THe TB88 by Arnold & Son. A complcation that unlike conventional mechanical watches, measures time in complete seconds instead of fractions dependent on the balancy frequency.
For those who aren’t familiar with Harry Winston, every year the brand launches a truly innovative mechanical monstrosity that would leave anyone drooling. This year marks their 12th release which has been created in collaboration with watchmaker Emmanuel Bouchet and it really lives up to the hype of the series – The money shot in the watch is when the hour and minute markers roll 180 degrees. It is hard to explain the visual effect so the best thing to do is watch the video presentation at the top. The price is approximately $260,000.
An amateur photograph of the watch uploaded by Worldtempus on twitter
The Spacemaster Z-33 is the latest addition to the Omega Speedmaster series. It’s meant to be a wristwatch designed specifically with modern pilots in mind and marks a break away from the traditional Omega case for pilot watches. Functionally, the watch allows professional pilots to log up to ten flights and visualize the logs with a date-hour indication. This, apart from the regular alarm, perpetual calendar, chronograph, countdown timer and a dual timezone display.
Gucci celebrated its 40th year in watchmaking quietly with few updates to their current collection all designed or updated by it’s Creative Director, Frida Giannini.
The new V-Tec Gamma is this year’s addition to the Ventura collection. It’s a larger size than previous models and features the same digital module Ventura is famous for including the EasySkroll interface. The model will be available from June 2012 onwards and is priced at approximately 1000 USD.
Italian Architect and Designer Andrea Morgante has always been inspired by organic engineering, that is, the influence of shapes found in nature on his work. So when he was offered to do a wristwatch for Alessi, he couldn’t help but apply the ribbed look of a tray he designed previously thus creating a watch where grooves permeates through it entirely, from the bracelet to the case and then to the glass.
Every year for the past decade, Issey Miyake has released a single wristwatch designed by a prominent designer. This year, the eleventh new series is called simply, the ‘W’ and it has been created in collaboration with Japanese car designer Satoshi Wada. Satoshi’s design milestones include designing the A5 for Audi and a long history with Nissan.
The watch is intended to be a minimal no-nonsense design and it features a quartz chronograph movement but has a second hand that moves instantly like that on an automatic watch with the same button click feel of an automatic movement. Those who’ve worn an automatic watch would probably appreciate this.
Billed as the ‘watch that understands time zones’, Seiko has created the first solar powered GPS watch that receives GPS signals and identifies the time zone, time and date data using four GPS satellites. The watch updates automatically once a day and also on demand. It’s named after the company’s 1969 predecessor which was the world’s first quartz watch. It will be released in the fall of 2012 with a price of around 2000-3000 euros. There will be five models with one special edition limited to 2500 units.
CK knows when it has a hit on it’s hand (pun intended). Every single person at their booth at this year’s Baselworld was sporting one of their new ‘Cogent’ watches. The cogent is a very minimal watch with a mineral crystal glass that also covers the side of the watch. There are four visible screws that hold it up giving it a more modern / architectural look.
Ikepod has always had one of its foot in the art world thanks to its designer Marc Newson’s prolific work in the field. This year, they go one step further with a collaboration watch called the ‘THE HORIZON BY KAWS’ with infamous street artist named KAWS.
For those who don’t know Kaws, he is one of the few that have been successful both as a contemporary artist with his paintings and sculptures and also commercially with his vinyl toys and his clothing brand named Originalfake. He is most famous for his trademark ‘X’ symbol that he’s used to rework familiar icons such as Mickey Mouse, the Michelin Man, SpongeBob SquarePants and now an automatic Ikepod watch.
