On WatchTime’s final day at the Las Vegas watch and jewelry trade show, JCK 2014 and Couture 2014, we visited Maurice Lacroix and got an up-close look at the brand’s headliner piece from this year’s Baselworld, the Maurice Lacroix Masterpiece Gravity.
What makes the Masterpiece Gravity such a technological triumph, Maurice Lacroix tells us, is that it is the first watch to have its movement’s entire assortment — balance staff, pallet lever, pallet staff, escapement wheel and escapement wheel pinion — made of lightweight, self-lubricating silicon. (Other watch brands have introduced silicon escapements into their movements, but none have used silicon for all of these components.) Maurice Lacroix’s watchmakers have also built the movement — which I learned today is the company’s 13th in-house caliber — in a way that the most eye-catching components, including the huge, oscillating balance wheel and moving pallet lever, are visible on the dial side. The watch gets its name “Gravity” from the multi-level construction that makes it appear as though the off-centered hours-and-minutes subdial is floating beneath the domed sapphire crystal and above the movement.
The Maurice Lacroix Masterpiece comes in two versions — one that the brand dubs “classical,” which has a stainless steel case (43 mm in diameter), a white-lacquer subdial with Roman numerals for the hours and minutes, blued steel hands, and a clous de Paris engraved pattern on the dial side of the movement plate.
The “contemporary” version of the watch has a steel case with an anthracite PVD finish. Its hours-and-minutes dial features diamond-cut indices rather than Roman numerals, the hands are rhodium-plated rather than blued, and its plate has an engraved “Grand Colimacon” pattern. The small seconds subdial has a red hand, contrasting with the blue hand of the classical model.
What is also notable about the new Maurice Lacroix Masterpiece Gravity is its price. Both versions of the watch, which Maurice Lacroix tells us will be available at retail in late summer or early fall, are priced at $13,900, which many would consider rather reasonable for a watch with this level of technical complexity and an in-house movement. Below, check out what the “classical” version of the Masterpiece Gravity looks like on the wrist, and a close-up shot of the rear side of the movement through the sapphire caseback.
