WatchTime - August 2012

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Harry Winston Opus XI
The circles, spins and flips of carnival rides
were what inspired Denis Giguet in his design
of the Opus XI, unveiled last year as
part of Harry Winston’s Opus series featuring
offbeat watches conceived by various
independent watchmakers. Every
hour, on the hour, in the span of 2 or 3 seconds,
the hour display – a system comprised
of a multitude of wheels, pinions, arbors,
bearings and tiles – disintegrates into
utter chaos and then returns to order for
the remainder of the hour.
This chaos originates from a “completely
normal” watch movement with
108 WatchTime August 2012
ontrolled
BY MARTINA RICHTER
For a couple of seconds every hour, the dial looks
like a mess, but then all is made clear. Meet the
Harry Winston Opus XI.
manual winding, a 48-hour power reserve,
and a frequency of 21,600 vph. The movement
has a very large balance, which is visible
in a cylindrical compartment sticking
out from the side of the case. The movement
was designed in the tradition of old
pocketwatch movements, and can be seen
through the transparent sapphire caseback.
The rest of the watch is anything but
normal. The movement’s gear train ends in
the minutes indication, which is itself quite
unusual. It consists of two rotating disks in
a small, cylindrical chamber similar to the
one holding the balance. The larger outer
disk runs smoothly and continuously to
show the single digits, while the smaller, inner
disk printed with numerals for the tens
advances with a jumping action.
But even more unusual is the hour display,
which is the watch’s centerpiece both
literally and figuratively. It would not have
been possible to make this display without
recently developed design and manufacturing
methods.
The display is powered by its own barrel.
As the movement’s other barrel slowly
unwinds, it supplies energy to this second