FOR THOSE WHO ENJOY SURPRISES
WATCHES THAT ARE MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE
01 HUBLOT BIG BANG TOURBILLON POWER RESERVE 5 DAYS SAPPHIRE
To the uninitiated, it might look like a plastic watch gone wild. Your fellow watch nerds, however, will know that the Big Bang Tourbillon Power Reserve 5 Days Sapphire is one of the latest examples of highend timepieces that come fully clad in sapphire crystal, the ultra-hard glass that usually covers watch dials or display casebacks. In its latest, 45mm glass- centric outing, Hublot has given its five-day power reserve, manually wound tourbillon movement greater transparency by holding it in place with a strip of sapphire crystal, while using acrylic to form its skeletonised mainplate.
02 HAUTLENCE NEWTON 01
Don’t bother trying to surreptitiously read the time on this watch if you spy it on someone else’s wrist. This watch tells time with the help of the movable, blue DLC- coated central fl ange that has a minutes track and a window that shows the correct hour. When the wearer does not have his or her wrist in the position to look at the watch, the fl ange moves out of position, and shows neither the right hour nor minutes. This new, selfwinding movement is based on the traditional jumping hours display, but instead of having the date jump in a static window – it brings the window to the correct date.
03 RADO DIAMASTER CERAMOS
Like the look of steel – or rose gold – but not a fan of its weight? Material alchemist Rado’s latest DiaMaster slim automatic watch is made from Ceramos, a mix of 90 per cent high-tech ceramic and 10 per cent metal alloy. Looking highly similar to polished steel or rose gold, Ceramos will never lose its colour or sheen, while possessing the qualities that people like in high-tech ceramics, chiefly lightness and durability.
04 OMEGA SPEEDMASTER “DARK SIDE OF THE MOON” APOLLO 8
Before the 1968 Apollo 8 mission – the fi rst to orbit the moon – nobody had seen the far side of the moon. Half a century after that landmark mission, Omega has created a new “Dark Side of the Moon” watch with a similarly hidden lunar landscape. Housed in a 44.25mm black ceramic case, this Speedmaster features a skeletonised dial that reveals a manual-winding movement that has been blackened and laser-ablated to resemble the lunar surface: The dial side features a lighter, cratered fi nish, while the display caseback reveals the darker terrain that the Apollo 8 astronauts would have seen on the far side of the moon.
05, 06 CHOPARD L. U. C ALLIN- ONE
Some watches have simple, time- only displays on the front, reveal their real technical prowess – be it a minute repeater movement or a tourbillon, and so on – through the back. And then there are watches that have so much going on that half their features have to be placed on the back. The aptly named Chopard L.U.C All-In- One belongs in the latter camp. This tourbillon perpetual calendar watch has 14 indications, with half of these being located on the back, where you will fi nd astronomical displays such as the equation of time, day and night indicators and an orbital moon phase. First launched in white gold in 2010 to commemorate Chopard’s 150th anniversary, the 46mm watch is now available in rose gold or platinum.