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Gerald Charles Chronograph Now in Titanium 

Gerald Charles adds a titanium-cased Maestro Chronograph to its collection of elegant curved-case watches. With the new watch, the independent watchmaker (founded in 2000 by famed watch designer Gerald Charles Genta) creates the first titanium case within its characteristic Maestro Chronograph line, echoing the earlier production of a titanium case within the Gerald Charles GC Sport collection.

The new Gerald Charles Maestro GC3.0-TN Chronograph is a titanium-cased addition to the collection.

The new chronograph’s Sunburst royal blue dial, seen earlier on a gold Maestro Chronograph model, beautifully reflects ambient light and quite effectively complements the polished titanium frame. 

As with the case on the GC Sport model, the titanium case for the chronograph required extensive development, according to Gerald Charles.

The watch’s unusual curved shape is a challenge to the case maker as Grade 5 titanium is much harder than stainless steel or even gold to manipulate into curved forms.

Another challenge arises when attempting to set and polish the Maestro’s pushers, which are set directly at two curves adjacent to the crown.

Gerald Charles notes that the new titanium Maestro GC3.0-TN Chronograph weighs less than half its sister model in stainless steel. 

Inside the watch Gerald Charles fits the GCA3022/12 Manufacture automatic chronograph caliber developed in partnership between Gerald Charles and Swiss movement specialists Vaucher Fleurier Manufacture. (See below for detailed specifications.)

The chronometer-standard caliber is beautifully hand finished and visible through a sapphire crystal case back. On the dial, Gerald Charles applies and polishes counters at 3, 6 and 9, to display the running seconds, chronograph hours and chronograph minutes.

Price: $25,400.

Specifications: Gerald Charles Maestro GC3.0-TN Chronograph

(Reference GC3.0-TN-01)
Movement: Automatic GCA3022/12 manufacture chronograph caliber, with counters at 3, 6 and 9, 50-hour power reserve, 28,800 vph, stop-second system, 351 components, 46 rubies, 6.07mm thickness

Case: 39mm x 41.7mm by 11.5mm grade 5 titanium, polished with screw-down crown also in grade 5 titanium with Clous de Paris finish and embossed logo, sapphire crystal and back. Water resistance to 100 meters.

Dial: Sunburst royal blue, hands and applied indexes filled with SuperLumiNova.

Strap: Royal blue vulcanized rubber strap with titanium pin buckle.

Price: $25,400 

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Richard Mille Launches its First Sports Watch for Women

Richard Mille debuts its first women’s sports watch with the new RM 07-04 Automatic Sport,  a collection of six colorful models with a new automatic skeletonized movement and a highly shock-resistant, 30.5mm-by-45mm lightweight quartz or carbon case.

The new Richard Mille RM 07-04 Automatic Sport comes in six color options with either a colorful quartz case or a black carbon case.

Richard Mille says it took three years to develop the new series. Many of its technical features were devised after consulting with six female athletes who described the comfort, features and aesthetics of their ideal watch for wear during and after their sporting activities.

The collection’s CRMA8 caliber, the most compact movement developed by Richard Mille, features the brand’s emblematic function selector.

Eliminating all pressure on the winding stem, the selector is linked to a push-piece at 4 o’clock and allows the wearer to easily choose from among the neutral (N), winding (W) or time setting (H) positions. A hand at 5 o’clock displays the active function.

The RM 07-04 Automatic Sport is shock resistant with a highly tested and demonstrated ability to withstand accelerations of over 5,000 g’s. Richard Mille ensures this rigidity by constructing the baseplate and bridges from titanium with black PVD and electro-plasma treatments. Richard Mille then satin-finishes, micro-blasts and bevels these components by hand.

The complete case construction of the series is water-resistant to fifty meters thanks to two Nitrile O-rings, twenty titanium spline screws and 316L stainless steel washers. Each watch is also lightweight at 36 grams, strap included.

Five of the new watches (creamy white, mauve, salmon, green and dark blue) are cased in Quartz TPT while one (black case, below) is made from Carbon TPT.

As each is made with multiple layers of parallel carbon fiber or silica filaments, each looks just a bit different from the others, even when finished with the same color. Richard Mille finishes each watch’s titanium crown with a satin-finishing that is then micro-blasted and polished.

In an unusual touch, Richard Mille says it created the specific colors of each RM 07-04 Automatic Sport case to “interact perfectly with those of the bracelets, the tips of the hands, or the flange, according to a palette of shades to which Richard Mille alone knows the secret.”

Price: $185,000.

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Reservoir and LabelNoir Celebrate Popeye

Reservoir introduces the Reservoir x LabelNoir x Popeye watch, the latest in the Franco-Swiss watchmaker’s lively series of partnership watches and the second with a cartoon character theme.

The Reservoir x LabelNoir Popeye watch.

In keeping with Reservoir’s specialized jump-hour displays, Popeye’s powerful right arm doubles as the watch’s minute hand, sweeping from “00” to “60” and then snapping back again at the start of each hour. The dial displays the hour digitally at the 6 o’clock position.

As the name implies, Reservoir teamed with Swiss-based watch customizer LabelNoir to created the limited-edition 41.5mm titanium watch. With its slightly curved lugs and knurled crown, the watch echoes Reservoir’s existing models, but here displays a new satin-finished grey DLC case courtesy of LabelNoir.

Reservoir’s dial features a 240° retrograde configuration, with the minutes displayed around three-fourths of the face. Reservoir artists create Popeye’s image with bright coloring on a grey background, accented by comic-style indices and a prominent hour window, all of which make for a fun, easy-to-read dial.

Reservoir fits the watch with 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 manufacture TELOS.

The automatic caliber makes use of a La Joux-Perret LJP-G100 base with a proprietary 113-piece module. 

Reservoir signs the rotor and finishes it with Geneva stripes and radial style brushing. All this is visible through the sapphire caseback additionally adorned with a winking Popeye. Reservoir then protects the movement with fifty meters of water resistance.

The new Reservoir x LabelNoir x Popeye watch is available in a limited series of 200 pieces.

Each numbered model is presented in a decorated white wooden box and a special embroidery in honor of Popeye. A certificate of authenticity accompanies the box. 

Price: $4,450.

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Blancpain Expands Fifty Fathoms  

On the seventieth anniversary of its groundbreaking Fifty Fathoms dive watch, Blancpain unveils the Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa, a new dive watch with a bezel that makes it possible to measure immersion times of up to three hours.

The new Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa.

The bezel, and an accompanying hand that completes one revolution in three hours, combine to form an innovative new dive watch tool. Blancpain CEO Marc A. Hayek and diver and photographer Laurent Bellesta have filed for a patent for the mechanism at the heart of the new watch, which Blancpain first began to develop in 2019.

Blancpain launches the new watch as it also celebrates the tenth anniversary of Gombessa , an undersea research initiative that Bellesta and Blancpain helped create in 2013. The Tech Gombessa also marks the launch of a new line in Blancpain’s dive watch collection. 

Longer immersions

Bancpain explains that since the first Fifty Fathoms diver immersion times have notably extended, with the most experienced divers now capable of spending several hours underwater. Hayek and Ballesta devised the new three-hour timing mechanism to “meet the needs of all extreme divers, starting with the members of the Gombessa Expeditions whose research work involves long- duration deep dives.”

With an exterior that fits within the existing Fifty Fathoms family, the Tech Gombessa is nonetheless loaded with technical tweaks. 

Inside the 47 mm Grade 23 titanium case demonstrating 300 meters of water resistance, Blancpain fits a new movement, automatic Caliber 13P8 with an impressive five-day power reserve. In addition, Blancpain created a black ceramic bezel inlay instead of the traditional sapphire, which has been given a stronger curve and tilt (towards the dial).

Blancpain has also endowed the Tech Gombessa dial with a new ‘absolute black’ finish said to capture almost 97% of the light. The watch’s hour-markers luminescent block-shaped orange appliques with blue luminescence, colors that differentiate between time-related information and diving times. 

As with all Fifty Fathoms timepieces, the crown is screwed down, though here it is protected by a new crown guard with a trapeze-shaped design to match the watch’s new lug shape.

From the back, the wearer can see the new movement’s anthracite-colored oscillating weight, stamped with the Gombessa Expeditions logo, and which itself is given three large openings to better spy the movement. 

Finally, Blancpain will supply the Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa with a black rubber strap screwed to the back of the lugs. The strap is reinforced with titanium and is teamed with an extension for wearing the watch over a diving suit.

Owners will also receive the watch in a special water-tight presentation box that houses a rest for the watch, the strap extension, a travel pouch, a magnifying glass, as well as a set of dividers and cutting tools.

Price: $28,000.

Specifications: Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa

Case: 47mm grade 23 titanium, helium valve, central lugs attached from the inside of the case middle.

Dial: Absolute black, luminescent orange block-shaped appliques with blue emission, unidirectional 3-hour scale bezel with black ceramic inlay tilted towards the dial with white luminescent green markers, 3-hour dive-time hand.

Movement: Caliber 13P8, self-winding with 5-day power reserve.

Bracelet: Integrated black rubber strap with extension.

Price:$28,000.

 

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Ulysse Nardin Delivers a Blue and Gold Blast 

Ulysse Nardin adds a rose gold and blue PVD titanium model to its skeletonized Blast collection. The new Blast Tourbillon Blue & Gold marks the first blue two-tone model in the contemporary series, identified with its x-shaped tourbillon cage, x-shaped movement bridge, rectangular frame and three-lug strap connection.

The new Ulysse Nardin Blast Tourbillon Blue & Gold.

The tourbillon exposed in the lower section of the large x-shaped bridge regulates Ulysse Nardin’s UN-172 Manufacture caliber, an automatic movement with a three-day power reserve and a silicon balance spring, escapement wheel and pallet fork. At the top of the skeletal dial you’ll find a platinum rotor.

Part of the allure of the entire Blast collection is its distinctive multi-level 45mm case. This model delivers that profile with a central case in sand-blasted blue PVD titanium and an upper case in satin-finished and polished rose gold. That wide bezel is made of blue PVD titanium.

Ulysse Nardin delivers the new Blast Tourbillon Blue & Gold with a blue velvet rubber strap and its own rose gold and blue PVD titanium folding clasp. Price: $67,000. 

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