Symbolic of this new brand this watch is equipped with a manual winding regulator movement, the dimensions of this large and slightly domed piece represent the 16:9 ratio of a television screen. It measures 43.5 mm in length, 37 mm in height, and 10.5 mm thickness. At first glance, one sees the mechanical genes of the watch, in the form of an unusual array of rods driving an hour disk. But in this genetic sequence, the codes have been carefully revisited and transfigured into a very contemporary style.
The originality of reading the time lies in the double device of a jumping hour (revealed in the window of a cut-out rotating disk) coupled with a retrograde minute display. The small seconds hand is in a little dial at 5 o’clock. The intriguing rods, evocative of yesterday’s trains, drive the jumping hour disk. When the minute hand reaches 60 minutes, a device activated by a central spiral causes the end of the rod to arm a small spring with an inertia block that, in turn, drives the rotation of the hour disk.
Framed by its 16:9 case in yellow, rose or white gold, with its hand-positioned hour markers on the sapphire dial protected by a bevelled edge sapphire crystal, the first Hautlence has one foot in classicism and the other foot in the most contemporary mechanical poetry.
There is four-screw sapphire crystal caseback, a plate with identification and number, a triple gold clasp, double pushbutton safety clasp on the hand-sewn alligator skin bracelet. Water-resistant to 50 metres.






Full article in print copy of Europa Star BaselWorld issue 2/2005

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