highlights


The “talking piece” of Zenith

January 2006


Zenith


With its Grande Class Traveller Minute Repeater, Zenith has definitely made a grand impression, and it has done so by dramatically increasing the functions, the complications, and the price of this timekeeper. Selling for about CHF 800,000 per watch, only three pieces will be made per year (one for the USA, one for Europe, and one for Asia). And, as the energetic Thierry Nataf, President and CEO proclaims, the order book already has 17 entries, which means that production for the next six years is already sold out.


Zenith


The plans for this remarkable watch saw the light of day in October 2001, when LVMH made its ambitions clearly known: Zenith would once again become ‘a grand manufacture’ based on the El Primero movement that had been revisited, reworked and improved. The central part of this plan was the gradual return to complicated watches, accompanied by a move upmarket. It would move from the ‘useful’ simple complication to the ‘hyper complication’ as Nataf likes to say, not afraid to use a superlative or two. In this case, though, we must say that the Grande Class Traveller Minute Repeater is deserving of a number of superlatives. Let’s have a look…
The timepiece’s El Primero automatic chronograph movement, with a double barrel, involves not less than 11 hands, and, with the various additional mechanisms, is comprised of 744 component parts that make up 46 functions or indications. Its minute repeater is activated by a pushbutton integrated into the crown, and its hammers are visible on an engraved auxiliary plate, located between 2 and 5 o’clock. It also has an alarm function that has two chime modes, combining two tones or a vibration option.


Zenith


The Traveller Minute Repeater also has a large date at 12 o’clock and a second time zone on the central axis. Four power reserve indicators are placed concentrically at 6 o’clock for the time, chronograph, minute repeater, and chime.
“We have learned an enormous amount with this project,” says Thierry Nataf, who affirms that the realization of this piece requires 30 months of work and involves 30 people at different stages of production. “It is a small manufacture at the heart of the verit-able Zenith manufacture,” he adds.
Presented in an aesthetic pink gold case, with a silvered dial, or in a white gold case with a black dial, both featuring a sapphire crystal, this watch, in spite of its complexity, remains very readable. It is a “talking piece” in every sense of the term.


Zenith



Source: December - January 2006 Issue

Click here to subscribe to Europa Star Magazine.