservoir Caliber RSV-240, the watchmaker’s latest update of its signature jump-hour movement.

Introduced last year, the caliber is made in association with the Swiss engine manufacture TELOS. The automatic caliber makes use of a La Joux-Perret LJP-G100 base with a proprietary 113-piece module. With the new Caliber RSV-240, power reserve jumps to an impressive fifty-six hours

Price: $3,800.

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Featured News

Watches and Wonders 2023: IWC Revisits Ingenieur 

During Watches and Wonders 2023, IWC revisited its Ingenieur collection by debuting Ingenieur Automatic 40, a new collection of three steel-cased models, while also adding a new titanium version of the watch.

The new IWC Automatic 40 titanium model. Three steel-cases model also debuted at Watches and Wonders.
The back of the IWC Ingenieur Automatic 40 in titanium.

While we’ve seen titanium versions of the post-1976 Gerald Genta-designed Ingenieur in the past, this year’s debut is an all-new ongoing model that, from early notices, seems bound to be a hit for the Schaffhausen-based watchmaker.

With a name meaning ‘engineer in both French and German, the Ingenieur collection has been where IWC placed its most ‘technical’ designs over the years. IWC launched the collection in 1955 to highlight its first automatic movement protected with a soft-iron inner case for magnetic field protection.

 

This tool-watch focus remains as all the new Ingenieur Automatic 40 references are powered by the IWC-manufactured Caliber 32111, boasting a superior power reserve of 120 hours.

Also, all the new models feature soft-iron inner cases to protect the movements from magnetic fields, and all are water-resistant to 100 meters. 

The latest Ingenieur collection traces its design from the 1970s, more specifically from Gérald Genta’s Ingenieur SL, Reference 1832.

IWC modeled the new collection on the 1970s-era Ingenieur SL Ref. 1832, designed by Gerald Genta.

On each Ingenieur Automatic 40 watch you’ll see five functional, polygonal screws along the bezel to secure the bezel to the case. These echo the Genta design, though on the original model the screws were not always in the same location along the bezel.

 

Here, a permanent pattern for the screws contributes to the case and bezel design while also enhancing the watch’s integrity.

To create its new, distinctive ‘grid’ pattern dial, IWC’s watchmakers stamp the pattern (small lines offset by 90 degrees to each other) into a soft iron blank, and then galvanize it.

The result is a pleasing texture and design that meshes nicely with the entire watch’s technical nature. A new, slightly curved case enhances the model’s wrist friendliness.

For the steel Ingenieur Automatic 40, IWC offers black, silver and aqua dials, while the titanium model is matched with a nice grey dial, notably darker than the silver-dialed steel model.

The titanium watch (Ref. IW328904 ) is also sand-blasted with polished bevels and brushed sides.

 

Its sturdy integrated Grade 5 titanium bracelet with butterfly folding clasp maintains the entire watch’s lightness, which also contributes to the watch’s wrist-friendliness. Titanium’s anti-allergy properties are also a plus.

Price: $11,700 (steel) and $14,600 (titanium).

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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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