“the flying tourbillon iS inherently muCh more ComPlex and teChniCally ConSidered aS a ComPliCation built onto the tourbillon ComPliCation”

supported at both top and bottom ends, but cantilevered. It is inherently much more complex and technically considered as a complication built onto the tourbillon complication. Of course, people thought that wasn’t nearly complex enough: In 2003, Thomas Prescher, father of the triple axis tourbillon, came up with the flying double axis tourbillon. Unsurprisingly, the company has since released a

Of course, there are plenty other tourbillons representing the twenty-tens. The Excalibur Spider Skeleton Double Flying Tourbillon from Roger Dubuis, for example, has a mesmerizing display of two whirlwinds occupying the bottom half of the display. Jager-LeCoultre’s Duomètre Sphérotourbillon changes things up with a multi-axis tourbillon.

At this year’s Baselworld, GirardPerregaux presented the Vintage 1945 Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges “70th Anniversary Edition” for a heady mix of history and technical wonder. Another showstopper at Baselworld was the Bulgari Octo Finissimo Tourbillon, noted as having the world’s thinnest tourbillon. Meanwhile, for the more contemporaryminded watch connoisseur, perhaps TAG Heuer’s Monaco V4 Tourbillon—the first of its kind to use micro-belts instead of gears to drive the cage—will be a much more attractive option. Or take the TAG Heuer Carrera Mikrotourbillons which has two independent tourbillons where one powers a chronograph that’s impressively accurate to 1/100th of a second.

abSolute defianCe

In closing, perhaps the ultimate value of tourbillons lies in its implicit capacity to defy the odds. This complication was invented in an effort to defy the pull of the Earth itself; its resurgence was spurred by a defiant industry unwilling to slip quietly into the night when progress encroached on its territory; its relevance today, thus, is as a way to defy the limitations of fine horological craftsmanship.

As much as it defies logic, the sight of a miniature whirlwind spinning in place as the hands of your watch make their rounds will always be nothing short of magical. Hence, tourbillons are here to stay.