Harry Winston has released a video for its Opus 12, the twelfth timepiece in the Opus series, this year designed in collaboration with watchmaker Emmanuel Bouchet.
A prototype of the timepiece has already been unveiled, but the video showcases its intricate complication, based on the notion of Copernican revolution by which the earth rotates around the sun, while rotating itself.
The Opus 12 features 12 hour markers positioned at the peripheral of the dial, pointing towards to the centre.
A retrograde hand, synchronised with the main minutes hand, advances along a five-minute sector. At the end of its travel it flies back to its initial position while the long five-minutes hand pivots and sets itself still.
At each change of the hour, the movement successively rotated all of the hands.
The winding of the movement is a little unconventional, too. The crown must be turned in the Counter-clockwise direction to simultaneously wind up the two barrels, one providing energy to the movement and the other to the animation of the rotating indices.
The watch has also been styles in homage to the famous Harry Winston Salon in New York, with “emblematic arches” that reference the neoclassical vault that dominates the front of the New York store. The openwork hands are a play on Manhattan’s skyscrapers.
Harry Winston has said the Opus 12 “reinterprets time” and has dubbed it a real innovation in watchmaking. A release from the brand says: “Nothing like this has been done before”.
The idea for the timepiece came from its creator, Emmanuel Bouchet, who developed this watch in close cooperation with the designer, Augustin Nussbaum, and the Harry Winston team.
It is a limited-edition timepiece of 120 pieces in each style, either 18ct white gold or diamond-set. The price for the white gold model is about $260,000 (£163,434).
