Don’t blink or you will miss these limited edition watches
Zenith
DEFY 21 Felipe Pantone
Watchmaker Zenith collaborated with Argentinian-Spanish contemporary artist Felipe Pantone to bring to the market the DEFY 21 Felipe Pantone.
Pantone has reimagined Zenith’s most advanced chronograph to date and created an object that is both a feat of watchmaking engineering as well as a piece of wearable kinetic art. This strikingly colourful timepiece, limited to 100 pieces, is all about playing with frequencies — visually and mechanically.
With its 1/100th of a second El Primero 21 chronograph movement beating at a frequency of 360,000 vibrations per hour for unrivalled precision, the DEFY 21 is the choice of canvas for Pantone to express his “visible spectrum concept”, where all the frequencies of light and its refracted colours come into play with the highest-frequency chronograph in production.
Sinn
U1 DS
Limited to only 500 pieces, what stands out the most about the U1 DS diving watch by Sinn is its dial that features an irregular decorative pattern.
As a result, every watch is a unique piece with the impression achieved on the dial during the machining process never to be repeated. The design still allows for perfect readability — thanks to the striking form and minimalist display.
Alongside these optical characteristics, the watch also boasts high-quality technical features. The case and crown are made of high-strength seawater-resistant German submarine steel, which enjoys outstanding non-magnetic properties. The surface of the case and the captive diver’s bezel with minute ratcheting have also been hardened with Tegiment Technology, leaving them especially scratch-resistant.
Blancpain
Tribute to Fifty Fathoms No Rad
Blancpain reinterprets one of its emblematic historical timepieces, the Fifty Fathoms “no radiations”. This mid-1960s diving instrument, of which one version was used by the German Navy’s combat swimmers, had the characteristic feature of being stamped with a yellow and red “no radiations” logo indicating that Blancpain was not using luminescent materials composed of radium.
Limited to only 500 pieces, the Tribute to Fifty Fathoms No Rad features a matt deep black dial punctuated by geometrical hour-markers, combining traditional round dots as well as rectangles and a diamond-shaped mark at 12 o’clock. The chapter ring, the hands and the time scale on the bezel all feature the beige-orange hue of vintage indicators bearing the patina of time. The unidirectional rotating bezel, featuring a graduation typical of the initial Fifty Fathoms models, is fitted with a sapphire insert, a distinctive feature of the contemporary collection.
TAG Heuer
Carrera Heuer 02T
Since its launch in 2016 at Baselworld, the Carrera Heuer 02T never ventured into colourful territory, preferring darker or golden tones. Today, TAG Heuer unveils a limited edition of 250 pieces of its tourbillon chronograph in a blue version fitted with a titanium strap.
For the first time, the Carrera Heuer 02T has shed its slim-line body and now has a full dial with a blue sunray design. Even the ceramic tachymetric bezel is finished in cerulean blue.
Aweing audiences with its COSC-certified self-winding chronograph movement with a flying tourbillon, the movement features a frequency of 28,800 vibrations per hour and an ultra-light carbon and titanium tourbillon cage.
One of the main challenges for the La Chaux-de-Fonds watchmakers was to house the chronograph functions, the self-winding mechanism and the flying tourbillon in a calibre with a diameter of 31 mm, while ensuring an ideal distance between the subdials for a contemporary look.
De Bethune
DB28XP Meteorite
De Bethune has launched the iconic DB28XP in a black zirconium case and a Muonionalusta Meteorite dial featuring distinctive geometric shapes.
Believed to have struck planet Earth more than one million years BCE, somewhere between Finland and Sweden on the banks of the Muniono river, the Muonionalusta Meteorite is probably the world’s oldest known meteorite to date. The first fragment was discovered in Sweden, in 1906.
Composed mainly of iron and nickel, it is distinguished by the perfectly geometrical lines of its 60° angle cross-hatched “Widmanstätten” pattern.
With only 10 numbered timepieces being produced, this is a coveted artwork for collectors. The dial of the DB28XP Meteorite is adorned with an ancestral stone forged in space. Dotted across this blue dial surface is a multitude of small white gold pins, delicately driven in between the different shapes and thicknesses of the octahedral geometrical structures.
Van Cleef & Arpels
Lady Arpels Ballerines Musicales Range
Van Cleef & Arpels is blending music and motion with its new Lady Arpels Ballerines Musicales. All three new watches draw inspiration from the art of ballet and combines it with watchmaking expertise to capture the full enchantment of music and dance in a timepiece.
To reflect the full wonder of ballet in the three watches, Van Cleef & Arpels recreated the 3D tableau of an actual theatre stage. A diamond-set upper dial, representing a sparkling chandelier and lavish curtains, illuminates the dial. Hand-painted draperies reveal ballerinas in a miniature painting.
Each of the three pieces feature its own blend of stones and motifs. The Lady Arpels Ballerine Musicale Émeraude displays green nuances while the The Lady Arpels Ballerine Musicale Rubis shines in elegant tones of red and The Lady Arpels Ballerine Musicale Diamant sparkles with intense white, blue and golden hues.
Tissot
Heritage Memphis Limited Edition Range
In 1988, Tissot joined forces with Ettore Sottsass, founder of the design and architecture movement the Memphis Group. Today, to mark the 40th anniversary of the movement’s birth, Tissot is issuing the Heritage Memphis, which goes right back to the style of the 80s.
The four references in the Memphis collection are based on Sottsass’s 1988 design in a more contemporary version. The Tissot Heritage Memphis stands out from the crowd with a seconds indicator in the centre that dispenses with a hand in favour of a small disc marked with a dot.
There are also two ladies’ models, 34mm in diameter. One is in steel with a white dial while the other in steel with a yellow gold PVD bezel and black appendages. Each model is issued in a limited series of 1,700 pieces.
The men’s models come in a 41mm case in either steel with a yellow gold PVD bezel and black PVD appendages that is limited to 2,500 pieces, or entirely black PVD steel with a matching dial that is limited to 3,000 pieces.
