Among its wide-ranging LVMH Watch Week 2023 debuts (which include several new Big Bang and Spirit of Big Bang models) Hublot revisits its 1980 debut model, the first luxury Swiss watch that dared to arrive attached to a rubber strap.
Designed by Hublot founder Carlo Crocco in 1980, the 36mm ‘Classic Original’ embodied contemporary luxury with a polished black lacquered dial, no markers except for twelve screws along the bezel, a date window, facetted hands and a vanilla-scented black rubber strap.
It didn’t take long for enthusiasts, in search of an original design, to agree that its spare dial and supple black rubber strap represented a modern approach to the typically busier dial and leather straps of classic Swiss watch design.
Hublot in 2023 revives the 1980 original with the new Classic Fusion Original,an updated version that adds a more sophisticated, multi-level case with a clear sapphire caseback.
The newest version also now offers the modern Hublot six-screw bezel design and, with two of the new models, is powered by modern Hublot MHUB1110 Sellita-based automatic movement. Even the Hublot logo at the top of the dial has changed over the years, though ever so subtly.
To reach the widest range of new enthusiasts, Hublot offers the new Classic Fusion Original in three different case metals and in three different sizes. Thus, you’ll find the new watch available in yellow gold, titanium and ceramic and the cases made in 42mm, 38mm and 33mm diameters.
We’ll show you all the LVMH Watch Week 2023 debuts in upcoming posts.
Prices: 42mm:$8,200 (Titanium), $10,000 (Black Magic) and $24,100.00 (Yellow Gold.)
For 38mm: $7,900 (Titanium), $8,500 (Black Magic) and $20,500 (Yellow Gold).
Oris adds to its Caliber 400 series of long power reserve movements with Caliber 473, a new manual-wind movement with a 120-hour (five-day) power reserve that the independent watchmaker will debut in a new watch, the Big Crown Calibre 473.
While Oris has previously fit its Big Crown Pointer Date fit with the automatic Caliber 403, also a five-day-power reserve caliber, the new watch will premiere the latest manual-wind iteration of the Caliber 400 series, which debuted in 2020 as the first Oris in-house automatic movement in forty years. The new caliber is the watchmaker’s tenth in-house caliber in ten years.
Derived from the firm’s well-known Big Crown Pointer Date, the new watch is a 38mm steel model with a blue dial displaying the familiar Big Crown’s familiar central two-hand time display with a central date hand and small seconds at 6 o’clock.
Like the full series of Oris Caliber 400 movements, Caliber 473 is also constructed to demonstrate high levels of anti-magnetism.
And like earlier models fit with Caliber 400 series movements, the new watch also comes with a ten-year warranty and ten-year recommended service intervals. Oris notes that new caliber took four years to develop and is the subject of a pending patent.
The watchmaker has placed the 120-hour power reserve indicator on the back of Caliber 473 to inform the wearer when its time to rewind. As a bonus, Oris is premiering its new stainless steel butterfly clasp with fine adjustment system on the Big Crown Calibre 473.
Price: $4,400.
Specifications: Oris Big Crown Calibre 473
Movement: Manual-wind Oris Caliber 473, 120- hour power reserve indicator on reverse, fine timing device and stop-second, accuracy -3/+5 seconds a day (within COSC tolerances), power reserve of 120 hours, highly anti-magnetic.
Case:Multi-piece 38mm stainless steel, domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating inside, stainless steel screw-in security crown. Caseback is stainless steel, screwed with see-through sapphire glass. 50 meters of water resistance.
Dial: Blue with luminous indices, numbers and hands printed with Super-LumiNova.
Strap: Olive brown, crafted from sustainably sourced deer leather produced by Oris’s Swiss partner Cervo Volante. New Oris-developed stainless steel butterfly clasp with fine adjustment system.
Vacheron Constantin commemorates the start of the Chinese Lunar New Year (January 22) with a Métiers d’Art limited edition duo, each with a Grand Feu enamel Year of the Rabbit dial. Both watches are powered by the watchmaker’s excellent Calibre 2460 G4 that allows for a hand-free dial that highlights the artisanal decoupage dial.
Each 40mm watch features the symbolic rabbit directly etched into the gold dial. The pattern is semi-embedded and stands out from its gold base, surrounded by flowers and vegetation that appears to be floating over the dial.
Both rich hues are the result of Grand Feu enameling whereby artisans apply enamel in successive layers, each fired at temperatures between 800 and 900 degrees Celsius.
The Calibre 2460 G4 opens up the space on the dial thanks to a four-aperture display showing the hours, minutes, days and dates. Vacheron Constantin has used this display for numerous watches over the years in part to highlight a particularly rich artisanal dial.
The movement in the platinum model is on display from the back of the case, where the viewer can see a 22-karat gold oscillating weight with the Vacheron Constantin Maltese cross logo.
And of course the caliber on both models is beautifully finished in accordance with the criteria of the Hallmark of Geneva.
Prices: $131,000 (in platinum with sapphire caseback) and $108,000 (pink gold). Each is a limited edition of nine watches.
Bell & Ross’s Carlos Rosillo and Bruno Belamich have teamed with watch design legend Alain Silberstein to create a trio of watches that combine Silberstein’s colorful shapes with a black ceramic version of Belamich’s aviation-inspired square Bell & Ross BR 03 design.
All three watches use the now more common, smaller version of the BR 03 case. While the original BR 01 measured 46mm × 46mm, most recent BR 03 collections measure 42mm × 42mm, the size of each model in the new Grail Watch collection.
Notably, none of the watches features a brand logo.
“We decided to simply use the ampersand that already features prominently in our brand name, because what better symbol for a collaboration between equals could you imagine?” says Belamich.
“With the chronograph, Carlos explained that the seconds hand was by far the largest one ever fitted to one of their watches, and we had to ensure the reset function worked perfectly each and every time so it would align exactly at zero,” Silberstein adds.
“With the diving watch, we had to make sure these huge oversized hands were as light as possible, so they wouldn’t affect the overall precision of the movement. And then to make a two-color ceramic bezel was a major challenge.”
Time & Date
The first watch in the trio, the Bell & Ross x Alain Silberstein BR 03-92 Klub 22, is a time-only model on a matte black ceramic case and jet-black dial.
Silberstein’s massive hand design creates a playful dial while as a large blue arrow indicates minutes and an S-shaped yellow form indicates the seconds.
The dial is interrupted only by the subtle date indicator. The watch features an automatic movement caliber BR.CAL-302 with date function. Priced at $4,400, it will be made in 200 examples.
The Dive Watch
The Bell & Ross x Alain Silberstein BR 03-92 Marine 22, the second model in the trio, is a re-imagined dive model.
Here Silberstein applies his “Maxi’ hands, which include a blue circular hours hand and a large red arrow. While both hands are liberally coated with luminescent material, the minute hand is particularly visible due to its critical elapsed dive time function.
To that end, the designer created a specialized two-tone ceramic bezel with the final twenty minutes of the insert colored red and a full set of 20-minute markers with luminous indexes.
The Bell & Ross x Alain Silberstein BR 03-92 Marine 22 diver model is depth rated to 300 meters, features a screw-down crown and is powered by caliber BR.CAL-302, the same automatic movement with date function used in the time only model. It will be made in a series of 100 examples. Price: $5,600.
The Chronograph
The third model in the series is the Bell & Ross x Alain Silberstein BR 03 Krono 22, a chronograph with five of Silberstein’s famous Bauhaus-inspired hands.
The hours are indicated by red circle with a blue arrow showing the minutes. Here, a yellow S-shaped hand serves as the chronograph seconds indicator while a blue triangle serves as the indicator for the chronograph 30-minute counter and a yellow arrow displays continuous seconds.
Unlike the other two debuts, this model offers a crown that features Silberstein’s signature red triangle.
The Bell & Ross x Alain Silberstein BR 03 Krono 22 is powered by the caliber BR.CAL-301 automatic chronograph movement with date. Made in 100 examples, the watch is priced at $6,700.
Grail Watch is offering watches numbered 1 to 50 as a box set of all three timepieces, which will arrive in a Silberstein-designed collector’s box. Price for the set: $16,700.
While Zodiac is best-known for its dive watches, the company’s long history also includes creating watches for all types military or civilian adventure. One of those designs, the Olympos, is a field watch Zodiac originally created in 1961.
From the start, the Olympos stood apart from traditional Swiss designs thanks to its distinctive, six-sided, manta-ray-shaped case and a crown located at the 2 o’clock position.
The watch, nicknamed the ‘manta’, was a best-seller for many years for Zodiac, both as a dress model and even with sportier accents. Many might recall that Zodiac reprised the Olympos in 2018 with several dressy alternatives.
Zodiac in late 2022 updated the collection with a decidedly more rugged version, the Olympos Field, a design that most closely echoes a military version Zodiac created for the British Royal Navy in the late 1960s.
The newest model features a newly contoured steel case and stronger water resistance, which now is rated to 200 meters. The new watch also echoes the military look of traditional field watches, with easy-to-read, luminous numerals and black or dark green textured dial options.
The green-dialed model arrives on a sharp-looking light brown leather strap lined with sporty white stitching. The darker model, with its black dial, comes with a dark brown strap that’s also lined with white stitching.
And like the recently released Super Sea Wolf Ceramic, the new Zodiac Olympos Field is powered by the automatic STP 1-11 movement that it protects with a solid caseback emblazoned with Zodiac logo.
Zodiac now offers its new Olympos Field watch is available on zodiacwatches.com. Price: $895.