Hublot, Burberry, Girard Perregaux, and Bell & Ross marched to a masculine, heroic tune, as they debuted new durable-looking, yet totally luxe timepieces, at Baselworld this year.
Designed by Burberry’s Chief Creative and Executive Officer Christopher Bailey, the new men’s Burberry watch The Britain Icon Check comes in a 45mm carbon-coated titanium case. A skeleton dial highlights the mechanical movement and is set to be manually wound. Below the woven anthracite grid dial, smoked sapphire crystal allow for the utmost sophistication and overall visibility, as the plates feature Côtes de Genève decoration. The Britain Icon Check is limited to just 20 pieces.
In celebration of Bell & Ross’ 10-year anniversary of their iconic model, they brought forth the BR 01 10th Anniversary watch. Limited to 500 pieces, their new watch’s tagline is “from the cockpit to the wrist.” The square case, round dial, and screw in each of its four corners creates a truly utilitarian design that is immediately recognizable. The 46mm case is matte black ceramic with a steel back featuring a “10th Anniversary” inscription. The strap comes in two options: black rubber and ultra-resistant synthetic canvas, and finishes with a steel, black Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) finished pin.
Hublot gave us the Big Bang Unico Italia Independent, featuring a brand new material, Texalium. The aluminum-coated carbon fiber makes up its 45 mm case, and 6 H-shaped screws are seen polished and locked in titanium. Sapphire crystal and anti-reflective coating allows for spectacular shine for the Hublot and Italia Independent logos. With a 75-hour power reserve, this model is also water resistant up to 100 meters. The denim on black rubber strap comes with accompanying countersunk studs, and a carbon fiber buckle. Each watch comes with a customized case and pair of Italia Independent sunglasses.
Girard Perregaux took a new approach to their watchmaking tradition, and debuted the Minute Repeater Tourbillon with Gold Bridges—a strong, complex mechanism. Improving its acoustic performance, the watch offers an “on-off” control on the left-hand side at 8 o’clock. Sliding this trigger piece, the spring is rewound inside of the minute repeater barrel, and releases consistent sounds, different at each hour (low tone), quarter-hour (combination of high and low tones), and minute (high tone). Two gongs were positioned facing each other in 18K gold, and the hammers (which were inspired by the Gold Bridges patent in 1884), enable the slight reverberation of sound. Sitting in a case of 45 mm pink gold, the anti-reflective sapphire crystal has a similar back secured by six screws, and is water resistant up to 30 meters. The hand-stitched black alligator strap complements its exclusivity, as there are only 10 pieces in existence.
