Luxury watchmakers are breaking conventions with innovative colours, materials and designs. Prestige explores some of the season’s latest state-of-the-art collections of the timepieces.
As summer is approaching, colourful and light-weighted watches are back on trend, giving an effortless final touch to your look. From the 175 different color combinations of Nomos’s 38 Date to the blue on Jacob & Co’s Astronomia Regulateur, watchmakers are playing boldly with colours. Moreover, Bvlgari is also challenging the weight limit with world-thinnest chronometer on their Octo Finissimo Ultra. Here are our must-have timepieces for the summer months ahead…
Marking 175 years of watchmaking in the little Saxon town of Glashütte, the German manufacture Nomos, known both for its adherence to the clean design codes of the Bauhaus and an often-playful use of colour, has gone overboard with the latter. In fact, it’s offering its Tangente 38 Date in 31 175-piece limited editions adorned in just about every colour and combinations thereof imaginable. If you were wondering, the one shown here is called Chile, but you can also opt for Love, Lemonbiscuit, Sportbunt, Dunkelbunt … and, well, we aren’t going to list them all here, but suffice it to say that we’re loving them all. As for the rest of the watch, it’s the standard minimalist item: a 37.5mm steel case with Nomos’s signature long lugs, a small seconds sub-counter at 6 o-clock, printed dial graphics and, on the inside, the hand-wound and chronometer-certified DUW 4101 calibre, which provides 42 hours of power and can be viewed through an exhibition caseback. So what’s your colour?
In rose gold and blue, the new Astronomia Regulateur is Jacob & Co’s take on the regulator watch, a flamboyant extravaganza in the form of a three-dimensional portrait of the celestial world. Its rotating movement features three arms: one for the one-minute flying tourbillon and the others for the hoursand minutes subdials.
Swiss tool-watch specialist has gone crazy for colour yet again, this time in the form of its new 39mm SUB 200 T divers, which are available with no fewer than eight distinctive dial hues, and come either on a steel bracelet or a matching rubber strap. Our choice? Sea Emerald green – and on rubber, of course.
Girard-Perregaux has, in its own words, “taken transparency to the extreme” with a pair of new Quasar Light Tourbillon with Three Bridges timepieces. Both – one of which is a limited edition of just eight pieces – feature a case and movement bridges in sapphire, while the “glassbox” crystal at each side takes see-through” to new levels of fabulousness.
World’s thinnest chronometer? No, it’s not Richard Mille or Piaget, because Bvlgari’s just broken the super-slim record with its new Octo Finissimo Ultra, which by combining the caseback with the movement’s baseplate reduces the thickness to an almost-infinitessimal 1.7mm. And as it’s made from titanium you hardly know you’re wearing it at all.
A trio of new Long Island Evolution watches from Franck Muller each presents a different expression of time. Choose from the 7 Days Power reserve, the Giga Tourbillon or, shown here, the Master Jumper, with triple jumping-hour complication. All come in a brushed titanium case with green anodised bezel and matching stitching.
Managing Editor, Hong Kong
A Hong Kong resident for more than 30 years, Jon has worked on publications devoted to culture, travel and lifestyle, as well as a short stint in daily newspapers, since the late ‘70s. He loves travel, ..Read More
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