The Swatch Group Brands at Baselworld 2013 (including Harry Winston)

Harry Winston Opus XIII

The powerful presence of the Swatch Group was present like never before at Baselworld 2013, taking up a larger chunk of the renovated Hall 1.0, the most prestigious area at the show for the majority of its 19 watch brands, which span just about every segment of the watch industry.

In addition, the company, which also owns watch movement manufacturers and retail brands, hosted a separate museum-quality exhibition in Hall 2.0 for its Swatch timepieces; the brand that has been the most responsible for the company’s enormous success.

The newest brand under Swatch Group’s enormous umbrella, Harry Winston, still had its own space in Hall 1.1, as the $1 billion acquisition occurred in March, well too late  for Harry Winston to be folded into the other company holdings (perhaps next year).

Below are some of new releases from the seven brands in the group that I had the chance to visit during the eight-day tradeshow. I included Harry Winston as the company's new CEO, Nayla Hayek, was announced Friday.

Blancpain Carrousel, Minute Repeater and Chronograph
The Swiss luxury watch brand has created a fully mechanical watch that combines a one-minute flying carrousel (similar to a tourbillon) and a minute repeater with a flyback chronograph.

For the minute repeater, the blades of its cathedral gong wrap one and a half times around the movement to emit the sound. Its transmission is optimized by fixing the gongs inside the case, which increases volume and clarity. A flying governor reduces the background noise produced by the movement.

The pusher for the chronograph function with the flyback or instant-restart function (historically used by pilots) is located at 4 o’clock and enables the wearer to restart a time measurement while a first measurement is in progress.

The watch comes in a red gold 45 mm case with a chapter ring, a 30-minute and hour-markers in grand feu enamel. The open dial and sapphire crystal case-back provides in-depth views of this complex device.

Breguet Classique Chronométrie 7727
Available in rose or white gold, the watch is fitted with the new in-house caliber 574DR, which has a balance frequency of 10Hz.thus, improving the time-keeping performance of the balance and spring. It is fitted with a double balance-spring, pallet lever and escape wheel, all in specially prepared silicon. The result is a regulating power equivalent to around 830 microwatts. Despite its high frequency, it has a power reserve of 60 hours.

However, Breguet says the major innovation of this model is the use of magnetic pivots, which not only controls the negative effects of magnetism in a watch, but also uses the magnetic force to improve the pivoting, rotation and stability of the balance staff.

The dial shows an off-center chapter of hours and minutes, small seconds at 12 o'clock, a power-reserve indicator at 5 o'clock and a tenth-of-a-second indicator at 1 o'clock having a patented lightweight silicon hand with low inertia that doesn’t affect the balance. The pare-chute is visible at 2 o'clock, both as a reminder of A-L Breguet’s 1790 invention and to make the timepiece slimmer.

The dial is engine-turned in six patterns: “Geneva waves” in the center, a hobnail pattern for the small seconds, sunrays on the tenth-of-a-second dial and chevrons for the power-reserve indicator. The hours chapter is cross-hatched while a barleycorn pattern decorates the outer edge. The hands are in polished steel with the Breguet open tip, while the case displays delicate fluting.

Glashütte Original Senator Chronometer Regulator
This new timepiece unites the classic regulator display with an officially certified manual winding chronometer movement.

The dominant central position on the lacquered silver-grainé dial is the blue minute hand with its polished eye. On the central axis above and below the minute indicator are smaller hour and seconds displays.

The Glashütte Original panorama date display is placed at 3 o’clock. The date change takes place at midnight. From 6 in the morning until 6 in the evening, the small circle in the region of the hour display is white; from 6 pm until 6 am it is black. This timepiece is framed by a 42 mm polished case in red gold or a white gold version.

The watch is driven by the caliber 58-04, which permits the precise coordination of minute and seconds hands. A second-zero-stop-mechanism makes it is easy for the wearer to set the exact time. When winding the crown, the time display is stopped, the second hand jumps to zero and remains there. At the same time, the minute hand is also moved to the next full minute index. When one winds the crown to set the time, the minute hand always rests only on the full minute indices. This provides the correct relationship of the displayed seconds and minutes. A power reserve display at 9 o’clock indicates the energy remaining in the manual winding movement.

The watch is officially certified and bears a certificate from the German Calibration Service after a 15-day testing period.

Hamilton Jazzmaster Regulator
The H-12 movement in this watch allows the separation of the minute and hour hands on  different axials and sub-dials. The idea is to make the watch more accurate and provide an easier way for the person who owns the timepiece to read the time. However, I think most people wear such a watch is because of the appearance. Add to this the blue or silver dial and you have watch that can be worn for casual or formal occasions. There are three 42mm timepieces in the collection. In addition to the dial choice straps come in either leather or stainless steel.


Harry Winston Opus XIII (top photo)
It was difficult to determine which of the many technically advanced and aesthetically pleasing timepieces from this luxury brand to show. In the end I chose the newest addition to its iconic Opus collection. Opus is the watch that introduced Harry Winston to the world as more than just luxury jeweler. Each year the brand works with gifted independent watchmakers to build a timepiece with the goal of defying the conventional rules of watchmaking.

This year the newest member of the Swatch Group created a watch where the minutes accumulate around a track. Eleven rotating silver triangles spring from a faceted dome to show the hours. Every 12 hours, Harry Winston’s logo is appears on the dial and vanishes after sixty minutes. The 59 minute hands pivot on a ring of steel shafts that are held in place by 242 ruby bearings.

The mechanical watch is powered by the in-house HW4101 movement, which has 364 components. The case is made of 18k white gold.

Jaquet Droz Perpetual Calendar Eclipse
This newest version of the Eclispe line presents a new moon phase complication, which displays the cycles of the night of the sky on the dial, with the perpetual calendar complication. On the black or ivory-colored Grand Feu enamel dial, two straight hands contrast with the curves of two wavy hands, tipped with a crescent moon. The calendar information is easily read on several places on the dial: on the right is the date, on the left is the day of the week. At 12 o’clock, a single-hand counter indicates the month with the leap year appearing in a small window. At 6 o’clock, a black or ivory-colored onyx index moves across the face of a golden moon, revealing, and then concealing it until its total eclipse, unfolding on a night sky of eight golden stars, the watchmaker’s favorite number. The timepiece is powered by a Jaquet Droz 5853LR.4 self-winding mechanical movement, double barrel, perpetual calendar, retrograding moon phase, 22-carat white gold oscillating weight.

Longines Heritage Military 1938
Following Orb’s victory in the Kentucky Derby, Longines, the Official Watch and Timekeeper for the celebrated race, awarded the horse’s owner, trainer and jockey with watches from the brand’s Saint-Imier collection at the event’s Winners’ Circle Party. The Swiss watchmaking brand was the Official Watch and Timekeeper of Kentucky Derby 139 and Entitlement Partner of Longines Kentucky Oaks 139. Now the luxury watch brand is Paris where it is the Official Timekeep of Roland-Garros, home of the French Open.

Prior to both events, the brand was in Baselworld showing off its new watch collections. Among them was the Longines Heritage Military 1938, which uses the same aesthetics based on the design of a military watch produced by Longines in the 1930s. With a diameter of 42 mm and fitted with the automatic calibre L705, this timepiece displays the hours and minutes, a 30-minute counter at 3 o’clock, the date at 6 o’clock and the small second at 9 o’clock. Large white Arabic numerals, coated with Super-LumiNova and a minute circle white as well contrasts with the deep matt black of the dial.

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Technical Innovations and Aesthetic Developments of Timepieces on Display at the Frick Museum

The Portico Gallery of the Frick Collection museum where the timepiece exhibit is being held.

An exhibition that just opened at the Frick Collection museum explores the discoveries and innovations made in the field of horology from the early 16th to the 19th century. It features 16 clocks and 14 watches that chronicle the evolution over the centuries of more accurate and complex timekeepers and illustrate the aesthetic developments that reflected Europe’s latest styles. 

Mantel Clock with Study and Philosophy (circa 1785 - 1790). Made of patinated and gilt bronze, marble, enameled metal, and glass. Movement by Renacle-Nicolas Sotiau, figures after Simon-Louis Boizot. Photo credit: Michael Bodycomb

Titled, “Precision and Splendor: Clocks and Watches,” the exhibition is being shown in the new light-filled Portico Gallery of the stately mansion that was once the home of American industrialist Henry Clay Frick. The exhibition will run till February 2014.

Breguet Decimal Watch by Abraham-Louis Breguet and Antoine-Louis Breguet. Gold and silver double-dial desk watch showing decimal and traditional time. The traditional time subdial was added approximately 12 years after by Antoine (Circa 1795 and after 1807).

Luxury watch brand, Breguet, is a major sponsor. The exhibition concludes with three of its early timepieces—including a watch that displayed “decimal time,” a short-lived movement in 18th Century France that divided the day into ten hours and the year into ten months. 

Breguet gilt-bronze Carriage Clock by Abraham-Louis Breguet and Antoine-Louis Breguet with Calendar (1811).

The exhibition, which I attended Wednesday, examines both the mechanical innovations that increased the accuracy of the timepieces along with the elaborate ornamentation. At first, these pieces were prized for their innovation and their beauty and owned by only the wealthiest individuals as show pieces. Slowly through technical advancements that made them more portable, less expensive, more reliable and more of a necessity, they became widely available. 

Gilt-Brass and Silver Table Clock with Astronomical and Calendrical Dials (Circa 1653). Photo credit: Michael Bodycomb

The existence of mechanical clocks was made possible by an invention known as an escapement. Falling weights (and later springs) provided the energy to power the clock’s mechanism, while the escapement regulated the rate at which that energy was delivered to the oscillator (at first a simple balance and later a pendulum). The introduction of the escapement gradually caused the shift away from time-finding devices (sundials) and time-measuring devices (water clocks) to timekeepers (clocks and later watches) as advances in science and technology were made.

Gold and Enamel Pendant Watch (back view). Movement by Henry Arlaud enameling by Pierre Huaud II (circa 1685) It depicts the painting "The Toilet of Venus" by Simon Vouet. Photo credit: Michael Bodycomb

In addition to the Breuget timepieces, other notable pieces in the collection include an Augsburg Maker, gilt-brass tower table clock (circa 1580), which displays time only by the hour; a spring-driven pendulum clock on a bracket in a elaborate case made of gilt bronze, enameled metal, and glass (circa 1735); and a gold and enamel pendant watch (circa 1685) that depicts the painting The Toilet of Venus by Simon Vouet.

The Frick Collection galleries is located at 1 East 70th St.

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Breguet Clocks Mark Premiere Performance at Carnegie Hall

Breguet held a special reception at Carnegie Hall on February 7 to unveil a collection of new clocks that Swiss luxury watch brand built and installed at various spots inside the landmark building.

The event, which included tours of famed music hall and brief remarks, was held to celebrate Breguet’s designation as Carnegie Hall’s first-ever Exclusive Timepiece sponsor.

The five clocks (four Classiques and one Reine de Naples) at Carnegie Hall symbolize some of Breguet’s most notable collections. The Classique collection features designs and complications known worldwide for its horological craft and achievements. Features such as guilloche dials, caseband fluting, the blue Breguet hands and the innovation of the tourbillon are all hallmarks of the brand’s design. The Reine de Naples collection pay tribute to the Queen of Naples, Caroline Murat, sister of Napoleon Bonaparte, for whom the first wristwatch was invented by Breguet in 1812.

The first Breguet clock installed at Carnegie Hall, located in the Morse Lobby of Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage, was a Classique Tourbillon. It was unveiled prior to the start of the 2012-2013 season’s opening night gala performance on October 3, 2012. It represented the first addition to Carnegie Hall’s lobby since the landmark building’s renovation in 1986.

The reception and tours that unveiled the remaining timepieces were hosted by Michael Nelson, Breguet U.S. brand manager. In brief remarks, Clive Gillinson, executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall, paraphrased Teddy Roosevelt, saying, the two organizations “share a unique bond based on our rich history of dedicated artists who keep their eyes on the stars, and their feet on the ground.”

The reception preceded a performance by Pablo Heras-Casado leading the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.

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Breguet Tourbillon Exhibit Opens in Geneva and will Tour the World

A modern-day Breguet tourbillon timepiece

Swiss luxury watch brand, Breguet, is celebrating the invention of the tourbillion through an exhibition titled, “Breguet, the innovator. Inventor of the Tourbillon,” at the Cité du Temps exhibition space in Geneva.

The exhibition will run till February 24 and then will tour cities in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the United States.

On June 26, 1801 (or rather on 7 Messidor Year 9, since the Republic calendar was still in force at the time), the French Minister of the Interior awarded Abraham-Louis Breguet, the founder of Breguet, a patent for the invention of the tourbillon. This new type of regulator was developed in response to a longstanding problem: the detrimental effects of gravity on the regularity of a movement by generating variations in rate. Breguet understood that in order to reduce such errors, he would need to install the entire escapement within a mobile carriage that would perform a complete rotation, generally in one, four or six minutes. The regular repetition of the variations would allow them to compensate for each other.

This invention turned out to be difficult for Breguet to produce and implement. One reason is because the tourbillon must not weigh more than one gram, and yet be robust enough to avoid inducing rating errors rather than eliminating them. This inherent difficulty was compounded by the delicate work of finishing more than70 tiny parts that must fit and mesh together with absolute precision. Making a tourbillon was not within reach of all watchmakers, and only the finest proved capable of producing one after the 10-year patent had expired.

La Cité du Temps

La Cité du Temps, owned by the Swatch Group, is a public exhibition center focusing on the world of time. It hosts a variety of exhibitions and activities. It’s the only place in the world where you can find a permanent exhibition of Swatch watches.

The Swatch Group, the world’s largest manufacturer and distributor of finished watches, acquired Montres Breguet in 1999.

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Breguet Sympathique Clock Sells for Record $6.8 Million

The Duc d’Orléans Breguet Sympathique clock set a new auction record for any clock and the second-highest price for any timepiece at auction when it sold for more than $6.8 million at Sotheby’s New York Important Watches & Clocks Auction on Tuesday.

The distinguished example of the exceptionally rare Sympathique clocks, which helped cement the fame and renown of French watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet, was last offered at auction in Sotheby’s 1999 when it sold for $5.7 million. This price has remained the auction record for any clock until Tuesday’s sale.

Invented by Breguet in 1795 and presented to the public for the first time at the Exposition Nationale des Produits de l’Industrie in 1798, the sympathique clock was a system consisting of a clock and a watch. The clock was designed to hold the watch in its cradle, where it was automatically adjusted and rewound. The term sympathique was chosen by Breguet to express the notion of harmony and concord.

The Important Watches & Clocks auction totaled more than $11.6 million marking the highest result for a various-owners sale of watches and clocks at Sotheby’s New York, the auction house said in a statement. In addition to the Sympathique, both vintage and modern wristwatches by Patek Philippe dominated the day’s top results, led by a rare 46 mm 18K Yellow Gold Center Seconds Wristwatch, 1955, Ref 2512/1 that achieved $962,500, more than five times its high estimate of $150,000.

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Breguet Celebrates the First Watch With Unveiling of the Reine de Naples Watch and Jewelry Collection

Reine de Naples ladies timepiece

Abraham-Louis Breguet is said to have created and delivered the first wristwatch, for Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples on October 5, 1812. To pay tribute to this historical piece and its creator, the Swiss luxury watch brand that bears the creator’s name went off to Naples for a celebration commemorating the 200th anniversary of the event.

The Breguet celebration held on Oct. 5 and 6 on the Gulf of Naples included a tour of Reggia Di Capodimonte, which was the home to Caroline Murat, who occupied the throne of Naples until 1815 and a gala and an historical exhibition, “Reine de Naples,” on the Isle of Capri.

The Swiss luxury watch brand also unveiled the 10th anniversary of its “Reine de Naples” ladies watch and jewelry collection. Launched in 2002, this collection is a tribute to the first wristwatch, ordered by Caroline Murat from Abraham-Louis Breguet in 1810 and delivered in 1812.

Reine de Naples ring in 950 platinum paved with brilliant-cut diamonds (2.48 ct), with baguette-cut diamonds (approx. 7.50 ct), and an oval-cut blue sapphire (9.50 ct).

The “Reine de Naples” anniversary special has a striking mechanism that marks the top of every hour with two chimes repeated three times. A pushpiece at 2 o’clock disables the function. Along with the usual technical imperatives involved in designing an oval movement, this timepiece incorporates the results of fundamental research by Breguet into the acoustics of chiming and repeating watches.

The geometry of the bridges, the oscillating weight and the decoration, displayed through the sapphire crystal back of the watch, form the image of a garden pavilion in the Mediterranean style, identical to the stately residences of Caroline Murat. To do justice to the lavish setting in which the piece is unveiled, the bezel and the snap of the “Reine de Naples” anniversary special are set with 28 brilliant cut diamonds and 27 blue sapphires. The striking hammers appear above the dial at 11 and 1 o’clock, while between them the diamond heart of a rose engraved in gold indicates the engagement of the hour striker. The silvered gold dial and its flange are paved with 233 brilliant cut diamonds and 303 blue sapphires with different nuances, offering a subtle color gradation. A crown placed at 4 o’clock and set with a briolette-cut diamond adds a sublime final touch to this exclusive anniversary watch, mounted on an alligator strap with a folding clasp set with 26 diamonds.

Reine de Naples tiara in 950 platinum paved with brilliant-cut diamonds (12.75 ct), baguette-cut diamonds (approx. 8.00 ct) and an 8.37 ct oval-cut blue sapphire.

The Reine de Naples jewelry set consists of a ring, pair of earrings, necklace and tiara, all in 950 platinum. The central motif of the jewels in the set is an oval-cut blue sapphire. It is surrounded by two ovoid rings paved with baguette-cut diamonds in an elegant and refined echo of the case of the first wristwatch, which had an oblong shape. 

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