Adopt a Turtle!

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Adopt a Turtle! - Claude Meylan
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Had enough of watch collections? Claude Meylan has the answer: adopt a turtle!

Being a small independent watch brand has its downsides. Sometimes you lack visibility, sometimes it’s budget. But major international brands lose out on one element that independents cultivate assiduously: agility and flexibility. This is what makes them able to produce very small series, even customisable pieces, which can be shipped in record time thanks to a genuine relationship with its local clients.

The latest Tortue Rainbow models from Claude Meylan provide the perfect example. Although the collection itself isn’t new, not many people have actually seen one, because almost all of them have been personalised and shipped directly to collectors in the four corners of the world. The Tortue Rainbow is a colourful collection, but also – and most importantly! – it offers infinite possibilities for customisation.

Adopt a turtle!

7 out of 7

The backdrop of this vibrant new collection is the signature tonneau-shaped case that gives its name to the Tortue collection (Tortue=Turtle). Here we see it in black livery, with a black case, black strap, black crown and black skeletonised bridges. But the point of the black is not concealment – quite the opposite. This monochromatic approach is intended to showcase the bright colours that define the architecture of the dial, the hands and the mysterious marker at 7 o’clock.

Adopt a turtle!

Why 7?

But why the number 7? Claude Meylan offers not one explanation but dozens: 7 days of the week, 7 planets, 7 degrees of perfection, 7 celestial degrees, 7 petals on a rose, the 7-headed naga at Angkor, 7 branches on the cosmic tree of Shamanism, to name just a few. Everyone will find something they identify with.

And yet Claude Meylan is keen to draw a distinction between the location of the marker and what it says. In the current collection the two are one and the same – the marker at the number 7 position does indeed feature a number 7.

Adopt a turtle!

Expect the unexpected

But in practice, many collectors prefer to separate them. One preferred to have a 20 in the 7 o’clock position, to mark his son’s 20th birthday. It’s also possible to insert a logo, a drawing or a different number.

Adopt a turtle!

But Claude Meylan doesn’t stop there. If the seven standard colours are not quite what you’re looking for, it’s always possible to contact the brand directly and ask for something a little different: a darker or lighter shade, or even black, to create a unique “full black” model. And if your imagination runs to a Tortue not in two colours but three, that’s possible too, for example by ordering a set of hands in a third shade. But that creates a curious paradox. The Tortue Rainbow has so many possible variations that there’s no obvious “standard” configuration. Each watch is unique, like each story and each collector.

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