Glass House: An Angelus U10 Tourbillon Lumière
The Art Of The Wow Factor.
Today for A Watch A Week, we have what I think is one of the most visually striking and unusual watches of at least the last 20 years. The watch in question is the Angelus U10 Tourbillon Lumière, which was introduced by Angelus in 2015 in the year that the brand was relaunched by La Joux Perret. Angelus began life as the manufacturer Stolz Frères SA, in 1891 and “Angelus” was chosen as the name for the house brand, which became famous particularly for its chronographs starting in the 1930s. The company like so many others was a victim of the sea changes in Swiss watch manufacturing in the 1970s, when quartz watches entered the market, but in 2015 La Joux Perret brought the brand back (LJP is in turn, owned by the Citizen Group) and Angelus currently focuses on the production of very classically styled monopusher chronographs. When the brand relaunched, though, it really went all in on the expensive, the unusual, the exclusive, and above all, the extremely exotic.
The Tourbillon Lumière was designed by someone you might have heard of: the chronograph expert Sébastien Chaulmontet, who currently divides his time between the design firm Atiles Design, and Sellita, where he’s director for innovation and marketing. The Tourbillon Lumiére was something of a shock when it was launched as a 25 piece limited edition, mainly because the fan base for Angelus at the time was (and probably still is) primarily folks who are interested in vintage and classically designed chronographs, and the Tourbillon Lumiére doubtless felt about as diametrically opposed to Angelus’ classical production as you can get.
First of all it’s a big watch and no foolin’ – the Tourbillon Lumiére is 62.75 mm x 38 mm x 15 mm, and while it’s not the most cuff-unfriendly watch ever made, it’s just so much not something that wants to be a diffidently cooperative part of a larger, carefully crafted sartorial ensemble, albeit “what from my closet would match this watch today” is probably not a question a potential client for the watch would ask. The best you could possibly do is try and dress down the rest of your outfit so as to support the piece of horological histrionics on your wrist, like a black clad Noh theater stagehand unobtrusively managing the more eye-catching scenery. Honestly you could worse than a black turtleneck, black slacks, black sneakers, and probably black wraparounds while you’re at it.
The watch is a triple complication timepiece – you have a very large one minute flying tourbillon, a power reserve mounted in the flank of the case, and a deadbeat seconds complication, which with its ability to conflate quartz with mechanical horology, really seems to go along with the Modernist, Seagram-building vibe of the watch overall. The case is stainless steel, brushed and mirror polished, and probably at least half the surface area of the watch consists of boxed sapphire crystals which I’m sure contributed significantly to the overall production costs of the watch.
Certainly the display back is almost a hundred per cent sapphire crystal. This isn’t a skeletonized watch per se but the level of transparency is impressive; you wonder what a fully skeletonized movement would have looked like in this case. I suppose we’ll never know but a person can dream. Despite the sheer size of the tourbillon (which is a single axis flying tourbillon, although you might mistake it for a multi-axis tourbillon at first glance) the Tourbillon Lumière packs a 90 hour power reserve – 3.75 days’ worth.
Now let me be the first to admit that this was a head-scratcher for me when I saw it for the first time back in 2015. I was familiar albeit not terribly so with the original output of Angelus pre-Quartz Crisis, and the Tourbillon Lumière seemed outrageously off brand and out of character. I won’t however, say that the watch grew on me, because right away there was a weird fascination combined with the sense of violent disruption of the historical identity of Angelus, and now, at the remove of ten years (!) I still find the watch weirdly fascinating. In fact, I think if you’re looking for a super-tourbillon, the tourbillon as the basis for a concept watch if you will, you will struggle to find one that is as internally consistent and harmonious in its design as the Tourbillon Lumière (that’s what I think anyway).
I think part of the reason the design succeeds so well is that despite all the Modernist razzmatazz, there are at the same time some very classical aspects to the watch. That’s a classically configured flying tourbillon, for one thing, with the carriage driven at the left edge by the last wheel of the going train, and revolving around the fixed wheel at the center against which the pinion of the escape wheel works. The finish is very good and the large balance gives a sense of stateliness to the gyrations of the carriage as well – the balance spring even has a Breguet overcoil, if that’s your brand of vodka. The geometry of the case is all of a piece with that of the (many) sapphire crystals – there are a lot of things that the design kind of echoes but one of them, for me anyway, is the design language found in some of the great car designs of the 1930s, like the Delahaye 135, for instance, which is my current unobtanium obsession.
The Tourbillon Lumière certainly shocked, but for some of us anyway, including HSNY President Nick Manousos, it shocked and awed as well.
By the way, if the Tourbillon Lumière “Pur Sang” is a little too straitlaced for your specifically unconventional tastes, we’ve got you covered with the Angelus x Alain Silberstein U11 Streamline Tourbillon Grail Limited Edition, which calls itself a grail watch so you don’t have to. I go back and forth – a lot – between which one I’d have if I could only have one. I think all things considered I’d do what I usually do in situations like this, which is pick the more austere, classical version and then wish I had the spirit to pull off the one with arguably more sprezzatura. If there ever were a watch to make you feel like you’re a character in Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” – or maybe Frances Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis” more likely – look no further. Just the thing to have on your wrist when you and Wow Platinum are steppin’ out on the town.
See the Angelus U10 Tourbillon Lumière right here, and contact us for pricing and availability.