Hands-free watches

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Hands-free watches - SIHH 2015
3 minutes read
A selection of watches presented during the 2015 “wonder week” dispense with the traditional hour and minute hands completely.

The argument that a mechanical watch is about more than just telling the time (the one often put forward in the defence of mechanical watches against the onslaught of the smart watch) is further reinforced by a selection of new models presented in and around the SIHH 2015. When it comes to the stratosphere of high-end watchmaking, hands are optional.

 

Greubel-Forsey Art Piece

And when talking about the stratosphere, the air does not get much more rarefied than that around Greubel Forsey. The rare Art Pieces crafted at the brand’s workshops in La Chaux-de-Fonds each contain a microsculpture produced to the customer’s individual order by British artist Willard Wigan, MBE. His sculptures usually fit inside the eye of a needle, but in the Greubel Forsey Art Pieces they are set against a tiny backdrop behind a special crown and can be viewed through a microscope integrated into this crown that magnifies the sculpture 23 times. It is rare to see these watches first-hand, because only four have been produced in the blue dial version, with a second version, produced as a homage to artist Robert Filliou, revealed at an exhibition in Paris late last year.

 

Greubel-Forsey Art Piece Hommage Robert Filliou

WorldTempus was lucky enough to see both these models during a private viewing at Les Ambassadeurs in Geneva, shortly before the latest Art Piece, housing a microsculpture of a falcon, left for the SIHH. And these are definitely pieces that need to be seen if you have the chance, since a photograph cannot adequately capture the play of light, the crispness of the image under the microscope and the intricate detail of each tiny sculpture. The watch aficionados who have a spare seven-figure sum to invest in such works of art are probably little bothered by the absence of any hands on the dial. The continuous rotation of a tourbillon is sufficient reminder that this is, after all, also an horological masterpiece. If needs must, a press on a discreet pushbutton magically reveals the time on discs offset from the centre of the dial.

 

Greubel-Forsey Art Piece case backs

 

At over 300,000 Swiss francs, the Christophe Claret X-Trem 1 costs a mere fraction of the price of the Greubel Forsey Art Piece. The latest version of this watch, which dates back to 2012, comes as a limited edition of 8 in white gold and titanium with a slate-blue PVD coating. The watch is dominated by an inclined tourbillon taking pride of place at 6 o’clock and flanked by two tubes, for the hours on the left and the minutes on the right, each housing a ball bearing. The masterstroke of Christophe Claret was to move these ball bearings up the watch by the power of magnetism, an idea that would horrify many a watchmaker. This creates a unique kind of retrograde display that has no mechanical connection with the movement. The magnetic fields used to move the ball bearings have no effect on the movement and are so precisely calibrated that a gentle tap on the watch releases the ball bearings, allowing them to drop to the bottom of the tubes for resetting the watch, which is done using a barely noticeable integrated fast-correction pushbutton at what would be the 12 o’clock position on a more conventional watch.

 

Christophe Claret X-Trem1

 

Neuchâtel-based HYT are the pioneers of fluid indications in watches. Until now, their unique fluid module has been used to display the hours around the circumference of the dial, with a separate conventional subdial for the minutes. In the new Skull model, the minutes disappear completely and the meniscus between two immiscible liquids (one coloured, the other colourless) that acts as the hour indicator faces the added challenge of negotiating the twists and turns of the skull outline. Pushing the fluid around a circle was already a considerable challenge, so with this new configuration HYT have pushed the boundaries of their innovative technology even further. 

 

HYT Skull

 
 

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