Inside a vast convention centre in Geneva, the biggest names in horology have assembled for Watches and Wonders. There’ll be thrills, new innovations and reimagined classics, and Rolex will announce something that causes a stir (a left-handed GMT… mon dieu!)
One thing we’ve noticed immediately is an increase of tourbillons on show this year, the high mark of haute horology and the ultimate collector’s status symbol. Mark Toulson, head of watch buying at Watches of Switzerland calls these wrist-bound temples of engineering “incredibly complicated, very clever and, if you have a fascination for tiny moving parts, utterly compelling.”
Serious collectors with bank accounts to match have been going all in on tourbillons in recent years – intricate and extravagant marvels of engineering right there on your wrist, and the ultimate flex – and it seems like the handful of houses with the workshops capable of producing them have entered into a modern arms race to become the ultimate ‘billon boss. Here are a few of our fave newbie tourbies.
Piaget Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon
Few watchmakers love making something really, really thin more than Piaget (except Bulgari). But an ultra-thin tourbillon? A watch that needs to house more than 40 individual parts? That’s crazy! But Piaget doesn’t play by the rules. The case of the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon is a mere 2mm thick and is made from an unusual blue PVD-treated cobalt alloy – a material that offers the best thinness-to-toughness ratio. A celebration of 150 years of watchmaking, it took the Maison’s brightest minds more than 70 attempts to create the cage that would, in the end, house the watch’s flying toubillon movement. “We did far more than merely add a tourbillon,” says Benjamin Comar, Piaget CEO. “We reinvented everything.”
Hermès Arceau Duc Attelé
