Japanese Luxury men’s fashion magazine “Men’s Precious” earlier this year awarded Franck Muller its Watch Award 2022 for the Grand Central Tourbillon.
The series of tonneau-shaped watches highlight a centrally placed tourbillon, which the judges recognized as a difficult technical feat.
“It requires considerable skill to place it (a tourbillon) in the center,” said Koichi Namiki, Professor of Toin University of Yokohama. “But it seems Franck Muller has placed it in a tonneau-shaped case, a first in the world of watches, so effortlessly. It is as if the tourbillon has been given the best possible stage.”
Franck Muller explained that its watchmakers did need to “totally rethink the watch in order to move the Tourbillon from its original position at 6 o’clock to the center of the watch.”
The watch features a self-winding movement, fully manufactured in-house and offering four days of power reserve via an eccentric micro rotor.
The Grand Central Tourbillon also features a domed crystal and a redesigned Cintrée Curvex case, where the sapphire crystal extends all the way to the bracelet to highlight the beauty of the dial.
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.
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.
Ulysse Nardin adorns its 39mm Lady Diver and 45mm black DLC titanium Blast Tourbillon X with purple, green, blue or pink gemstones to create a rainbow effect that echoes the iridescent rainbow colors of silicon.
The new Ulysse Nardin Blast Rainbow Tourbillon X.
The newly sparkling bezels and dials, which debuted during Geneva Watch Days, are meant to celebrate Ulysse Nardin’s pioneering use of silicon components.
You may recall that in 2001 the Le Locle-based watchmaker was the first to debut a watch (the Freak) with silicon escapement components, jump-starting a technical revolution in the use of the material throughout the high-end Swiss watchmaking industry.
Ulysse Nardin sets the newest Blast Rainbow Tourbillon X with fifty rubies and sapphire baguette gemstones on its bezel and indexes.
The Blast Tourbillon X itself features a skeletonized X bridge and a black rectangular frame that geometrically opens views into the automatic flying tourbillon caliber UN-172. The impressive movement (pictured below), with its platinum micro-rotor and silicon escapement wheel, anchor & balance spring, is cased in black DLC titanium and sealed with a black ceramic polished and sandblasted upper case.
Ulysse Nardin’s Caliber-UN-172 with flying tourbillon.
Ulysse Nardin offers this new, glittery Blast Rainbow Tourbillion X as a limited edition of fifty. It arrives with a waterproof velvet rubber strap or a black alligator strap, together with a black DLC titanium and black ceramic self-deploying buckle. Price: $89,700.
The new Ulysse Nardin Lady Diver Rainbow is offered with a steel case or a blackened 39mm steel case.
The new 39mm Ulysse Nardin Lady Diver Rainbow, offered in either a steel case or a blackened steel case, is adorned with forty stones (ruby, aquamarine, topaz, tsavorite and sapphire) that the watchmaker has set on a concave unidirectional bezel. Eleven diamonds serve as indexes on the white-dialed or black-dialed watch.
Water resistant to 300 meters, the Lady Diver Rainbow is powered by Ulysse Nardin’s UN-816 automatic movement with silicon escapement components.
The watches, each limited to 300 units, will arrive attached to a white or black rubber strap. Price: $13,600.
Three months after a Jacob & Co. Astronomia Tourbillon Bucherer Blue triple-axis tourbillon returned to Earth after seventeen days on the International Space Station, the watch has started another tour, this time in New York City.
The Jacob & Co. Astronomia Tourbillon Bucherer Blue.
On July 26 at Sotheby’s the watchmaker is auctioning the watch to benefit the Davidson Institute of Science Education, an Israeli non-profit organization that serves as the educational arm of the Weizmann Institute of Science. Until then, the watch, a spectacular 50mm sapphire-cased tour-de-force, is available to see at the Bucherer 1888 TimeMachine (from July 11 to July 17), and will be on exhibit at the Sotheby’s New York galleries from July 21 to July 25.
Eytan Stibbe, wearing the Astronomia Tourbillon Bucherer Blue.
The Astronomia Tourbillon Bucherer Blue was worn on the wrist of philanthropist Eytan Stibbe during the Rakia mission, which returned April 25. Stibbe and the watch orbited Earth 273 times during that period, clocking more than 7 million miles.
The watch features four orbs that are in constant motion: the dial, tourbillon cage, a spherical diamond that reflects the moon, and a magnesium-lacquered globe that reflects the Earth. All are finished in the Bucherer Blue color, meant to reflect its place in the retailer’s collection of custom-made, similarly hued watches made in partnership with a wide range of Swiss watchmakers.
A back view of the Jacob & Co. Astronomia Bucherer Blue, showing moon orbit.
“The Astronomia tourbillon is a truly unique, groundbreaking timepiece that elevates the art of watchmaking above the Earth, above time,” says Jacob Arabov, Founder & Chairman of Jacob & Co. “So the very idea of sending this special Astronomia into space, as you can imagine, was very exciting. It’s only fitting that the Astronomia Bucherer Blue ends up revolving around the Earth. The watch had the same viewpoint on us as we usually have on it. This reversal is typical of the way I envision the creation of timepieces.”
The Astronomia Tourbillon Bucherer Blue (left) and the new EpicX Bucherer Blue.
EpicX Blue launches
The EpicX Bucherer Blue Edition
Along with the Astronomia tourbillon auction, Jacob & Co. and Bucherer are also launching the EpicX Bucherer Blue Edition, a manual-wind skeleton watch inspired by the International Space Station mission.
This watch, a limited edition of eighteen, will be available exclusively in the U.S. at Bucherer (pricing coming soon). It features a titanium caseback with an engraving of an astronaut, clad in a spacesuit and helmet, eyeing the Earth from space.
The watches, each limited to 300 units, will arrive attached to a white or black rubber strap. Price: $13,600.
