The tourbillon is among the most remarkable complications of the watchmaker’s art, and is particularly appreciated by enthusiasts and collectors alike. These days, tourbillons can be found combined with a variety of functions and in various styles, but they are always distinguished by ever more complex implementation and spectacular mechanical innovations.
To give an example, three watchmakers are offering exceptional double tourbillons: Speake-Marin (Black Magister Vertical Double Tourbillon), Manufacture Royale (1770 Micromégas, dual-rate double tourbillon) and Louis Moinet, with the Sideralis Evo, a unique inverted dual tourbillon designed to drive a complication (a time dial at 12 o’clock composed of two superimposed discs).
Here, we have a “dual moon stage” which is really only a mirror representation of this moon given its comparative period as seen from the southern or northern hemisphere. Bovet utilizes a moon phase indicator system that is accurate to about 122 years until it demands adjustment – but I truly doubt anybody will have this or some other mechanical watch working continuously for 122 decades. Yet again, you see usage of the very cool tiny ruby wheels used to make sure that the dome turns with nominal friction.At the top of the dial is the indicator for the time using an included power reserve indicator. This latter part includes complications too such as the retrograde display for the minutes along with the jumping hour index. As far as “odd” screens for your time go, this is really decently legible and, naturally, an exercise in complication for complication’s sake. That is, after all, why you could spend a few hundred thousands dollars onto a mechanical watch, right?Dial and motion, as mentioned previously, are more or less merged into one and the outcome is (at least in my view) a glorious mixture of mechanical and artistic layout. Not only is the design of the in-house made Bovet quality 17DM01-HU movement visually interesting, but it offers the viewer so much to check at in terms of how the mechanism operates. In addition to that, there is a lot of hand-decoration as well as engraving to enjoy. Turn over the watch, and the majority of the rear of this Bovet Recital 18 Shooting Star is full of hand-engraved stars along with other “perspectives from space.”
Ulysse Nardin’s Executive Skeleton Tourbillon is all about lightness. The robust architecture of the complex mechanism is revealed in every dimension through transparent sapphire, accentuated by PVD and ruthenium coatings. With its generous 170 hour power reserve and silicon tourbillon, the in-house manually-wound UN-171 movement with hour and minute functions is built to last.
The watchword for Bovet’s Ottantasei flying tourbillon is “light” – in its dual sense of luminous and weightless. This is the sixth watch and the fourth tourbillon to come out of the watchmaker’s partnership with the famous Italian design studio Pininfarina. The boldly conceived Ottantasei succeeds in fitting a flying tourbillon with a chronometric power reserve of 10 days into a relatively modest case size, 44 mm in diameter, with a total thickness of just 12 mm.
Lightness is also a primary feature of Armin Strom’s Tourbillon Skeleton Water, which bears witness to the watchmaker’s skeletonisation skills. The in-house ATC11-S calibre has been stripped back to the bare essentials. The timepiece also has a skeletonised tourbillon regulator, and offers a power reserve of 10 days.
The Montblanc 4810 ExoTourbillon Slim is probably the most classic-looking of the 15 competing watches. Unveiled at SIHH 2016 to celebrate Montblanc’s 110th anniversary, the timepiece combines the watchmaker’s patented ExoTourbillon complication with a quick stop-second function. As its name reflects, the distinguishing feature of the ExoTourbillon is that its carriage is disconnected from the balance wheel.
Finally, Girard-Perregaux, which this year celebrates its 225th anniversary, drew inspiration from the Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges pocket chronometer, which won the gold medal at the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris, to create the Esmeralda Tourbillon in pink gold. The Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges, one of the most iconic models in watchmaking history, is given a modern reinterpretation while remaining faithful to the aesthetic codes of the original.
