Best of Baselworld 2015

Strength And Beauty

The Oyster Perpetual Yacht-Master has grown into the ultimate trophy companion, like a Hollywood heroine, muscularly chiselled yet a visage of gorgeousness. Exclusively fitted with the new Rolex innovation the Oysterflex bracelet, the robustness of the black and 18k Everose gold Yacht-Master is further enhanced by the flexibility and comfort of the enduring elastomer strap with all the reliability of a metal bracelet.

Available in either 40mm or 37mm iterations, powered by the Calibre 3135 and the Calibre 2236 respectively, polished raised numerals on the matt black Cerachrom insert provide stunning contrast to the polished Monobloc-cast Everose gold case with vaunted Triplock triple waterproofness system rated to 100-metre depths.

FROM WORK TO PLAY

Flying the North Flag

Tudor made BaselWorld’s top story, as most likely the first-ever watchmaker to have introduced in-house movements in two flagship novelties, without any real increase in retail price. Beginning with the Tudor North Flag, the MT5621 is a manufacture self-winding calibre rated to COSC standards. The new movement also bequeaths the rare feature of instantaneous date setting without the restriction of the “non-correction range” – a particular period of time when the gears have already begun to engage the date change complication, making it less suitable to make your own date changes.

In terms of design, the North Flag is the flag bearer for the generations of intrepid explorers wearing Tudor Oyster Prince watches while carrying out experiments in the most hostile environments known to mankind. An instrument of scientific design, the North Flag is distinctly angular and comes satin-finished for a space-age look while the reverse crystal caseback displays the pride of Tudor’s first manufacture movement – a highly finished industrial calibre with subtle laser engraving.

The darling of BaselWorld 2012, Pelagos too comes with aesthetic and technical updates. Available in matt blue in additon to the original matt black version, the 500-metre deep diving watch now comes with the brand’s second in-house movement, the MT5612 running on 70 hours power reserve. There’s simply no excuse to not pay close attention to Tudor.

Archive Diving

Longines has an almost indomitable position when it comes to global reach and market share and it can become self-evident as the St-Imier watchmaker continues to mine the wealth of its archives.

Back in the early 60s, a trading partnership between Longines-Wittnauer in North America birthed a diving chronograph that heralded a trend for asymmetric chronograph sub-dials and high contrast bezels thanks to its graduated bordeaux diving bezel. For Baselworld 2015, the Longines Heritage Diver 1967 draws on the aesthetic codes of the original and upgrades the stalwart icon with a black opaline dial and silver counters.

A reliable yet elegant diver’s tool watch, the 2015 rendition of the 1967 vintage timepiece includes a 12-hour counter for the chronograph complication as well. The caseback is engraved with a diver, a reminder of the first diving watches produced by the brand.

Smart Quartz

When it comes to the new Hamilton Chrono Worldtimer, the exclusive H-41e quartz movement is closer to a smart electronic calibre rather than your run of the mill crystal regulating timepiece.

The Chrono Worldtimer has the capacity to switch between world timer functionality – a 24 time zone feature, and a pilot’s chronograph mode. In the former, the complication allows the user to calculate time in the selected city and the watch automatically calibrates itself to match. Set via bi-directional rotation of the crown, daylight savings is also included to allow supreme functionality without manual adjustment. Push the 10 o’clock pusher for two seconds and you’ll notice that the toggle apertures reminiscent of fighter cockpits will indicate either world time or chronograph mode. It’s a pilot’s chronograph by virtue of the emphasis on minutes counting as opposed to hours, thanks to the clearly legible centred minute counter.

Mag(lock) to the Future

For BaselWorld 2015, Bulgari unveiled the ultimate luxury – peace of mind. Available in the shape of a Diagono Magnesium, the “e” wrist-vault watch is a new concept watch designed specifically for complete guarantee of security for your personal information. Unlike most “connected” or smart watches, the Diagono Magnesium is a 100% Swiss mechanical timepiece and developed with luxurious codes synonymous with Manufacture Bulgari. What the maison provides in material luxury, their partner WISeKey provides in digital security and data storage.

The timepiece acts as a multi-function key, unlocking your suite door at Bulgari hotels and there is even a planned concept with Maserati where door open and close as well as engine start-stop can also be controlled with your Diagono. A pioneering product where most gadget watches of present time have shorter lifespans, the Diagono only depends on the software of your Android phone to be updated. The cryptographic chip within the Diagono operates on NFC technology that sends a signal to the Bulgari Vault application in your smartphone, which after authentication, allows you to access your most sensitive documents and credit card information.

A unique user experience built around sustainability rather than planned obsolesce, this new offering is built according to the elegant sophisticated specifications of your traditional glamorous 41mm Diagono in steel, with a Magnesium midcase and PEEK ceramic bezel etched with double Bulgari logo. Your personal vault now comes in a mechanical in-house self-winding movement with 42 hours of power reserve, with a self-suficient power supply to boot.

Go Boldly

In the 1930s, Patek Philippe & Cie developed military watches for aviators and navigators. They were called “hour-angle watches” because of their ability to be used in concert with sextant, thanks to the angles or “degrees arc” rail on the center of the dial for precision navigation. While this establishes the provenance of Patek Philippe’s history in aviation, the new Calatrava Pilot Time Ref. 5524 keeps only the case design for the original timepiece and reinterprets the old classic as a contemporary pilot’s watch.

Gone is the “hour angle” and in its place, a dark navy dial with grained finishing blue hands topped with Super-LumiNova, while the white hand denoting a second time zone hours is not. Additionally, the printed hour markers have been replaced with highly legible white gold Arabic numerals, while two apertures flank the date register at 6 o’clock. The GMT hand is independently adjustable similar to the Travel-Time Aquanaut and is powered by the Calibre CH 324 C FUS equipped with a Silinvar spiromax spring and a Gyromax balance. The movement, visible through crystal caseback is finished to Patek Philippe’s aesthetic and technical standards, and thus naturally comes adorned with the Patek Philippe seal, which means it has been adjusted to a tolerance of -3/+2 seconds per day.

Fluted pushers at the 8 and 10 o’clock positions don’t just allow for better grip but also feature a user-friendly patent-pending “quarter-turn” lock system to eliminate accidental adjustments of time at origin. For final flourish, the vintage brown calfskin strap comes with a clevis prong buckle inspired by pilot harnesses. While it is the most divisive Patek Philippe timepiece to date, it is a daring venture in capturing a younger audience accustomed to the brand being “their father’s watch”.

THE DRESS WATCH

Gilt-Edged Performance

When it comes to all manner of watchmaking complications, Manufacture Zenith has proven all manner of competence in both its historical archives and its modern interpretations. For 2015, they prove unequivocally that their horological genius too exists in simplicity. On the surface, the Elite 6150 is watchmaking elegance at its most pure, but when backed by a new mechanical calibre based off Basel 1994’s “Best Movement of the Year”. It is a 100-hour running tour de force with a slim profile of 3.92mm. Beating at 28,800 vph, the twin barrel long running movement is designed to provide Zenith the horological foundation for a great number of new modules and developments.

Dial side, the namesake Elite 6150 comes mined straight from Zenith’s archives, replicating the ultra-clear, ultra-clean design through its cambered silver-toned dial punctuated by reverse silvery hour markers achieved by hollowing out the dial’s surface. It’s a trompel’oiel technique, giving Manufacture Zenith added detail in a restrained three-hand watch. It is quite potentially, the face for things to come for the maison.

Ahoy Maritime

Asymmetrical hour, minutes and seconds dial layouts may be par course for German watchmaking but Glashütte Original shines best with 2015’s new star – The Senator Observer. Inspired by nautical deck watches used for maritime navigation during mankind’s earliest transocean voyages, the contemporary Senator Observer shares common heritage in terms of dial layout akin to a deck watch and joins the super-legible indicators with a sublime grand date display, a signature of the brand.

With this latest iteration of the Senator Observator model, the Glashütte manufacture eschews printed non-luminous Arabic numerals for new retro-style fonts similar to those used on shipboard deck clocks from the early 20th century. The white gold hands, hour markers and rail markers are enhanced with Super-LumiNova, making this the best-looking Observer in the day or night. It runs on a manufacture self-winding calibre 100-04 and is equipped with 55 hours of power reserve. The 44mm timepiece is available in steel case with steel bracelet but it looks best as a gentleman’s accompaniment with calfskin strap.

Clarion Clarity

In the new rose gold Slim d’Hermès Perpetual Calendar, Philippe Delhotal, Creative Director of La Montre Hermès has demonstrated a new milestone for the brand’s watchmaking competence. Artistically, it is executed with the clean simplicity of Philippe Apeloig’s original typography for Hermès leading to the birth of one of the easiest to read perpetual calendars on the market. Technically, with cooperation from Jean-Marc Wiederrecht, it is packed with signature Hermès flourish in the form of moon-phase indication in natural white mother-of-pearl set against an aventurine glass sky and a flair for ease of use, exemplified with the “safezone date-set indicator” warning the user if he’s attempting date adjustment in a manner that would potentially damage the movement and a travel friendly, single button-set secondary time zone.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

Declaration of Independence

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the La Tradition, Breguet opted to launch one of the most astounding chronographs to date – the Tradition Chronographe Indépendant 7077. Born of two movements, one keeping regular time and the other a constant force regulated chronograph powered by a blade spring; it is the most technically avant-garde timepiece from the classic watchmaker yet.

Accuracy-wise, the blade spring differs from the coiled mainspring used by the hours and minutes, a sliver of metal so thin and independent of the crown that a single push of chronograph reset instantly winds the spring to a full 20-minute run time. To compensate for the non-linear torque inherent in the blade, the 5-hertz lightweight balance-wheel is fed by a constant force mechanism to keep delivery of impulse consistent, whether at start of chronograph operations or near the end.

In keeping with La Tradition design codes for symmetry, the going train for hours and minutes are regulated by a 3-hertz balance wheel in the same dimensions as the chronograph balance but in operational terms, the two couldn’t be more different. Aside from the obvious difference in vibrational frequencies evident to the naked eye, the chronograph balance-wheel is constructed from lightweight titanium while the timekeeping balance uses standard Glucydur; both however come equipped with silicon Breguet overcoil hairsprings and silicon pallet forks.

This independence in operational functions solves a traditional watchmaking problem where the start of a chronograph disturbs the main gear trains, putting Breguet’s latest BaselWorld novelty in pole position to be one of the most precise chronographs to date.

Royal Highness

Upon watchmaking’s grandest stage, U-Boat turned the heads of watch art lovers seeking something more. The prolific constructor of statement timepieces introduced a new element to the hand-crafting aspect of horology – the uniqueness of random patterns.

Among five models unveiled by U-Boat at BaselWorld 2015, which included the U-Boat Phoenix whose martellée finishing involved it being partially drilled to create small cracks where 180 black diamonds were manually filled into its sterling silver 925 case, and the U-Boat Black Widow whose surfaces of its 53mm 18k pink gold case were laboriously adorned with black diamonds of different sizes, a queen stood out.

The 18k yellow gold U-Boat Hera was subjected to intricate drilling, which created imaginative fissures that were in turn encrusted with black diamonds, to match its black diamond-studded chrono pusher and visible gold rotor.

While the U-Boat Opera Nera distinguished itself with a fumé side window along its full black diamond pave case and the off-kilter U-Boat Lussuria opted for a streaked pattern on a row of metal that drew attention to the eye-catching 0.19-carat white diamond that was inserted into its thick and smoked sapphire glass to create cracks, the Hera stole the spotlight with its diamond studded chrono pusher.

The majestic U-Boat Hera topped off Italo Fontana’s endeavour to watchmaking’s grandest stage with a precision movement driven by a gilded rotor that can be relished through its sapphire glass.

You Spin Me Round

The alchemical combination of two inventive timekeeping regulators usually found in classical timepieces makes a stunning evolutionary journey into Blancpain’s philosophical namesake for avant-garde watchmaking – L-evolution Tourbillon Carrousel.

Aggressively sporty, the highly sculptural openworked “dial” holds two of watchmaking’s milestone complications; themselves reinterpreted to match the modern new digs from the Le Brassus manufacture. A dynamic timepiece thanks to its depth, hexagonal screws are additional aesthetic touches never before seen on a Blancpain timepiece.

Barrels for Bonniksen’s Carrousel and Breguet’s Tourbillon are individually powered but simultaneously wound thanks to ingenious architecture, giving the wearer the ability to wind up power reserves for both on a single winding crown encircling the entire movement.
Limited to 50 Editions.

Same but Different

At times classic, sometimes modern, mostly avant-garde, with Jean-Claude Biver taking reigns of LVMH’s watch division, the Carrera is now best encapsulated in the Calibre Heuer 01, a highly modular, somewhat Hublot-esque movement based off the current Calibre 1887. The column wheel has been anodised red for striking contrast and the oscilating rotor has been redesigned, but most of the changes are artistic on the dial side: skeletonised date wheel, dial and chronograph sub-dials. The 45mm case too is highly customisable: in addition to 11 possible components, the four lugs can be changed allowing TAG Heuer’s immense design flexibility on what is likely to be the brand’s volume-moving timepiece. It’s a mechanical chronograph priced SGD7200 making it one of the most affordable chronographs around.