In the refined, classical world of upscale Swiss watchmaking, a number of independent brands are breaking from tradition on a quest for innovation. These renegades play with materials, unconventional time displays and more to offer radical, futuristic visions of timekeeping. But creativity doesn’t come cheap. Such audacious watches are highly coveted by elite collectors willing to shell out five and even six figures to wear a piece of contemporary horological art on their wrists.
We spotted five new iconoclastic watches that debuted at last week’s annual Geneva Watch Days event.
De Bethune DB28XP Kind of Blue
Limited to 25 pieces, De Bethune’s DB28XP Kind of Blue (US$125,000) is the brainchild of marrying its ultra-thin DB28XP from 2020 and 2018’s DB28 Kind of Blue into one stunning and sleek timepiece.
De Bethune creates its unique shade of blue by gently heating the titanium in an oven to more than 700 degrees Celsius to color the surface through oxidation.
The brand’s flagship DB28 line is distinguished by its unconventional architecture, with a crown positioned at noon like a pocket watch, floating skeletonized lugs that comfortably cradle the wrist and the signature Delta-shaped main plate centered on the dial, allowing a peek at the twin barrels. An aperture at 6 o’clock, reveals the titanium balance wheel and balance spring, while a polished blued titanium bridge secures the escapement. Three-dimensional spheres serve as hour markers around the dial, which is decorated with Microlight, the brand’s fine radial engraving that updates the traditional guilloché technique.
Ulysse Nardin Blast Free Wheel Marquetry
Ulysse Nardin was a pioneer of employing silicon for movement components, but the new Blast Free Wheel Marquetry (US$137,200) showcases this high-tech material front and center on the dial for the first time in the Blast collection.
The dial is assembled from 103 radiant blue slivers of fragile silicon with varying matte and mirror-polished surfaces and two different thicknesses (0.30 and 0.35 mm) that add dimensionality and enhance light refraction.
Hovering above the mosaic with no visible attachment is the UN-176 Manufacture caliber with its wheels, tourbillon with Ulysse Anchor Constant Escapement, barrel, and seven-day power reserve indicator on full display.
The 45mm white-gold Blast case echoes the disruptive marquetry motif with negative angle facets designed using a complex laser method, while an ultra-glass box crystal provides an open view of the mysterious movement, even from the sides.
Urwerk UR-100V Stardust
The avant-garde boutique brand Urwerk might leave you starstruck with its sparkly new stainless steel UR-100V Stardust (CHF 88,000, about US$99,500) set with 400 brilliant-cut diamonds totaling almost 1.90 carats. A technique called snow setting, which mixes and matches different-sized gems in a random pattern, imparts a natural frosty effect.
The brand’s captivating automatic UR 12.02 wandering hour movement uses orbiting satellites fitted with red pointers to indicate the hour, while sweeping across the minute scale at the bottom. And in keeping with the 100 Collection, when a pointer passes the 60-minute mark it continues around the dial, which has apertures on each side that serve as kilometer counters tracking the distance traveled by the Earth on its own axis over 20 minutes (555 kilometers) and the distance traveled by the Earth around the Sun (35,740 kilometers) during the same period.
Hautlence Sphere Series 1
Founded in 2004, the independent brand Hautlence has distinguished itself by conjuring creative ways to display time. This year’s Sphere Series 1 (CHF 66,000, about US$75,000), limited to 28 pieces, offers an update on 2019’s HL Sphere, which pairs a spherical hour display with retrograde minutes. Retooled with a re-engineered movement and case, the latest incarnation comes in stainless steel on an integrated rubber strap.
The 43mm-by-50.8mm stainless steel case is crowned with a beveled sapphire crystal fitted with a small dome to showcase the blue titanium sphere, engraved with 12 numerals. The sphere spins every hour using four conical gears to display the correct hour on top. On the right side, a retrograde minute hand slides across an arced 60-minute track before snapping back to zero as the sphere pirouettes to the next hour. The dial opens to reveal the gear train, the freewheel, and the snail cam that triggers the jumping hour. The applied minute numerals, which appear white by day and glow blue at night, are made of Globolight, a ceramic-based material charged with Super-LumiNova.
HYT Conical Tourbillon Infinity Sapphires
The dazzling new HYT Conical Tourbillon Infinity Sapphires (CHF 390,000, about US$440,000), limited to eight pieces, is the latest evolution of the brand’s mesmerizing Conical Tourbillon and the boldest timekeeper from the watchmaker since it launched in 2012 with a novel fluid time display.
Inspired by an inclined balance tourbillon created by the German watchmaker Walter Prendel in 1928, master watchmaker Eric Coudray developed this mind-boggling suspended tourbillon movement with its spiral balance inclined at 30 degrees to the horizontal, its escapement wheel at 15 degrees and an anchor at 23 degrees.
The brawny 48mm 5N rose gold and black DLC titanium case is topped with a large, domed crystal, showcasing the tourbillon, which completes a clockwise rotation every 30 seconds. Orbiting around the dynamic mechanism spin three faceted 2.5mm colored sapphires, each paired on a turning arm with a complementary colored spherical counterweight. The trio of sapphires spin at different rates, creating a chaotic ballet around the dial. Six smaller colored sapphires are set within the brackets of the tourbillon.
The brand’s signature retrograde liquid hour display wraps around the tourbillon. The system uses two immiscible fluids—one black and one transparent—enclosed in a glass capillary tube. A bellows system propels each to converge at a point that delineates the hour, lining up with an applied hour numeral. A matte black pointer hand with a white luminous arrow indicates minutes.
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