The tourbillon is among the most remarkable complications of the watchmaker’s art, and is particularly appreciated by enthusiasts and collectors alike. These days, tourbillons can be found combined with a variety of functions and in various styles, but they are always distinguished by ever more complex implementation and spectacular mechanical innovations.
To give an example, three watchmakers are offering exceptional double tourbillons: Speake-Marin (Black Magister Vertical Double Tourbillon), Manufacture Royale (1770 Micromégas, dual-rate double tourbillon) and Louis Moinet, with the Sideralis Evo, a unique inverted dual tourbillon designed to drive a complication (a time dial at 12 o’clock composed of two superimposed discs).
Ulysse Nardin’s Executive Skeleton Tourbillon is all about lightness. The robust architecture of the complex mechanism is revealed in every dimension through transparent sapphire, accentuated by PVD and ruthenium coatings. With its generous 170 hour power reserve and silicon tourbillon, the in-house manually-wound UN-171 movement with hour and minute functions is built to last.
The watchword for Bovet’s Ottantasei flying tourbillon is “light” – in its dual sense of luminous and weightless. This is the sixth watch and the fourth tourbillon to come out of the watchmaker’s partnership with the famous Italian design studio Pininfarina. The boldly conceived Ottantasei succeeds in fitting a flying tourbillon with a chronometric power reserve of 10 days into a relatively modest case size, 44 mm in diameter, with a total thickness of just 12 mm.
Lightness is also a primary feature of Armin Strom’s Tourbillon Skeleton Water, which bears witness to the watchmaker’s skeletonisation skills. The in-house ATC11-S calibre has been stripped back to the bare essentials. The timepiece also has a skeletonised tourbillon regulator, and offers a power reserve of 10 days.
The Montblanc 4810 ExoTourbillon Slim is probably the most classic-looking of the 15 competing watches. Unveiled at SIHH 2016 to celebrate Montblanc’s 110th anniversary, the timepiece combines the watchmaker’s patented ExoTourbillon complication with a quick stop-second function. As its name reflects, the distinguishing feature of the ExoTourbillon is that its carriage is disconnected from the balance wheel.
Finally, Girard-Perregaux, which this year celebrates its 225th anniversary, drew inspiration from the Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges pocket chronometer, which won the gold medal at the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris, to create the Esmeralda Tourbillon in pink gold. The Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges, one of the most iconic models in watchmaking history, is given a modern reinterpretation while remaining faithful to the aesthetic codes of the original.
