The difference between charm and sexy is the same as between elegance and vulgarity. The line does not distinguish what should be shown, but what should be guessed. What is not stated, but suggested. It is on this line that certain watch brands position, not without a subtle balance, their "erotic" creations.
Bawdy Traditions
Why do erotic watches exist? For multiple reasons. Erotic art is as old as the world itself - the bawdy illustrations of the Kamasutra attest to this. The rise of printing in the 16th, but most notably in the 17th and 18th centuries, allowed for its massive development, as society secularized under the influence of the Enlightenment. Freed from the ecclesiastical straitjacket, bawdy literature expanded alongside horology - Sade was contemporary with Breguet, Berthoud, Lépine, and Leroy. The transposition of the graphic illustrations from salacious novels to watch dials happened even more naturally because one no longer risked being burned at the stake for such naughtiness - Beccaria had put an end to that in 1764. Later, puritanical censorship took its course, destroying and banning the production of these watches in Geneva from 1817 onwards.
Erotic horology mostly navigates under the radar. These are private orders of unique pieces, not intended for public communication. Furthermore, watchmaking houses are particularly careful about their brand image. Since the erotic watch remains somewhat risqué, they are careful not to overproduce them, or not produce them at all.
Detours
A few Maisons stand out through various roundabout ways. The first is through the art crafts. Blancpain, for example, occasionally unveils a few erotic pieces from its Brassus workshop whose finesse of execution pays homage to its artisans. Ulysse Nardin, on the other hand, prefers to use the erotic watch to highlight its watchmaking expertise. It involves creating automatons, whose movements can easily serve the action of an intimate scene.
Art crafts and watchmaking are, by nature, the two royal roads to nourish a watchmaking narrative. But this is where Perrelet stands out. The brand, whose name recalls the probable inventor of the automatic watch via an oscillating mass, uses this historical precedent with a rotor spinning at high speed flush with the dial. This cinematic, patented in 2009, comes at an opportune time to imagine erotic dials that can be shown at will: the rotor, when stopped, will almost entirely mask the surface. In motion, its spinning speed is such that the eye can no longer discern the blades... which will then, by optical illusion, reveal the drawing hidden underneath. Thus, the Turbine Erotic collection was born.
Today, the Maison offers four additional models. Like their predecessors, their X-rated dials are illustrated in a hentai manga style, with images inspired by Japanese adult comics. Their titanium case is that of the Turbine Evo unveiled in 2019, reduced to 41 mm and PVD-coated black. The purely decorative dial rotor consists of 12 black anodized aluminum blades, balanced by tungsten counterweights and moving freely with the slightest wrist movement. The SOPROD caliber with a 42-hour power reserve is produced in-house, since SOPROD belongs to the same owner as Perrelet (and Festina).
And otherwise, what can be seen on the dial? The hours, minutes, and seconds. But it's a safe bet that no one will acquire these pieces just to tell the time. The rest is up to each person's discretion.
