Baselworld 2018 is almost upon us. Look forward to this year’s edition, which will once again unite the entire industry’s most important brands. They will exclusively exhibit their stunning collections, show-stopping pieces and innovative creativity, covering all the fascinating aspects of refined horology. To whet your appetite, here is a selection of some of the standout pre-show timepieces that will light up this year’s superlative event.
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| The World Time Minute Repeater ref. 5531R combines two grandes complications: the minute repeater and world time. As a result, this new timepiece boasts a world time minute repeater that always chimes the local time wherever you are, unlike other watches of this type, which chime the time in your home country. Equipped with the new R 27 HU caliber, entirely manufactured in-house, the wearer of this masterpiece can set the hour strike to the nearest second, using the 24-hour display of the world time mechanism. |
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| The house celebrates the Chinese calendar’s “Year of the Dog” by adorning the dial with an enchanting chow-chow, reimagined through the art of mother-of-pearl marquetry. Impressively demonstrating the superlative artisanal expertise of Harry Winston, the Midnight Dog Automatic 42mm (illustrated) and the Premier Dog Automatic 36mm each appear in a limited edition of only eight wristwatches. |
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| The Swiss brand takes the ultra-sophisticated dial design reflecting the label’s typical figure-eight shape and skilfully adds a moon phase to it. Beautifully crafted from rose gold and an onyx moon disk, the precise moon phase, which needs to be adjusted only after 122 years, takes centre stage on the refined black grand-feu enamel face of the Grande Seconde Moon Black Enamel. |
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| The L.U.C Quattro offers nine full days of power reserve thanks to the patented Quattro technology with two pairs of piggyback barrels. Despite all its mechanical complexity, chronometer-certified manufacture Calibre 98.01-L is a mere 3.7 mm tall. The slim construction gives an emphatically fine profile to this elegant gold watch, which has earned the prestigious Geneva Seal. |
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| This company demonstrates its savoir-faire in artisanal disciplines with a new Métiers d’Art collection for gentlemen. The traditional techniques of grand-feu and champlevé enamel are used on the dial of the MasterGraff Ultra Flat Dragon, where they depict the dragon motif, into which a tourbillon is embedded. |
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| With gleaming red ceramic, this Swiss luxury manufacture again underscores its expertise in the discipline of materials research. Not only is this red colour extremely difficult to achieve in ceramic cases, but the ceramic developed for the Big Bang Unico Red Magic also has an uncommonly high degree of hardness. |
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| With the Golden Bridge Joachim Horsley, Corum’s legendary skeletonised watch debuts with an unprecedented metalized substrate made of sapphire crystal, onto which an excerpt from the original score of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony is printed. Corum collaborated with Reuge to create a unique casket containing a musical mechanism that plays Joachim Horsley’s interpretations of three melodies by Bach, Mahler and Beethoven. |
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| The French maison debuts a stunning take on its classic Première watch with an alluring mirror-polished face. Foregoing numerals creates an even more daring but very calm and decidedly chic look. The Première Rock Gold, limited to 1,000 pieces, is equipped with a triple-row steel chain bracelet interwoven with golden fabric that matches the shade of the dial. |
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| The Finnish watchmaker’s striving for horological perfection finds its expression in the 217QRS, a three-handed timepiece with a meticulously finished dial. But it is not only the breath-taking beauty resulting from unique craftsmanship that is so very typical for him: Kari Voutilainen also shows his prowess through an impressive novel technique for the retrograde date indication. Instead of jumping back quickly, as retrograde hands ordinarily do, this one makes its journey back to the starting point in a slow-paced manner. |
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