Be remembered in Time to come…

Actors appear and disappear but some will be remembered forever. And one of those is Leonardo DiCaprio whose Oscar-worthy performance in ‘The Revenant’ is being hailed as superlative. The brand ambassador of TAG Heuer even has a watch made in his honor - the Leonardo DiCaprio Link Caliber 16 Chronograph with a blue dial and smoked sapphire case back carrying his engraved signature. Proceeds from its sale will go to his charity partners: Green Cross International and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

CHINESE YEAR WATCHES

Always curious, notoriously mischievous and clever, the monkey is the ninth animal in the Chinese Zodiac. Ulysse Nardin unfurls the “Year of the Monkey” Classico 18k red gold timepiece designed in a comic strip-like style in the champlevé method of enameling capturing its lively character, as it appears to leap through a brush of palm fronds. It comes in a limited edition of 88 pieces, features the self-winding UN-815 movement and COSC-certified chronometer.

Vacheron Constantin has created a pair of Métiers d’Art La Légende du Zodiaque Chinois limited to 12 pieces each edition for the Chinese year, featuring a hand-made fired enamel dial and equipped with the caliber 2460 G4 self-winding movement without hands. The four windows on the solid gold dial reveal the day, month, hours and minutes. It’s engraved with leaf motif, interpreting paper cutting techniques in China and Switzerland. In blue or bronze, it features a hand-engraved monkey in platinum or pink gold.

Harry Winston’s 36mm rose gold Premier Monkey Automatic has a pink mother-of-pearl dial with flecks of 24k gold and diamond-set bezel and lugs. It features an 18k gold monkey with a diamond eye and tail wound around an emerald-cut diamond at 12 o’clock. The appliqué and marquise-cut openwork is inspired by Jianzhi, an ancient Chinese art form, is powered by the HW2008 automatic movement and comes in just eight pieces.

Re-imagined by Piaget in its ultra-thin 18k white gold Altiplano collection, the Chinese zodiac animal of the year — the spirited and confident monkey is handcrafted onto a Grand Feu cloisonné enamelled face by world-renowned enamel master Anita Porchet. It is powered by the Piaget 430P hand-wound mechanical manufacture movement

Jaquet Droz introduces four Petite Heure Minute models celebrating its historic ties with China. Each is available in two versions inspired by the legend of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King who was appointed to watch over the Garden of Celestial Peaches, but instead ate the sacred peaches to attain immortality. The colors are vivid against the ivory Grand Feu enamel and it has an off-centered hours-and-minutes dial at 12 o'clock. Covered in a domed sapphire crystal it boasts a 68-hour power reserve and is available in a limited edition of 28.

GO SPORTY

It’s like wearing an entire tire on your wrist. For the first time in its history, a Mille Miglia model is driven by a Chopard movement. Calibre 01.08-C entirely developed, designed and assembled within the workshops of Fleurier Ebauches.  It boasts a 60-hour power reserve and has certification by the Swiss Official Chronometer Testing Institute (COSC) a must-have attribute for Chopard watches in general and of course for racing drivers.

The Rolex Yacht-Master II contains Rolex’s automatic Caliber 4161, a column-wheel chronograph movement that has been certified as a chronometer by the Swiss testing agency COSC. The oscillator at its heart boasts another Rolex-exclusive development, a blue hairspring made of Parachrom, a patented alloy more resistant to magnetic fields and more stable to temperature variations.

Patek Philippe’s 41mm platinum Ref. 5370 Split-Seconds Chronograph is an elegant model that focuses on precise measurements of time. Powered by the caliber CHR 29-535 PS, a manually wound mechanical movement, it boasts hours and minutes, small seconds, a split-seconds chronograph, a 30-minute counter, and a tachymeter scale on a black enamel dial with gold applied Breguet numerals.

Swiss watchmaker Carl F. Bucherer supports Manta Trust, a non-profit organization that conducts research to be used to protect the impressive manta ray by attaching satellite transmitters to the marine animal known as the greatest traveler of the deep oceans. The Swiss company’s commitment to this animal is symbolized by an engraving of two manta rays on the back of the PATRAVI ScubaTec diver’s watch flaunting sporty elegance and distinctive power. 

Panerai presents the new 47mm Panerai’s Luminor Submersible 1950 3 Days Chrono Flyback Automatic Titanio in two new models available with either a unidirectional rotational diver’s bezel in solid Titanium or in Titanium with a black ceramic insert. It brings together features which are military in their origins, such as the unidirectional rotating bezel in solid Titanium or in Titanium with a black ceramic insert for calculating dive-time.

TOURBILLON TRENDS

Omega’s 18K red gold Central Tourbillon Trésor is the embodiment of Omega’s commitment to the art of watchmaking. It features the brand’s exclusive Central Tourbillon movement set in a tourbillon cage protecting it from the effects of gravity at the heart of the dial. The 18K red gold hour and minute hands are fixed directly on the tourbillon cage, complemented by a stunning blue lacquer dial and gold hour indexes.

Breguet’s 41 mm 18k rose gold or platinum Classique Complications 3797 has a finely fluted case band, sapphire case back and welded lugs with screw bars. Water-resistant to 30m, it has a dial in 18k gold, silvered and engine-turned in four different patterns with retrograde dates indication at 12 o'clock, days at 9 o'clock, and months and leap years at 3 o'clock and small seconds on the tourbillon axis. Powered by a manually wound movement with tourbillon and perpetual calendar it is individually numbered and signed Breguet.

Bulgari is turning heads with its skeletal 53mm Tourbillon Saphir Ultranero where it unveils the movement by making the bridges, plates and dial from white—or clear—sapphire. It has a black titanium case and green markers and houses a manually wound movement. Titanium, a metal of silvery color is turned black by applying a coating of “diamond-like carbon,” DLC.

The curtain rises on the sixth chapter of Harry Winston’s 55 x 49mm white gold alloy and palladium Histoire de Tourbillon. Its HW4701 caliber is a genuine first in the history of horology and combines two independent hour indications: one regulated by a tri-axial tourbillon and the other by a karussel. It is limited to 20 pieces.

Jaeger-LeCoultre presents the spherical Gyrotourbillon 2 in the newly designed, swivelling case of its Reverso. Housing the manually-wound Calibre 174, its three-dimensional motion fascinates one due to the exceptional speed of rotation of its two carriages, with the inner one completing a full turn in 18.75 seconds, while the outer one performs a one-minute turn.

SDGC 2015 NOVELTIES

The 2nd annual Salon des Grandes Complications (SDGC) held in Nov. 2015 at DIFC unveiled exceptional watches for the region’s watch connoisseurs and featured prominent names such as Cartier, A. Lange & Söhne, Arnold & Son, Bulgari, Chopard, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Girard-Perregaux, Kerbedanz, Panerai, Roger Dubuis, Vacheron Constantin, Vianney Halter and Voutilainen. Aviamost presents some of the novelties in this issue.

The 44.2mm A. Lange & Sohne's Zeitwerk Minute Repeater is the brand’s first model with a striking mechanism that sounds the hours, ten-minute intervals, and minutes. Its L043.5 manufacture calibre is hand-finished and beats at a frequency of 18,000 semi-oscillations per hour and It has a power-reserve period of 36 hours when fully wound if the striking mechanism is not activated.

Cartier proudly presented its revolutionary concept watch Cartier ID Two which took five years to develop and is the world’s first energy efficient timepiece with a power reserve of 32 days. Its main spring is the first ever to be made from fiber glass and its movements are lubricant-free. Its transparent ceramic case is sealed using vacuum pressure and without using screws.

The reinterpreted 45mm Girard-Perregaux Neo Tourbillon has a lightweight titanium DLC case treated with PVD and salutes the past and the future with its iconic three bridge tourbillion. It has Dauphine skeletonised regal gold hands and its bridges and tourbillon are protected by super-convex crystal to give a three-dimensional effect. It has a 60-hour power reserve and is water-resistant to 30m.

Arnold & Son pushes precision chronometry ever further with the 46mm 18K red gold Constant Force Tourbillon featuring a patented constant force device with 60-second tourbillon with two symmetrical barrels in series, and true beat seconds. The exclusive Arnold & Son manual wound calibre AS5119 powering it provides 90 hours power reserve when fully wound.

Crafted in highly resilient and lightweight Grade 5 Titanium Vertu’s New Signature Touch boasts the high-performance Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 810 octa-core processor, enables 4G-ready network connectivity wherever you travel, has cutting-edge noise cancellation and virtual surround reproduction, a 21 megapixel camera with ultra-high definition 4k video capture and is powered by Android Lollipop 5.1 64-bit operating system.