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Frederique Constant Darkens its Worldtimer

Frederique Constant celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Classics Worldtimer Manufacture collection by offering an all-black edition of the watch, one of the Geneva watchmaker’s best-selling designs.

Frederique Constant’s new Classics Worldtimer Manufacture Globetrotter Edition features a black PVD-titanium-coated case and a black dial.

 

Limited to 300 pieces, the new Classics Worldtimer Manufacture Globetrotter Edition features a black PVD-titanium-coated case and a black dial. For the first time, the names of the twenty-four reference cities featured on the city disc have been replaced by the airport codes at the cities.

The watchmaker accentuates the dial’s global display by embossing the continents and depicting the oceans using a sunray finish. The sunray guilloché subdial at 6 o’clock displays the date via a hand-polished black hand that matches the hour, minute and seconds hands. 

The only white elements on the dial are the airport codes on the city disc, the day indication on the 24-hour disk and the applied indexes. All are filled with a generous helping of luminous material.

Easy to use

Part of the watch’s success since its debut in 2012 is how simple it is to operate. All the features (hours, minutes, date, Worldtimer) can be adjusted using the crown thanks to an Frederique Constant’s own three-notch system. The first click winds the watch, the second adjusts the date (upwards) and the reference city (downwards) and the third adjusts the time in the central display.

To read the dial is equally straight-forward. The local time (with the central hands) and home time (via the moving flange) are automatically synchronized with each other. Day and night time zones are noted by their dark or white hues.

Frederique Constant has decorated the watch’s FC-718 movement with fine perlage decoration visible through a sapphire crystal caseback. Note the caliber’s blued screws and rose gold-plated oscillating weight adorned with vertical satin-finishing and “Frederique Constant Manufacture” engraving. 

Price: $4,495. 

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The Watches

Hublot Engineers a Rainbow for MP-09

Hublot re-engineers the rainbow to brighten its MP-09 Tourbillon Bi-Axis 5-Day Power Reserve, creating a colorized ‘Rainbow’ version of the existing complicated watch.

The Hublot MP-09 Tourbillon Bi-Axis 5-Day Power Reserve.

Rather than rely on gemstones to reflect the light, Hublot has woven colorful high-tech composite materials into the carbon case on the new MP-09 Tourbillon Bi-Axis Rainbow 3D Carbon, and attached it to an equally colorful leather strap.

Essentially, Hublot technicians have braided the 49mm carbon case, combining thin bars of carbon and bars of colored composite together and threading them into a mass that, eventually, is milled into a case. And while Hublot has created single-color 3-D Carbon versions of the MP-09, this new model is the first multi-hue example.

Hublot explains that this technical process, a first in watchmaking, requires that hundreds of colored inserts recreate a natural gradation typically found on watches with colorful sapphires, diamonds or other gemstones. Hublot notes that each insert is cropped with carbon, and polished and adjusted to the nearest micron.

“The new MP-09’s surface is entirely smooth and polished to the touch,” Hublot explains in a press release. “Never before has a watch boasted as many shades of colored composite as the new MP-09.”

Inside Hublot relies on the HUB9009.H1.RA.B movement with manual winding and a 5-day power reserve. The movement comes with a bi-axial one-minute tourbillon for the first axis and a second rotation every thirty seconds for the second axis. This unique double rotation requires the customized curved case, which displays the tourbillon at 6 o’clock.

Hublot will make eight examples of the new MP-09 Tourbillon Bi-Axis Rainbow 3D Carbon. 

Price: $211,000

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Alpina

Alpina Blackens Pilot Heritage Automatic Monopusher

Alpina expands its Startimer Pilot Heritage mono-pusher chronograph collection with the Startimer Pilot Heritage Automatic Chronograph Blackout, two black-cased models that offer a choice of dial: black or silver. 

The pair adds a bit of darkness to the existing blue and silver models that characterize this impressive vintage-tinged pilot series.

Alpina offer the Startimer Pilot Heritage Automatic Chronograph Blackout with a black or silver dial.

The new contemporary color touch again serves to highlight how this cushion-shaped mini-series differs from its mostly round brothers within the Startimer Pilot Heritage collection. 

Here with a polished and brushed black-PVD case, its vintage-inspired single-pusher and bicompax subdial layout set the watch further apart both within its own brand and from the vast majority of other Swiss-made aviation chronographs available.

The fact that Alpina fits the watch with a customized single‐push‐piece chronograph designed by La Joux‐Perret enhances its interest among collectors, especially given the watch’s $2,995 price tag. 

The chronograph measures short time intervals (30 minutes) and also offers a 55‐hour power reserve, nearly 45% more than its predecessor.

Both variations of the watch offer a case that is polished black on the sides and satin‐finished on top. Circular guilloché counters assist light diffusion while sturdy hour and minute hands are topped with SuperLuminova.

Alpina is offering each version (black and silver-dialed models) as a limited edition of fifty, so expect some competition. 

Price: $2,995. 

Specifications: Alpina Startimer Pilot Heritage Automatic Chronograph Blackout Edition

Movement: Alpina AL‐727 caliber, automatic mono‐pusher chronograph designed by La Joux‐Perret, 55‐hour power reserve, 28,800 alt/h. 

Case: 42mm x 40.75mm by 14.5 mm black PVD coated stainless steel 2‐part. Scratch‐resistant and convex sapphire crystal, water‐resistant to 100 meters, engraved case back, screw‐in crown and case back, chronograph pusher at 2 o’clock. 

Dials: Silver-dial model: Silver dial with sunray finishing and applied silver indexes filled with white luminous treatment, black outer ring with tachymeter graduation, silver hour and minute hands filled with white luminous treatment. Black seconds counter at 9 o’clock with sunray finishing and white hand, black chronograph hand and black minutes chronograph counter at 3 o’clock with sunray finishing and white hand.

Black dialed model: Black dial with sunray finishing and applied silver indexes filled with white luminous treatment, black outer ring with tachymeter graduation, hand‐polished silver hour and minute hands filled with white luminous treatment, black chronograph hand,
silver-color seconds counter at 9 o’clock with sunray finishing and black hand, silver color minutes chronograph counter at 3 o’clock with sunray finishing and black hand. 

Strap: Black leather strap with white stitching.

Price: $2,995. 

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The Watches

Roses Bloom at Parmigiani Fleurier

Parmigiani Fleurier has expanded on the work done for last year’s impressive unique-piece La Rose Carrée pocket watch to create the unique-piece La Rosa Celeste, the first minute-repeater wristwatch within a new five-piece Les Roses Carrées collection.

The Parmigiani Fleurier Rosa Celeste.

You may recall that a year ago the luxury watchmaker celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary with the release of the La Rose Carrée pocket watch, a unique minute repeater based on a Louis-Elysée Piguet caliber that had been restored in Parmigiani Fleurier’s workshops.

The new Rosa Celeste offers a 42mm white gold case that is hand-engraved with the same motif found on the 2021 pocket watch, and also includes a hunter’s caseback. The  back and the chiseled dial of the new watch are finished with richly detailed blue grand feu enamel, a painstaking artisanal process that requires multiple high-temperature firings.

The skeletonization of the PF355 caliber is directly inspired by that of the PF361 caliber, known as Chronor.

For the repeater, Parmigiani Fleurier chose to create cathedral gongs. Here, the chime has been optimized by a suspended movement and with the heel of the gongs physically connected to the case. In addition, watchmakers have redesigned the case to create resonance pockets and to lighten the white gold mass.

The outer face of the caseback bears a large square fractal Rose, also hand-engraved and covered with multiple layers of blue enamel.

Unusually, Parmigiani Fleurier watchmakers have also devised a ringing sequence automatically skips dead time. For example, at 3:19, the three chimes for the hour are immediately followed by a double chime for the quarter-hour and again, without silence, by up to four chimes for the minute.

The beautifully skeletonized PF355 caliber also features an unusually long 72-hour power reserve. Parmigiani Fleurier mounts the new La Rosa Celeste on a blue, hand-sewn alligator leather strap.

Price: CHF 600,000. 

Specifications: Parmigiani Fleurier La Rosa Celeste

Movement: PF355 manual wind with minute repeater on cathedral gongs, continuous chiming sequence. Power reserve: 72 hours, 21,600 Vph (3 Hz). Finishings: Côtes de Genève, openworked bridges, hand-beveling and circular graining.

Case: 42mm by 13.39mm white gold, polished and hand-engraved with “La Rose Carrée” pattern, crown topped with cabochon-cut natural sapphire, sapphire crystal and back. The Hunter caseback is white gold, hand-engraved with “La Rose Carée” pattern, Grand feu enamel, interior engraving, “Rosa Celeste”, “PF” seal and Michel Parmigiani’s signature. Caseback engraving serial number, “Parmigiani Fleurier,” Swiss Made, and ‘Pièce unique’. Water resistance: 10 meters.

Dial: Hand-engraved with chiseled pattern, blue “Grand feu” enamel, hand-applied indices, 18-karat gold and rhodium-plated appliques, hours and minutes hands in 18-karat gold, rhodium-plated, skeletonized and delta-shaped.

Bracelet: Blue alligator leather strap, double-sided, hand-stitched with 18-karat white gold pin buckle with hand-engraved “La Rose Carée” pattern.

Price: CHF 600,000. 

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The Watches

H. Moser Sets Sapphires into Streamliner

H. Moser & Cie. sets a glamorous rainbow of sapphires around the bezel of two of its Streamliner Tourbillon models.

The H. Moser Streamliner Tourbillon Rainbow, here in red gold.

The already spectacular watch, which highlights an eye-catching one-minute flying tourbillon at the six-o’clock position, can now be purchased as the Streamliner Tourbillon Rainbow with its tourbillon framed by a sparkling selection of sixty baguette sapphires set in either a red gold or steel cushion-shaped case.

The H. Moser Streamliner Tourbillon Rainbow, here in steel.

The red gold edition is matched with the brand’s famed über-dark Vantablack dial while the steel version is set with an H. Moser signature fumé dial. Each watch is blessed with the same Streamliner integrated three-blade bracelet, a comfortable, brushed-finished beauty in either the steel or the red gold iteration. 

A luxurious detail here involves an extra-helping of the H. Moser gradient treatment. Not only do the sapphires gradually echo the colors of a rainbow as they circle the dial, their varying sizes nicely underscore the Streamliner’s retro-luxe cushion-shaped case.

Those familiar with the H. Moser one-minute flying tourbillon set in the watch’s HMC 804 caliber know that is equipped with a double hairspring designed and produced in-house by H. Moser & Cie.’s sister company Precision Engineering AG. As Moser explains, the matched hairsprings mean that the movement’s friction errors are minimized immediately, significantly improving accuracy and isochronism.

Prices: $119,900 (steel) and $175,000 (red gold).

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