Only Watch Delivers Yet Again
Taking a look at my favorite pieces from the watch world’s biggest charity event.
Last week, we were given our first look at what is, always and inevitably, the most interesting assortment of new watches to come out in a given year. Sure, Watches and Wonders offers up more new stuff, but Only Watch is where brands go to really flex — saving their wildest, and oftentimes least commercially viable, ideas for what amounts to being the watch world’s embodiment of “Hey guys, watch this!”
So, with a few days having passed to digest the dozens of watches offered up for our amusement, as well as to raise what is sure to be a tremendous amount of money for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, I wanted to share what, to me, are some of the standouts of this year’s impressive lineup.
Baltic Experiments — Premier Quantième Perpétuel
Let’s get one thing straight, I love Baltic. I’ve owned an Aquascaphe SB-01 for a few years now, and it remains one of the most genuine surprises I’ve experienced in nearly a decade and a half of watch collecting. From the minute I pulled it out of the box, I was blown away by how much detail was wrapped up in such an affordable package. It was clear that Etienne Malec and his team at Baltic had more up their sleeves, and now, thanks in part to a partnership with Maclef, we are finally seeing what they can do when they’re allowed to cook.
Now, to be fair, we saw hints of this at Only Watch 2021, where Baltic submitted an absolutely stunning monopusher chronograph built around a Venus 150 movement from the 1950s. But this is a different beast. Baltic has taken Only Watch 2023 as an opportunity to launch what essentially amounts to a new marque — Baltic Experiments.
Building off the ultra-thin Vaucher 5401 micro-rotor (Baltic does like a micro-rotor) movement, Baltic Experiments — again, in collaboration with Maclef — designed a brand-new perpetual calendar module. This new movement shows a huge amount of promise and bodes well for what we can expect from Baltic Experiments as they continue to, well, experiment.
It also doesn’t hurt that they put this movement into an absolutely beautiful package. Between the titanium and stainless steel case, the purple textured dial (which is laid out excellently, incidentally) and the mesh bracelet, Baltic has continued their streak of wonderfully designed mid-century inspired watches. I will be hugely excited to see what comes next from this exciting French brand, especially as they continue down this path of complicated watchmaking.
F.P. Journe Chronomètre Bleu Furtif
It’s no secret that people love the Chronomètre Blue. With its tantalum case and rich blue dial, it has become a favorite for any number of collectors. And Journe knows it. That’s why, since Only Watch 2015, F.P. Journe has been playing with that special combination of blue and tantalum, offering it up with tourbillons, chronographs, and even animatronic hands.
The Chronomètre Blue Furtif takes the premise and, for the first time, applies the formula to their sport case. The (sort of) time-only watch pairs its excellent tantalum case with a blue enamel dial and all-new movement. Tying the whole thing together is a bright orange seconds hand.
Okay, that covers the “Bleu” part, but what about the “Furtif” bit? Well, Journe has more than lived up to that word as well. Furtif translates roughly to stealth, and the Chronomètre Bleu Furtif lives up to the moniker by doing its best to hide all of the information it is meant to share.
The frosted enamel numerals, only meant to be visible under certain lighting conditions, are probably the most obvious example of this. The inclusion of two complications built into the movement and only visible through the exposed caseback really helps the Chronomètre Bleu Furtif live up to its name.
Now, admittedly, one of the caseback complications — the power reserve indicator — is a fairly typical caseback addition. In fact, I generally prefer to have a power reserve indicator on the back of the watch rather than dial-side. That said — the other kinda threw me and, I will admit, took me a little while to even notice.
The Chronomètre Bleu Furtif’s new movement has, at the 6 o’clock position, a moon phase. Considering that the moon phase is a mostly aesthetic complication, serving no real purpose beyond offering up visual appeal, the inclusion of it in a completely hidden position is a genuine shock, but one I am absolutely here for.
Biver Catharsis
Keeping with the theme of obscuring information, we have the Biver Catharsis — a watch which, ostensibly, does not tell the time. At least it doesn’t on the dial. Now, the Biver Catharsis is not the first watch to forgo a visible time display (the H. Moser & Cie. Swiss Alp Tourbillon Minute Repeater springs to mind) but few have done so in such dramatic fashion.
The Biver Catharsis sacrifices a dial with hands and markers for one which combines a stone and meteorite marquetry sky with a sapphire ocean. And the result is astounding. Borrowing a platinum case from the recently unveiled Biver Carillon Tourbillon, here offered in a destro configuration, and fitting it with this incredible stone and gem-set dial yields what may well be the best watch to be released under the Biver name this year.
But what about the timekeeping? How do I even read the watch? Well, there are two ways to read the time off of this masterpiece of a thing. The first is to simply flip over the watch where the caseback offers a single-hand, twelve-hour display, which will be used primarily when setting the watch.
Thankfully, for those rare moments when you want to know the time while actually wearing the watch, the Biver Catharsis still features a fully functional minute repeater, ready to read off the time whenever you need it — although the Catharsis would seem to posit that, as long as you have an ocean of sapphire on your wrist, you really don’t need to know the time that badly.
Krayon Anywhere
I have been a big fan of the Krayon Anywhere since it was introduced all the way back in the dark days of 2020 (insert shudder here). The entire Krayon brand is built on a genuine horological innovation — and a really cool one at that.
Krayon’s bread and butter is their sunrise/sunset complication which, unlike anyone else’s I’m aware of, can display the sunrise and sunset anywhere in the world thanks to an adjustable cam.
Though the Anywhere isn’t quite as technically capable as its older brother, the Everywhere (which can be adjusted by the owner, the Anywhere requires a trip to a watchmaker) — with its simplified dial layout and slightly more restrained size — makes the perfect platform for an Only Watch 1-of-1.
Building on the success of their previous Only Watch outing, Krayon has once again taken inspiration from Impressionist painters. While their 2021 submission was inspired by the palette Claude Monet, their 2023 entry goes a step beyond by evoking not only the colors of Théo van Rysselberghe, but his brushstrokes as well.
Oh, and, just for kicks, this is also the first Krayon to be produced with a titanium case, on the off-chance the hand-painted dial didn’t do enough to set this Anywhere apart.
Tudor Prince Chronograph One
Well, if anyone was looking for a clue as to what Tudor is toying with releasing at Watches and Wonders 2024, I would suggest you look no further than the solid 18k yellow gold elephant in the room.
Now, do I think Tudor is releasing a modern “Big Block” chronograph come March? No, not necessarily. After all, Tudor’s Only Watch submissions only ever seem to offer a glimpse at what might be coming rather than an out-and-out declaration. But do I think Tudor will stick that brand-spanking new chronograph movement in a watch ASAP? Absolutely.
Personally, I think a brand new Tudor Tiger chronograph with a twelve-hour bezel would make be a nice complement to the Black Bay Chronograph and the new Pelagos FXD Chronograph in the Tudor lineup. That said, Tiger Woods has been a Rolex guy for a minute now, and I don’t see him going back, so we’ll just have to wait until March to see what happens with the new Cal. MT59XX.
Oh, and we can expect this Tudor to be hotly contested — Tudor’s last two entries in 2021 and 2019 sold for CHF 650,000 and CHF 350,000 respectively, particularly impressive considering each was offered with only a 4-figure estimate.
The Best is Yet to Come
While the sixty or so watches we’ve seen thus far are nothing to sneeze at, I have a feeling two pieces that we haven’t been shown will be the real show-stoppers this year. Patek Philippe and Independent watchmaker Rexhep Rexhepi each offered a tease of their Only Watch submissions, rather than the actual thing.
So what can we expect? Well, from Patek we know we are getting a new Grand Complication, the first in a series of thirty that will mark the 85th birthday of one Philippe Stern. The watch will use a new movement that will only ever be used in this run of thirty, and the first of these will be a unique execution for Only Watch.
On the other hand, Rexhep Rexhepi has promised a watch under his own name — the Rexhep Rexhepi Chronomètre Antimagnétique. Based on the name, we can assume a watch more in line aesthetically with the Chronomètre Contemporain, and we know that this watch will pull from the mid-century legacy of Swiss “science” watches.
The dial printing seems to be demonstrated by the teaser image provided by Only Watch, and the watch itself will be made anti-magnetic through the use of a Faraday cage, a traditional method of shielding watches from magnetism.
With two huge watches still on the horizon, I think it’s fair to say this is not the last time you’ll hear from me about Only Watch 2023, and that’s a good thing. This is an exciting event for a good cause, and I will be thrilled to see how it all pans out.