Watches & Wonders 2026: Vacheron Debuts The Les Cabinotiers Tourbillon Minute Repeater Skeleton

Vacheron Constantin is indisputably the leading maker of highly complicated timepieces in the modern horological landscape – it has set one record after another for complications, including the launch last year of the Solaria Grand Complication, whose intricacies, including a novel adaptation of the rattrapante chronograph mechanism to display stellar transits, we covered in an in-depth analysis in two parts (Part 1, Part 2). Vacheron has also set records with its two supercomplication pocket watches, the ref. 57260, and the Berkley Grand Complication (the latter has a complication which had never been produced before: a Chinese perpetual calendar, which had until then defied a horological implementation, thanks to the highly complex mathematics underlying the calendar).

We took a very close look at this complication, as well as the structure of a lunisolar calendar, in our story, “Irrational Universe: An Incomplete Explanation of the Berkley Hypercomplication’s Chinese Perpetual Calendar” in 2024. Both the ref. 57260 and the Berkley Grand Complication, as it turns out, were commissioned by the same collector – billionaire W. R. Berkley, owner of the W. R. Berkley Corporation insurance holding company, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees for New York University, and both, as well as the Solaria, were produced at Vacheron’s Les Cabinotiers workshop, which considers and takes on the construction of “pièce unique” watches.

One of Vacheron Constantin’s earlier forays into the creation of complicated watches, was launched in 2005: the Tour de L’ile, named after the famous tower on the island in the middle of the Rhône where Vacheron used to have its headquarters (and which I visited in 2018). This was at the time, the most complicated wristwatch ever made, and developing the watch was an experience which laid the groundwork for future explorations in both more complex watches, and variations on the complications in the Tour de L’Ile itself.

The 2005 Tour de L’ile, at the time the world’s most complicated wristwatch. 16 complications, with seven pieces produced; winner of the Aiguille d’Or at the GPHG. 47mm x 17.8mm.

One of the descendants of the Tour de L’ile was Vacheron Constantin’s caliber 2755, which was launched in its first incarnation in 2007: a tourbillon with minute repeater and perpetual calendar. For 2026, Vacheron has developed a new version of this caliber – the cal. 2755 TMR SQ, which is being presented in a Les Cabinotiers pièce unique, the Les Cabinotiers Tourbillon Minute Repeater, ref. 6580C/000R-343C.

This time around, Vacheron is focusing on exposing the entire complex and exquisitely finished mechanism, and every element of the watch can bee seen thanks to the high degree of openworking which has been applied to the movement. Very often tourbillon watches in the modern era, have the tourbillon visible through an aperture in the dial, but when it comes to minute repeaters, typically all you get to see – although it’s certainly a sight worth seeing – are the hammers, gongs, and governor, which are visible on the back of the watch.

However, the extremely complex mechanism responsible for actually translating the visual presentation of the time into an audible one, is usually hidden beneath the dial. Over the last three decades, there has been a trend towards using translucent or transparent dial materials to allow the racks, cams, and levers of the complication to be visible, but this is still a relative rarity – as are, for that matter, minute repeaters in general, which are expensive and time consuming to produce, and the manufacture of which thus far among all complications, has resisted industrialization due to the need for hand adjustment and tuning.

Tourbillon minute repeaters are even more challenging to produce, as the tourbillon occupies quite a lot of room in the movement and the repeating works have to be arranged around it, and, of course, openworking such a complex mechanism is a real tour de force; a simple open dial reveals much about the complications but actually skeletonizing the movement is such a significant extra challenge that a true skeletonized repeater – or tourbillon and minute repeater, in this case – becomes a whole different category of watchmaking.

The shapes of the movement plates and bridges is harmonious and the various curves and angles complement each other beautifully; the effect is of course deliberate and the result of both a careful design process, as well as a sense of composition and visual harmony on the part of the movement designers.

One of the basic goals in skeletonizing a movement is to achieve as high a degree of transparency as possible, and in the Les Cabinotiers Minute Repeater Tourbillon Skeleton this is combined with the use of a full range of haute horlogerie finishing techniques, which provide a great sense of depth as well. Vacheron lists some of the techniques used to decorate the movement:

• Brushed flanks (that is, fine brushing on the flanks of the movement plates and bridges
• Surface straightening (dressage) which is the use of shellac polishing stones to achieve a perfectly flat, satin polished upper surface
• Beveling of the bridges (anglage)
• Sandblasting of the bridges (to create a textured surface that contrasts pleasingly with highly polished surfaces
• Rounding off of the tourbillon bridge
• Mirror polishing (black polishing) of steel elements such as the repeater hammers
• Circular graining on the underside of plates and bridges
• Circular graining of the movement wheels
• Sunburst finishing on the crown wheel

The 45mm x 12mm case has been constructed in such a way as to act as a resonator for the repeater gongs, with the movement surrounded by an air-filled space which helps amplify the sound of the chimes and produce a richer tone. The case itself is made of pink gold, which among the traditional watch case materials is usually said to give the best combination of volume and sound quality – assuming the case has been properly constructed.

Creating such a watch obviously demands the highest craft at every level – the absolute visibility of every part of the movement, in particular, means that finishing and assembly must be free of any mistakes as even the slightest flaw would be instantly visible; an accidental scratch during assembly, for instance, might require significant disassembly of the movement to repair, which would of course, entail further risks.

This kind of leisurely, meticulous work, which requires the abandonment of haste and the ability to focus on every detail without exception, is really the definition of luxury in its traditional sense: it is defined by rarity of materials and rarity of skills, and it takes as long as it takes and costs whatever it costs – in fact, the work has to be done without considerations of cost entering into the process at all. This approach is an extreme rarity in modern watchmaking and few brands have the comprehensive capabilities needed to engage in watchmaking at this level, but the results speak for themselves.

The Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Minute Repeater Tourbillon Skeleton: case, 18k 4N pink gold, 45mm x 12mm, sapphire crystals front and back. Dial, sapphire crystal with blue minute track and two 18k gold silvered peripheral rings; one fluted, the other with circular satin finishing. 18k 4N pink gold minute track on the one minute tourbillon. Movement, caliber 2755 TMR SQ, hand, wound, 33.90mm x 6.30mm, running at 18,000 vph/2.5Hz in 44 jewels; 473 components with 58 hour power reserve. Unique piece. 

Find out more about Les Cabinotiers at Vacheron-Constantin.com.