It wasn't just IWC's ceiling-mounted Spitfire that stole the show at this year's SIHH! SIHH 2016 restored the trade show's cool factor – sadly lacking in recent years – with incredible pieces from the biggest names in luxury watch manufacture.
Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Gyrotourbillon
85 years ago, Jaeger LeCoultre debuted a horological legend.
The luxury watch world was introduced to the Reverso in 1931, and to
celebrate the anniversary of the timepiece Jaeger's SIHH 2016 was all
about new incarnations. Topping the list in terms of price, complication and wow factor was the Jaeger LeCoultre Reverso Tribute Gyrotourbillon. Fitting the signature JLC Gyrotourbillon complication into a Reverso case clearly wasn't tribute enough for Jaeger LeCoultre. Not only did they diminish the size of the tourbillon itself–they also cut down the size of the entire movement, by 30% in every direction. This extraordinary feat of horological engineering sits in a Reverso case that looks great on the wrist, and showcases every fine detail of the manually-wound Calibre 179.
With an open-worked rear dial and a classically-realised Jaeger LeCoultre face on the front dial, the Reverso Tribute Gyrotourbillon fulfils every requirement of a high end luxury watch. But the piece de resistance, of course, is that floating tourbillon with its hemispherical balance spring and anchor-shaped balance wheel.
IWC Pilot Watch Automatic 36
It's always nice to see a luxury watch manufacturer thinking about the people who are going to end up wearing their creations.
The IWC Pilot's Watch Automatic 36 is a piece that will appeal to both
female and male lovers of haute horlogerie–but primarily, its diminutive
design makes it a classic piece for women. All too often, luxury watch manufacturers either assume that women want 'feminine' pieces splashed with diamonds and built into the inevitable tonneau case. With the Pilot's Watch Automatic 36, IWC have made something much more inclusive. And they've done it without losing the legibility and rugged beauty for which the Pilot is renowned.
The 36 model (the number refers to the conservative 36 mm diameter) retains the legibility of a classic Pilot, with a couple of nice design touches that make it suitable for daily and dress wear. The minute ring is slightly recessed from the main dial, adding depth and solidity. The dial is finished with microscopically brushed radiating lines, which bring a silky sunburst to the face of the Pilot 36 in any light. And the watch is available with different dial colours (slate or silver) and different strap/bracelet styles (brown alligator, blue alligator, or stainless steel).
Royal Oak Double Balance Wheel Open-worked
Audemars Piguet's big statement piece at SIHH 2016 asked (and answered)
an equally big question: what happens when you put two balance wheels
in a luxury watch movement?
Traditionally, manufacturers of haute horlogerie pieces have always
striven for predictable accuracy in their movements, but the balance
wheels of delicate calibres are affected by all sorts of environmental
factors–from how the wearer has the watch on their wrist, to the
temperature in which the watch is worn. The grand idea behind the Royal Oak Double Balance Wheel is that a second balance wheel can average out the efficiency fluctuations of the first. In other words, if one of the wheels inside the Royal Oak Double Balance Wheel is slightly off, the action of the other one will average out the watch's accuracy over time.
This all sounds great in theory, but what about in practice? Audemars Piguet reckon the effect of two balance wheels renders the Royal Oak Double Balance Wheel 30% more accurate than a comparable piece without the second wheel. The open-working loses the legibility of a classic Royal Oak, but it's worth it to see that spectacularly finished movement ticking its way into horological history.
Drive de Cartier
What's the mark of a truly exceptional luxury watch? One that appeals to everyone? One first-time buyers can afford, but which serious collectors can grab in a much more intricate and high-end form? If you agree with any of the above, you're going to love the Drive de Cartier. Undisputedly the 'all around' star of SIHH 2016, the Drive de Cartier range unboxes some timely new design cues for the brand. First, it's cased in a cushion shape, which, while hardly a new concept in the world of luxury watchmaking is certainly a first for Cartier. And in keeping with the classic appeal of the French marque, the watch harks back to the golden age of motoring, with 'radiator grille-inspired' guilloche detailing on the dial, and a crown that's meant to look like the visible bolts seen on the bodywork of yesteryear's racers.
The Drive de Cartier is big without being huge (40 mm), and tellingly it's thin in profile, so it sits wonderfully well on the wrist. Cartier numerals, sword hands and a seconds subdial pull the look together on the 'basic' model. On the Flying Tourbillon model, the seconds subdial is replaced by the tourbillon window, and the guilloche work is revealed through a skeletonised dial. Our pick of the range is the basic model, which puts a whole lot of Cartier on your wrist for a price many new collectors can afford.
IWC Pilot Watch Timezoner Chronograph
IWC is one of two brands to make our top 10 list of SIHH 2016 watches twice.
Its Pilot family of luxury watches appears for the second time in a
brand-new incarnation, which sits at the opposite end of the spectrum to
the Pilot Automatic 36 (reviewed above). The IWC Pilot Watch Timezoner Chronograph is everything you'd expect from a Pilot, and more. Its hefty 45 mm case supports a sprung bezel, beautifully finished in satin black. A black dial with hands and indicators picked out in white makes for a surprisingly legible face, given the quantity of complications on display and ways in which the watch can be read. And the thick two-tone calfskin strap is heavy, soft and comfortable.
A pilot's watch is first and foremost a tool watch. At the very least, it needs to be easily readable at a quick glance. Both the Pilot Watch Timezoner Chronograph and the earlier-reviewed Pilot Automatic 36 answer this need: the Timezoner does so with double the skill, given that its dial includes two chronograph sub-dials and is served by a third 24-hour hand. The sapphire crystal has been specially secured to protect it from the rapid changes in pressure associated with takeoff and landing, and the bright white 'propeller' hands of the main watch are easy to see with the quickest of looks.
But the standout function of the IWC Pilot Watch Timezoner Chronograph is its sprung bezel. The external bezel is attached to an internal one, so when you press it down and turn it you immediately change the time to that of your selected timezone. Go through the dateline, and the date window flicks over too. This is a watch that fulfils the prime directive of the tool. If you're actually a pilot, its one-touch, one-look operation will keep you on time and up-to-date wherever you land.
Roger Dubuis Excalibur 42 Automatic Skeleton in Carbon
Fans of skeletonised luxury watches have two kinds of movement to
choose from: those that used to be a 'standard' calibre, which have
since been stripped of their flesh to reveal only the mechanical bones; and those that are designed as skeletons from first principles. The latter are more arresting, more functionally pleasing, and more fully realised as ideas. So it's no wonder that Roger Dubuis' latest 'squelette', the Excalibur 42 in Carbon, is a thing of great beauty. In keeping with the medieval-futurist look of the Excalibur range – and indeed of most Roger Dubuis luxury watches – the Excalibur 42 looks like a timepiece forged in the fires of Mordor. Its moulded carbon case is textured with flecks of grey and black, as though it has been pulled from the heat of a great furnace. The minute indicators are marked in fiery red, matching the spearheads on the skeletonised hands. And the Roger Dubuis five-pointed star bridge is displayed in all its glory.
With nothing to detract from the angular shapes of the bridgework, and the bristling cogs of the movement itself, the Roger Dubuis Excalibur 42 Automatic Skeleton in Carbon has a real 'medieval machine' air about it. Bold, simple, and absolutely back in black, this is the kind of watch you'd expect to see on the wrist of Sauron himself. If you're looking for a statement to make this year, the Excalibur 42 in Carbon will help you make it.
Hublot LaFerrari Sapphire
Remember when Richard Mille stunned the luxury watch world by creating a case purely from sapphire crystal?
Well, now Hublot have done it, with the LaFerrari Sapphire, debuted at
SIHH 2016. The casework is every bit as impressive, and with no metal to
get in the way watch lovers can revel in the full beauty of the
exceptional HUB9005.H1.PN.1 calibre. Everything non-mechanical about the new LaFerrari, including its strap, is completely see-through.
Even the movement bridges are carved from sapphire crystal, leaving the tourbillon visible at the end of that amazing train of stacked barrels. The Hublot LaFerrari Sapphire has the same insane 50-day power reserve, and is wound with the same tiny drill tool (designed to complete the illusion that this luxury watch is a replica of the engine bay of a LaFerrari sports car). But here, for the first time, every spectacular detail of that movement is there to see. It's like having a special limited edition of the already limited edition sports car made, out of glass. Beautiful.
Parmigiani Tonda Chronor Anniversaire Watch
Many luxury chronographs are actually standard high-end movements with a
chronograph module added: modifications, in other words, of movements
that weren't originally designed to include a complication. The skill required to build a calibre with an integrated chronograph function is on another level entirely.
But that's what Parmigiani have accomplished with their Tonda Chronor
Anniversaire, easily one of the haute horlogerie stars of SIHH 2016. This is the first Parmigiani to display an in-house, from-the-ground-up chronograph movement, and it's a beauty. The all-new PF361 chronograph movement is displayed in a solid, statesmanlike 18k gold case, whose hefty tear-drop lugs attach the case to a nice wide leather strap. An openwork back shows the movement functioning behind 18k gold bridges, while dial-side the Parmigiani Tonda Chronor Anniversaire features a solid face accented with simple indicators, gold-and-white hands, and gold bevels for the jumping date window. The dial is available in deep royal blue or white enamel, and the case in white or rose gold.
Whether you're blown away by the complex functioning of the highly accurate movement (the PF361 calibre features split seconds as well as the standard chronograph, and functions at 36,000 bph) or the sheer style of the watch, one thing's for sure. If you weren't a fan of Parmigiani before SIHH 2016, you probably are now.
Piaget Limelight Gala Milanese
For SIHH 2016, Piaget added an all-gold strap version to its Limelight collection of women's luxury watches. The instantly-recognisable '69' lugs are set with 62 diamonds, and their lines sweep easily into the round 32 mm dial. The movement is a quartz-powered Piaget 690P, and the band is created using Milanese links. These tiny, flowing links create an illusion that the white gold of the bracelet is fluid, flowing easily around the wrist. Piaget is one of the few luxury watch brands with a genuine commitment to creating pieces for women. You won't find many prestigious complications in Piaget's line-up of feminine luxury watches, but what they lack in complexity they make up in style. The Piaget Limelight Gala Milanese is a timepiece that sets out its stall with its name. This watch wants to be worn to red carpet functions, to shimmer on the wrists of stars as they pose for press shots. Priced just right for the celebrity wearer, it almost certainly will.
Cartier Astromysterieux Central, Mystery Tourbillon
Cartier, the other brand to get two watches on our list of the best of
SIHH 2016, hogged the complications limelight with a new interpretation
of its famous Mystery timepieces. This one, the Cartier Astromysterieux Central, is the latest attempt by Cartier to reinterpret the tourbillon.
Using a combination of four sapphire discs and some cleverly-hidden
mechanics behind the chapter ring, Cartier have made a movement that
appears to float in the space at the centre of the watch, rotating one
full turn every hour. The Cartier Astromysterieux Central is undeniably beautiful–but is it really a tourbillon? The floating effect is achieved by mounting the movement onto one of the transparent sapphire discs, and the hour hand to another, while the third and fourth are used as winding mechanism and base plate. In theory, the sapphire disc that sits beneath the tourbillon is combined with the visible bridge to make a cage. This being the case, the rotating movement is a tourbillon in the classic sense: it has a balance wheel, it sits within a cage, and if you stop the carriage of the Astromysterieux you also stop its movement.
While luxury watch buffs may argue the tourbillon point – is a sapphire disc really part of a cage? – no-one can deny the visual impact of the in-house 9462 MC calibre at work. This is a truly spectacular watch, and one that, in its limited edition of just 155 pieces, is likely to sell out as soon as it is ready to ship. All Cartier Astromysterieux Central, Mystery Tourbillon models feature a palladium case: the highest-priced are in a limited edition of five, featuring a diamond-set bracelet and totalling a cool million Euros. vedere di piu watches replica e Hublot King Power
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