Jacob & Co. today revealed details of its new “Gotham City” luxury watch, the first offering in a previously announced multi-year partnership with Warner Bros. Consumer Products and DC. A 45.5 mm watch filled with details and high quality materials worthy of Bruce Wayne, the Gotham City timepiece is available now in extremely limited quantities – only 72 pieces exist. Jacob & Co. created a series of 36 pieces in black DLC titanium (inspired by Batman) and another 36 in 18K rose gold (inspired by Batman’s secret identity, Bruce Wayne), which retail beginning at $220,000.
Fitted with a hyper complicated movement with twin, flying, sequential, high-speed, triple-axis tourbillons, the Gotham City is a tribute to Batman’s crime fighting tech, and the glamorous lifestyle of Bruce Wayne. By design, the Gotham City is both a watch and metaphor, a piece of extremely advanced watchmaking technology and a symbolic capsule.
Dual in nature
The Gotham City is destined for the Jacob & Co. audience who relates to Bruce Wayne. The character’s duality is furthered in the Gotham City – A first limited edition of 36 pieces is done in black DLC titanium, directly tied to Batman. A second limited series of 36 pieces in 18K rose gold relates to Bruce Wayne.
Dark as night
The symbolic aspects of the Gotham City are everywhere. They're the root of its design, from its core attributes to the most minute detail. Inspired by the latest iterations of DC’s Batman franchise, the Gotham City is dark, angular, pointy, edgy and muscular.
The case is made of black DLC titanium. Titanium is light and hard to begin with, and is used in many airspace and advanced applications. DLC is a technology that covers the metal with an array of carbon atoms that mimics that of the perfect cubic crystal structure that provides the diamond with extreme resistance to wear. As a result, the 45.5-mm case is immune to scratching and as light as the Batwing.
Stealthy and matte
The shape of the lugs is meant to resemble the Batsuit's multi-faceted design. Itself inspired by stealth airplanes, it further reduces the visible signature of the invisible vigilante. So in order to fully absorb as much of the light spectrum as possible, the titanium case has been entirely finished with techniques that make it matte. Sand-blasting and horizontal-brushing suppress all traces of shine and polish.
The crown is covered with a rubber band shaped like the Batmobile's tires. The indices are black, as pointy and sharp as a Batarang. They're anchored only on the outside rim of the dial, therefore hovering above the central surface, like the Batman standing still before pouncing on his prey.
Light within darkness
That central surface, which is the most part of the Gotham City dial, is shaped like the Bat emblem. It's been cut into a slab of solid onyx, a hard stone that's perfectly pitch black, and polished. It's been further outlined by a contour made of Neoralithe. This composite is colored in yellow, and contains SuperLumiNova.
Together, these two attributes are a nod to the Bat-Signal : casting a shadow in the dark with the help of light, a further nod to the Batman's ambiguous nature.
Claws in motion
Inside the case and under the dial is the Gotham City’s most visible feature, a pair of triple-axis tourbillons. Architectural, technical and design creatures, these Jacob & Co. tools are shaped like the grapnel launcher Batman uses to climb up the walls and roofs of Gotham City.
They're made of sandblasted titanium, and the central part of the cages is covered in black. As the cages rotate, recreating a full sphere, they show both matte gray and shiny black parts, illustrating the constant switch from darkness to light that makes up the Batman/Bruce Wayne character.
Open or shut
The Gotham City's back is twofold, depending on which version one considers. On the black DLC one, it's covered with a signature drawing. The underside of a sapphire plate is laser-etched with a design of the Batman and the customary brand signatures, that of Jacob & Co. and of DC comics. The hollowed parts of the plate are filled with black lacquer and the rest with yellow. But on the rose gold version, the caseback is made of traditional transparent sapphire and therefore opens a new perspective on the Gotham City's mechanical nature and advanced design.
An immense bat shaped bridge, rose gold in color, encompasses the entire diameter of calibre JCFM10. A direct nod the the Batarang he throws to pin his foes against a wall, it defines the personality of the Gotham City's movement.
Fast
From an horological point of view, this calibre is as advanced as it gets. It's comprised of 382 components, the most striking of which may be that bat-bridge, but the most complex being the tourbillons. Each one of them rotates along three different axes. Each axis drives a separate cage. The first, outermost one makes a full turn in 24 seconds, the second one in 48 seconds and the third one, closest to the 3 Hz balance wheel, in 180 seconds.
Compared to the traditional one-minute rotation of a flat tourbillon, and to many multi-axis tourbillons, 24 and 48 seconds are very high figures. This explains why Jacob & Co. dubs them high-speed tourbillons.
Jumping
The other special feature of these rotating organs is the fact that they're sequential. Mounted on the wheel that drives the tourbillon, a spring accumulates energy to allow the cages to jump forward. They don't just move in small incremental moves, but large ones, creating a series of sequential, very visible moves, with pauses in between.
Flying
As a finale, the tourbillons inside the Gotham City are flying kind. It's only fitting for a superhero who leaps in the air, travels in a winged hovering machine and responds to a signal etched on clouds to have a flying attribute.
In both instances, the tourbillons inside calibre JCFM10 have no upper bridge. Their only grounding in the black-chromium mainplate happens underneath, a subterranean nature that's one more likeness with the Batman. As a result, their sequential jumps happen just under the sapphire crystal, in plain, unhindered and extremely spectacular view.
Architectural
The aforementioned barrels speak to the spirit in which calibre JCFM10 was designed. Their covers are laser etched with a complex, architectural pattern that reminds of a high-rise inner structure, made of intersecting beams. That's another tribute to Gotham City, a vertical, sometimes dark, sprawling metropolis not unlike New York City, Jacob & Co.'s home town.
