The Only Watch charity auction, which raises money for Muscular Dystrophy research, takes place in Geneva on November 11.
Here, and in linked articles, WatchPro features unique watches created specially for the sale by the world’s leading watchmakers. The auction is being managed and run by Christie’s, which will accept bids both in the saleroom and online.
H. MOSER & CIE
VENTURER CONCEPT ONLY WATCH
Estimate: CHF 19,500 – 29,500
H. Moser & Cie. is proud to join the fight against Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy by supporting the Only Watch Auction. For this occasion, H. Moser & Cie. has created a unique piece, the Venturer Concept Only Watch. A symbol of life and renewal, red takes centre stage in this watch, which showcases a vibrant red fumé dial and features a striking red balance bridge. Offering a beautiful contrast, the white hour and minute hands refer to the colours of the Monaco flag.
Part of the H. Moser series of Concept watches, the Venturer Concept Only Watch relinquishes both logo and indices. This minimalist approach puts the product itself in the spotlight, as a reminder that true luxury is distinctive. This is a watch with an authenticity and purity that prove that only the essential matters. Faced with illness, especially when it affects a child, priorities come into sharp focus, centring on what is important. Everything else is of no consequence.
HARRY WINSTON
OCEAN BIG DATE ONLY WATCH
Estimate: CHF 39,000 – 49,000
Created exclusively for this altruistic charity auction, Ocean Big Date Only Watch from Harry Winston’s Project Z collection displays refined mechanical complications, with cutting- edge materials and an innovative design.
The intrepid, highly architectural character of the dial keeps with the avant-garde spirit of the Project Z collection and the multiple layers on the openwork dial create a fascinating three-dimensional stage.
Fitted with a sophisticated automatic movement with twin barrels and a flat silicon balance spring, the timepiece is presented on a sporty black alligator leather and rubber strap with yellow stitching, with the inscription “Only Watch 2017 Unique Piece” engraved on the open case back – a reminder of the noble cause this one-of-a-kind timepiece represents.
HAUTLENCE
PINBALL, BALL-E – MECHANICAL PINBALL
Estimate: CHF 23,000 – 38,000
Disconnect, let go, let time take its course: that is what HAUTLENCE offering with its PINBALL model, from the Playground mechanical games collection, based on the iconic game from our childhood. Although it is impossible to keep time under control, HAUTLENCE makes the passage of time more pleasant, by diverting the timepiece from its primary mission while scrupulously adhering to the principle of watchmaking art, since the PINBALL movement comes with a built-in minute repeater mechanism. PINBALL lets you stop the mad rush of time, for a few minutes, to immerse yourself in the joy of play.
To support the Only Watch action, HAUTLENCE has created a unique piece, dubbed BALL-e. When the light goes out, BALL-e reveals its second face: the dial displays the head of a small robot, as a protective talisman in the darkness. With BALL-e, HAUTLENCE opens up the doors to a magic world, of which play is an essential part, reminding us how important it is to keep smiling, despite the ills life throws at us.
HERMÈS
SLIM D’HERMÈS L’HEURE IMPATIENTE
Estimate: CHF 35,000 – 55,000
Hermès time cultivates the ‘extravagant’ idea of reconciling rigorous discipline with whimsical fancy. It takes a deft ability for handling paradoxes to imagine that the calling of a watch should be to kindle our emotions. Such is the purpose of the unique Slim d’Hermès L’heure impatiente timepiece unveiled at Only Watch 2017, whose complication invites us to look forward to an upcoming moment.
The jubilant ritual consists of setting the counter of the watch to the time of the eagerly awaited event that will take place in less than 12 hours. An hour before it occurs, the mechanical hourglass is set in motion and its progress can be followed at 6 o’clock on the dial.
This complication that stirs our feelings and heightens our sense of pleasurable expectation is an exquisite torture that culminates when the note rings out. The striking mechanism has been designed to ensure a lasting, velvety-smooth sound that is also delightfully modulated for the wearer’s ears only. The playful and quirky ‘Impatient Hour’ complication is based on this companionable rapport.
HUBLOT
BIG BANG UNICO SAPPHIRE USAIN BOLT FOR ONLY WATCH
Estimate: CHF 50,000 – 80,000
In a 45 mm Big Bang case, the Big Bang Unico Sapphire Usain Bolt for Only Watch showcases a green and gold design paired with a transparent strap. This unique piece will be auctioned with a second strap, in yellow-gold colour calfskin, featuring the silhouette of the Jamaican flag, in a nod to the athlete’s origins. The counter at 9 o’clock bears the silhouette of the “Lightning Bolt” and his iconic victory sign.
Hublot has created a transparent watch out of sapphire, one of the most difficult materials to machine. In choosing this material, it has sought to convey a message – that of pushing limits ever further, always believing that they can be exceeded or overcome.
COLLABORATION AND EXPERIENCE
Since 2005, Hublot has been working alongside ONLY WATCH to support the courage and determination both of children suffering from Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and of future generations, and so that, one day, research will triumph over this disease.
Is there anyone who symbolises victory, courage, determination and the desire to excel better than Usain Bolt? This is why, alongside this unique piece, Hublot is not only offering the successful bidder a PUMA T-shirt signed by Usain Bolt, but will also organise a meet & greet with the fastest man in the world himself.
JACOB & CO
EPIC X CHRONO ONLY WATCH 2017
Estimate: CHF 20,000 – 25,000
Launched at Baselworld 2013, the Epic X line from Jacob & Co. became synonymous with a sportive and active lifestyle. Now in 2017, it has been integrated into a new collection: The Epic X Chrono.
This new timepiece features a 47mm case and the JCAA05 skeletonized self-winding chronograph caliber. Boasting a column-wheel, to launch the chronograph, the masterpiece sets itself as a part of the most sophisticated high-end chronograph watches. Its counters are arranged in the so-called “bi-compax” format, with the small seconds of the running time on the left and the elapsed minutes counter on the right. As a practical additional function, the Epic X Chrono was created with a rotating inner bezel that can be controlled by pushing and turning a yellow rubber crown, which will set a countdown timer. Its high- end finish can be admired through a transparent sapphire crystal caseback. A screw-down crown ensures water resistance up to 200 meters.
EXPERIENCE
Live a sparkling evening in company of Jacob Arabo, owner and founder of Jacob & Co.
The owner of the Epic X Chrono Only Watch 2017 will have the privilege to attend in St. Tropez the yearly “Leonardo Dicaprio Foundation” gala in July 2018. The fund-raising dinner conveys the most famous celebrities around the world supporting the Leonardo Di Caprio foundation dedicated to protect the planet and the vulnerable wildlife from extinction.
JAQUET DROZ
GRANDE SECONDE OFF-CENTERED CUPRITE
Estimate: CHF 30,000 – 40,000
This reinterpretation of the legendary Grande Seconde watch and its playful figure 8 – the symbol of infinity and completeness that has come to represent Jaquet Droz – features a cuprit background. Its fiery red color embodies all the passion dedicated to both the timepiece and the Only Watch project.
The cut of the mineral dial requires the extreme, expert delicacy for which Jaquet Droz is known. Each inclusion, vein and detail of the dial makes for a singular masterpiece. But the Grande Seconde goes even further: the two counters traditionally aligned on the 12 o’clock / 6 o’clock axis are made off-center, adding an original, dynamic touch to this purest of canvases. The thinness of the circled gold flanges match that of the hands and the majestic direct-drive seconds hand, while the crown is shifted to 4 o’clock for a subtle aesthetic twist.
KONSTANTIN CHAYKIN
JOKER
Estimate: CHF 10,000 – 15,000
While watchmaking tends to feature a thoughtful and straight face, Chaykin proposes an unconventional approach of recreating watches as kinetic pop art pieces. The Joker watch is emotionally faced and you never know what face is going to be next minute. Chaykin has adventured creation of a new fine movement spirit that is protean, ever spectacular and provocative.
A two-disk current time display module with the Joker’s eyes as hours and minutes, and a moon phase indicator being the Joker’s best smile were designed exclusively for the Joker watch. Reliable, time proven automatic ETA caliber is embedded with a friction reducing eight-stone module, while the case has a second winder for adjusting the moon phase.
The Joker is the card capable to change the game course. It comes out to beat any other card, creates incredible combinations and provokes spectacular moves. It is a synonym for good luck, a forerunner of a dazzling adventure and a hint implying risk playing with the Fate itself and triumph.
LAURENT FERRIER & URWERK
Estimate: Not Available
The story started behind the watchmaking scenes. It was in November 2015 at a watchmaking exhibition like many others, thousands of kilometres away from Geneva. There, two watchmakers, exiled from the cocoons of their respective workshops, made a tentative effort to escape the crowds and take a break. Slightly bewildered by friendly bustle, they sought refuge under a staircase. They hardly knew each other, though their paths had crossed, but destiny seemed to have brought them together. Thus did Laurent Ferrier and Felix Baumgartner meet.
“We simply introduced ourselves,” recalls Felix Baumgartner. “Of course, I knew him by sight and something about him. But there, we seemed to be alone in the world, lost in a bubble, and so we got to know one another.” Laurent Ferrier picks up the story: “I’m rather shy by nature, but I quickly found common ground with Felix. The place was peculiar, but the time was right.”
Their friendship was to blossom into a joint project — to build a bridge between two watchmaking companies and thereby to create an exceptional watch for a noble cause. Combining tradition with daring innovation was like mixing oil and water. But that is precisely what URWERK’s Martin Frei likes doing best. “When I learned about the project, I was immediately enthusiastic. Bringing together two visions, two cultures and two generations in a single creation seemed to me a splendid stylistic exercise.”
The 2017 Only Watch by Laurent Ferrier and URWERK is now no longer just a project. The ideas have consolidated into a complete design, the suppliers have been lined up and a single, unique watch is ready to be born of this unlikely and unexpected association.
There is no image of a complete watch as yet, but this sketch has been released.
LOUIS MOINET
METROPOLIS ONLY WATCH
Estimate: CHF 17,000 – 22,000
From Jules Verne to the Little Prince, and from Georges Méliès to Neil Armstrong, the Moon embodies all the dreams and challenges of humankind. And for its first contribution to Only Watch, Louis Moinet has reached across 380,000 km to our lunar satellite, so as to offer children a brighter future.
“We thought long and hard about how best to reach for the Moon and help children suffering from myopathy,” explains Jean-Marie Schaller, Ateliers Louis Moinet’s CEO and Creative Director. “The legacy left by Mr Louis Moinet himself helped guide us in the creation of this timepiece. As a watchmaker, he was one of the pioneers of observational astronomy. This piece demonstrates our commitment to Only Watch – and also offers a fitting tribute to an outstanding inventor and committed humanist.”
For its first contribution to the Only Watch charity auction, Ateliers Louis Moinet has summoned the very essence of its knowhow. The firm has produced a unique timepiece, “Metropolis for Only Watch” – a most worthy successor to Mr Louis Moinet’s own Compteur de Tierces from 1816, the first chronograph in history, which was also used for observational astronomy.
