In the year 2000 Chronoswiss unveiled the world’s first serially produced regulator tourbillon. Now the Lucerne based brand presents the Open Gear Tourbillon, a modern mechanical timekeeper with a unique regulator set-up, electric blue case and a hypnotising handmade guilloche decoration. Its half-skeletonised flying tourbillon is completely designed in-house, and it is exclusive to Chronoswiss watches.
The tourbillon Chronoswiss manufactured more than 20 years ago – Régulateur à Tourbillon – also had a guilloché dial. Now Chronoswiss unveils the C.303 – its own half-skeletonised tourbillon movement, and the guilloché is added by hand in its atelier in Lucerne.
With the Chronoswiss Flying Regulator Open Gear Lucerne Edition the ‘blue hour’ gets a whole new meaning. Using 10 different shades of the colour historically symbolising loyalty, strength, wisdom and trust, the calm display of the watch is contrasted especially by the energetic, almost aggressively electric blue CVD coating on the 17-part, stainless steel case.
The Trigono-shaped hands are blue lacquered, with Super-LumiNova inlays and tips. For the hour and five-minute indexes, generous amounts of blue-hued lume are combined with zirconium oxide into solid bricks and pillars that shine through the night.
The tourbillon may have roots stretching back to the end of the 18th century, but the Chronoswiss Open Gear Tourbillon has everything you should expect from a modern mechanical timepiece.
The watch dial is an elaborate 42-part construction on two levels: the bottom level is hand-guilloched, whereas the upper level features skeletonised train wheel bridges and a funnel-like construction for the hour display. Other design details include all particular signifiers of a Chronoswiss watch: knurled bezel, onion crown and the hornback crocodile strap held in place with the patented Autobloc system.
There is also a hidden special engraving on the reverse side of the dial – for a unique melding of modern mechanical watchmaking and heritage, since the idea of a secret signature was in vogue around two centuries ago when the tourbillon was invented.
Chronoswiss was originally established in 1983, in the German city of München, despite what the name suggests. Four years into its watchmaking endeavours, the first Regulator watch would be presented. The company was moved to Lucerne following a change in ownership in 2012 but kept its original style and the regulator as its signature complication.