Baselworld 2012 Express (Part 2)
Continuing our express tour of Baselworld 2012. After spotlighting the new watches from MB&F, HYT, Linde Werdelin, De Bethune and Romain Jerome in the first instalment, it’s time for Cyrus, Perrelet, Casio and Christophe Claret.
Cyrus
A detour to Cyrus, a young brand whose creators speak passionately about their world—rooted in the fantastical epic of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire 2,500 years ago. On the new-release front, the Klepcys Mars joins the collection with, at 4 o’clock on the dial, a sphere representing the Red Planet, whose orbit reproduces Mars’s course exactly.
The retrograde hour hand sweeps through 180 degrees and changes colour depending on day or night. The minute and seconds discs are aligned with the hour hand, allowing for a linear readout.
Attention to detail is constant, notably with bespoke screws that echo the brand’s logo.
Perrelet
The first dive watch in the Turbine collection. Featuring a 47.5 mm steel case water-resistant to 300 metres, the Perrelet Turbine Diver is dressed in colours perfectly suited to showcasing the turbine effect.
Casio
New additions to the G-Shock and Baby-G collections.
The Casio G-Shock GA-150A adopts metallic colours that would make a Pantone chart blush: green, blue and orange. Ultra-tough and water-resistant to 200 metres, it packs a long list of functions: 29 time zones, LED illumination, stopwatch, calendar, countdown timer, alarms…
The Baby-G BGA-160 will no doubt be taking over the wrists of blossoming young girls as soon as it’s released. The main new feature of this Baby-G is the use of a blacklight LED that illuminates the luminous ink coating the hands and hour markers.
Christophe Claret
A miniature casino on the wrist
While the Casino theme has practically become a perennial in watchmaking, it has to be said that Christophe Claret’s take on the game is among the most interesting, as it introduces the notion of interactivity. If the 21 Black Jack watch had won over aficionados of the genre, chances are the Baccara will delight players by offering a game of baccarat, a roulette wheel and dice, paired with sound effects—all housed in a 45 mm case. A final flourish: a mysterious Chinese ideogram appears when you breathe on the watch.
Price : from €161,000
X-TREM-1: telling the time with magnetic fields
Beyond the feat of bringing to life a flying tourbillon inclined at 30°, the watch is also the first to use magnetic fields in a mechanical movement.
The two sapphire tubes positioned on the sides of the watch house two steel spheres that rise or fall to indicate the hours and minutes thanks to magnetic fields (by magnetisation).
