Zenith is following its LVMH stablemate Hublot into collaborating with a global contemporary artist for the creation of a special edition watch.
Hublot has a successful ongoing partnership with French sculptor Richard Orlinski and Zenith will be hoping that working with Argentinian-Spanish artist Felipe Pantone on limited editions will do the same trick.
Mr Pantone’s first commission was not for a watch, but for a dramatic façade of its building in Le Locle in 2020.
Now Zenith has revealed a version of its Defy 21 with Mr Pantone’s influence seen in the use of vivid rainbow colors across the chronograph’s hands, dial, bridges, rotor and movement.
Zenith calls it a wearable piece of kinetic art that is all about playing with frequencies — visually and mechanically thanks to the El Primero 9004’s movement beating at 360,000 vibrations per hour to give its chronograph accuracy to within 1/100th of a second.
“I’m thrilled and humbled to be able to give my personal touch to a watch for the first time, and especially with a manufacture that I deeply admire for its innovation and daringness,” says Mr Pantone.
“From the start, the concept was to transform this spectacular piece of watchmaking into a wearable work of kinetic art, where time and light converge into a single object. I couldn’t be more thrilled with the result.”
The black ceramic watch, limited to 100 pieces, is on sale for CHF 18,900.