20 Brands, 20 Highlight Watches: Here’s What You’ll See at WatchTime New York 2015


The wait is over! WatchTime New York, America’s largest luxury watch show, starts tonight at Gotham Hall and features 20 sponsoring watch brands displaying their new timepieces for 2015. Scroll down to see each brand’s showcase watch, and click on the links for detailed reports on each.

The new, gold-cased, black-dialed version of the A. Lange & Söhne Datograph Up/Down, combines a flyback chronograph — with a classic column-wheel control mechanism and precisely jumping minute counter — with a large “Outsize” date indication, a hallmark of the Glashütte-based brand. The “Up/Down” in the watch’s name refers to the other element on the dial — the power-reserve indicator with “AUF” (“up”) representing the maximum power reserve of 60 hours when fully wound, and “AB” (“down”) warning the wearer that the mainspring’s energy has been depleted.

A. Lange and Sohne Datograph Up-Down - front

The Armin Strom Skeleton Pure Water — which recently won Germany’s prestigious Red Dot Award for design — is part of the brand’s Skeleton Pure collection, which “celebrates the mechanical architecture of a movement by highlighting the layered construction of the components.” The movement, Caliber ARM09-S, is skeletonized and features a mainplate accentuated through 3D PVD colorization and is also notable for its eight-day power reserve.

Armin Strom Skeleton Pure Water - front

The Ball Engineer Master II Slide Chronograph uses a mechanical slide, rather than traditional pushers, to start, stop and reset the stopwatch. Breaking with the traditional architecture of both the two-pusher and the monopusher system, the mechanism in the Ball Engineer Master II Slide Chronograph combines the start, stop, and zero-reset mechanisms in a single integrated control, located at the 9 o’clock position on the case.

Ball Engineer Master II Slide Chronograph - front

The Bell & Ross BR-X1 Carbon Forgé is a new evolution of one of the brand’s top watches in 2014, the BR-X1, a chronograph that played off the brand’s popular classic, the BR-01. The BR-X1 Carbone Forgé shows off the chronograph in a striking new case made of forged carbon. The dial has a tinted sapphire crystal, so your eyes are immediately drawn to its clear indications: applied metal indexes with Super-LumiNova inserts at the hour markers the hour and minutes hands, also luminous, are skeletonized. The chronograph seconds hand is mounted at the center of the dial and a 30-minute timer subdial (with a subtle turbine shape in aluminum) is at 9 o’clock.

Bell & Ross BRX1-Carbone-Forge-soldier folded strap 560

The Blancpain Villeret Grand Date, the first big-date watch in the Villeret line, is built on Caliber 6950, an automatic movement first presented by Blancpain in 2005, which is 32 mm wide and 4.75 mm thick. The 6950 has two mainspring barrels for a 72-hour power reserve. The movement has 285 components, among them 35 jewels, and includes a big-date mechanism designed to shift instantly at midnight.

Blancpain Villeret Grand Date soldier 560

The Breguet Tradition Chronographe Indépendant 7077 pulls off an unusual feat. Looking at it, you’re actually seeing two watches at once. Or, to be more accurate, one timekeeper and one chronograph. Within its 44-mm gold case, the 7077 has two entirely independent gear trains for its two primary functions. Unlike dual-escapement watches that use a differential to average out the rate of the two springs, the 7077 has no interaction between its parts. Within its manual-wind movement, Caliber 580DR, is an escapement for the hours and minutes that beats at 21,600 vph, with an additional high-beat chronograph escapement oscillating at 36,000 vph.

Breguet Tradition Chronogrpahe Independant - front

The Carl F. Bucherer Patravi ScubaTec, which boasts a water-resistance of 500 meters, is now available in a 44.6-mm-diameter case made of 18k rose gold. The notched, unidirectional rotating bezel in the Lucerne-based brand’s first professional-grade dive watch features a ceramic insert, indicating the first 15 minutes of dive time, in a bright blue color created exclusively for Carl F. Bucherer. The movement is CFB’s automatic Caliber CFB 1950.1, which has been certified by COSC as a chronometer and holds a power reserve of 38 hours.

Carl F Bucherer Patravi ScubaTec - gold - front

The Emmanuel Bouchet Complication One — a finalist for the “Mechanical Exception” award in the prestigious Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, is the very first timepiece in the eponymous watch brand of French independent watchmaker Emmanuel Bouchet, who became known in the watch-aficionado community as the mastermind behind the Harry Winston Opus 12. The watch features both a new type of transmission system and a unique way of reading the time: the heart of the mechanism, the double escape wheel with inward teeth and the distinctively designed anchor, are positioned prominently in the center of the dial.

Emmanuel Bouchet Complication One - gold case

The F.P. Journe Chronomètre Optimum takes brand founder Francois-Paul Journe’s quest for timekeeping precision to a new level. The watch, which Journe calls the “masterpiece” of his eponymous brand’s Souveraine collection, incorporates in its manufacture movement all of the technologies that Journe has developed — which have previously debuted in other Souveraine watches — to ensure ideal timekeeping precision and stability. These include Journe’s patented, constant-force remontoire device, here made of titanium for the first time, which balances the driving force applied to the escapement by means of an extra gear that is wound in short spurts by the mainspring, and another patented invention, the EBHP high-performance bi-axial escapement, which uses two wheels and functions without lubricant in order to reduce friction.

F.P. Journe Chronmetre Optimum - frontThe MeisterSinger Adhaesio is an innovative new GMT watch. While a single, central, needle-shaped hand to indicate the current time on the outer scale, numbered from 1 to 12 and subdivided into five-minute increments. Simultaneously, a small red arrow above the MeisterSinger logo points to the second time on an inner 24-hour scale on a rotating ring, separated from the main 12-hour ring by another ring, numbered 1 to 31, that displays the date.

MeisterSinger Adhaesio - Black Dial

The Moritz Grossman Benu Power Reserve represents the second generation in the Glashütte-based brand’s flagship collection, boasting several technological breakthroughs, including a linear power reserve display; a newly designed oscillator (the “Grossmann balance”) designed entirely in-house; a winder with pusher and enhanced hand-setting mechanism; and a modified Glashütte stopwork with a flexible arrangement of parts.

Moritz Grossmann BENU Power Reserve - front

Mühle Glashütte offers the new Robert Mühle Auf/Ab, which adds a new complication to the German brand’s collection. The watch’s name comes from its “Auf/Ab” circular power-reserve indicator at 12 o’clock, which displays to the wearer how much of the watch’s 56-hour power reserve remains before it stops.

Muhle Robert Muhle Auf-Ab

The Nomos Metro 38 Datum and Metro 38 Datum urban gray are the latest additions to this Glashütte brand’s Metro collection, which has won awards for its minimalist, Bauhaus-influenced designs. In contrast to their predecessors, the new watches’ dials do not have power-reserve displays — making for an even cleaner dial — but do feature extra-large date indicators at 6 o’clock along with the small seconds subdial and a slightly larger case diameter.

NOMOS Metro 38 Datum - reclining

The showcase feature of the Pierre DeRoche TNT Royal Retro is its GMT (second time zone) indicator, which is adjustable to the nearest half-hour by using the crown rather than a standard corrector button, a rare feature in the watch world. Moreover, the GMT function — in which the GMT hours and minutes hands advance in 30-minute increments to ensure precise half-hours — can be operated without stopping the main movement.

Pierre DeRoche TNT Royal Retro GMT - front

The Porsche Design 1919 Datetimer Series 1 is an entirely new collection debuting at WatchTime New York. Its design is heavily influenced by the Bauhaus art-and-design movement that had a profound effect on company founder Ferdinand Alexander Porsche. It features a 42-mm titanium case with a glass bead-blasted finish and unique lugs with an eye-catching gap providing a smooth, form-locking transition between the case and the bracelet or strap. Bauhaus minimalism is evident in the stark, black dial, which conveys only the most essential information — hours, minutes and central seconds, and the date in a window at 4 o’clock.

Porsche Design 1919 Datetimer Series 1 - All-Black

The American-made RGM 801 Corps of Engineers Watch has its roots in American horological history. Based on the World War I-era railroad watches issued to American engineers on overseas duty, the watch adheres to the General Railroad Timepiece Standards of 1893, which required that watches have bold, Arabic numerals on a white dial with dark hands. The grand feu enamel dial emulates the glass enamel dials of the originals.

RGM 801 Corps of Engineers - front

Seiko’s limited-edition Grand Seiko 55th Anniversary Spring Drive Chronograph commemorates 55 years of the Japanese brand’s most luxurious watch collection and features the proprietary Spring Drive chronograph movement. The watch has a deep blue dial (the Grand Seiko line’s signature color), gold-toned chronograph hands, a date window at 3 o’clock, power-reserve display at 7 o’clock, small seconds subdial at 9 o’clock, and a central GMT hand.

Seiko Grand Seiko 55th Anniversary Spring Drive Chronograph LE - angle

The Tutima M2 is a hyper-masculine chronograph inspired by one of the German brand’s classical military watches. It follows in the footsteps of the Tutima NATO chronograph, long known as the official service watch of the German army’s pilots. This timepiece stands out from the chronograph pack with its large, central sweep-minutes counter and utilizes a dial train, modified from the earlier Military model and proprietary to the brand, to ensure a very legible reading of the elapsed chronograph minutes.

Tutima M2 - front

The Ulysse Nardin Freak “Blue Phantom” uses even more silicon parts in the movement than previous Freaks, including for the hairspring and throughout the majority of the escapement. The movement, Caliber UN-208, is produced entirely in-house, including the oscillator. It is outfitted with an eight-day “flying” carrousel tourbillon, which makes a complete revolution around the center once every hour to indicate hours and minutes.

Ulysse Nardin Freak Blue Phantom

Italian luxury-pen specialist Visconti launched its first watches in 2013 and showcases its new Visconti Crystal Fire W107 at WatchTime New York. The watch is the latest in Visconti’s Crystal Demo collection, inspired by the Florentine brand’s transparent “demonstrator” pens and boasts huge, see-through cases, forged from single blocks of sapphire, that offer an all-angles view of the movement inside while simultaneously protecting those exposed parts.

Visconti Crystal Fire W107 - frontTonight’s cocktail event is sold out, but tickets for the Saturday session of WatchTime New York are still available! Click here for info and tickets.

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