Unique watch faces are making a steady appearance at Baselworld, the latest coming from Angelus with the U10 Tourbillion Lumière. A unique movement, the dial is housed separately, parallel to the tourbillion, a mechanical vision that took over two years to realize. Influenced by the brand’s multi-display travel clocks of the ’60s and ‘70s, the Angelus piece combines vintage aesthetics with a state-of-the-art tourbillion to create a rare modern timepiece. Featuring hours, minute, dead-beat seconds and a 90-hour power reserve indicator on the wristband, the U10 Tourbillion Lumière is a potential collector’s piece—only 25 of these limited-editions watches will be available.
While the Angelus brand has been around since the 1890s when the brand was founded by a pair of brother in Switzerland, the company went on hiatus in the late ‘70s for over 30 years. It was recently revived by Manufacture La Joux-Perret, who spent the last four years developing a new line for the brand. The U10 Tourbillion Lumière is the first of this revival collection and showcases the dedication to the brand’s original heritage as well as their commitment to strive toward modern innovation.
Taking four years to create, the U10 Tourbillion Lumière was built from the ground up using technology garnered from the century-long history of the company. Housed in a 62.75 mm, stainless steel casing, the watch face is separated into two viewing windows, one containing the dial and the other containing the tourbillion. “In order to realize the design we had to develop a new movement from scratch, with the tourbillon configured apart from the rest of the movement,” explained Angelus’ Head of Development Sébastien Chaulmontet. “The case and the movement then went through several phases of development so that they worked perfectly together, both technically and visually, before arriving at the final, emphatically sculptural, result.”
In addition to this innovative movement the watch also boasts seven sapphire crystals, four of which surround the tourbillion, one which wraps around the case at a 90 degree angle. The tourbillion structure is made of a blend of titanium, German silver and stainless steel, chosen for its strength and beauty. To highlight these features of the newly designed movement, the interior space is coated in a light-absorbing PVD finish in matte black, the perfect backdrop for allowing these mechanics to shine.
