It’s 2019 and celebration time for Christophe Claret. The Swiss watchmaker is celebrating a double anniversary this year: 30 years of his manufacture and 10 years of his brand name. To honor these special landmarks, his company decided to unveil the Christophe Claret Angelico watch, a complex and innovating timekeeping piece.
The dual-time watch showcases Mr. Claret’s ingenuity and outstanding watchmaking skills. It will be available in two magical versions, a 5N red gold and a titanium one. The complicated hand wound 2.5 Hz movement has a power reserve of 72 hours and needed a large 45.5 mm case with a 17.45 mm thickness to encompass it.
The large case comes with a sapphire case back that allows you to take a glimpse of the stunningly complex mechanism inside, which contains a little less than 500 pieces.
But one of the most impressive feature of the Christophe Claret Angelico is the extremely rare use of a detent escapement in the 16 mm tourbillon inside. The detent escapement is more precise than its lever counterpart, but very fragile and prone to damage, that’s why it is a very rare sight.
In addition to all this, Christophe Claret’s Angelico uses a unique chain and fusee constant-force mechanism, which is dominating the dial. The mechanism comes with an ultra-thin Dyneema nanofiber cable, insuring a better power reserve for the watch.
The dial shows the time via the two jumping hour displays at 5 and 7 o’clock, indicated by the ‘Home’ and ‘Local’ markings. The minutes are displayed on the dial via a peripheral pointer.
The eccentric aesthetics might turn away many people, but on the technical side, the Christophe Claret Angelico is a masterpiece. The price tag will match the technical mastery, reaching 238,000 Swiss francs for the red gold version and 218,000 francs for the one in titanium. This superb timepiece will be also produced in a super limited run, with just 10 units of each version.
