The house of Ulysse Nardin, a past master in the mastery of materials such as silicon (its signature material), has unveiled one of the most beautiful and intriguing watches of these Geneva Watch Days: the new Blast Free Wheel Marquetry. A high-flying surname which covers a piece with a disruptive design equipped with a 45 mm Blast case in white gold and open on its sides in order to admire the spectacle of the cogs seeming to levitate on the dial.
Inside, we find a manually wound manufacture caliber which defies the laws of attraction by hovering over a blue silicon marquetry. The show continues at 6 o’clock with a flying tourbillon with constant escapement made up of 45 components, the same one which received the Prix du Tourbillon in 2015 at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève. Other elements appear to float in the center of the watch, like the flying barrel at 12 o’clock without visible attachment or the power reserve indicator located at 4 o’clock.
Alpina is celebrating its 140th anniversary this year. Since its beginnings, the brand has made a point of creating robust and waterproof pieces like the Alpina 4 launched in 1938, a watch particularly suited to climbing snowy passes. Indeed, the founders of the house were all fervent fans of mountaineering, hence the triangular logo which symbolizes the Swiss mountains and the Matterhorn, the famous summit above Zermatt.
Continuing this Alpine heritage and its quest for adventure, Alpina has presented the new Startimer Pilot Quartz Worldtimer watch. In other words, the first world time complication for the Startimer collection, powered by a precise and reliable quartz movement. The model displays hours, minutes, seconds, a GMT function as well as a world timer that can be adjusted to one of the 24 available time zones. Alpina offers three dial colors: navy blue, black or alpine green, on a (only) 41mm steel case.
Since its creation in 1828, H. Moser
The proof with the new Endeavor Tourbillon Concept Vantablack. Here, Vantablack, a material blacker than black (recognized as the darkest in the world) absorbs shadows and light. A dark shade that breaks up the flamboyant color of red gold adorning the 40mm case with its sleek lines and the leaf-shaped hands. The latter float above the dial, like a black hole and also adorned with Vantablack material. At 6 o’clock, we find a one-minute flying tourbillon which is powered by a self-winding manufacture caliber and offering a minimum autonomy of three days.
