At first glance, Harry Winston's new technological wonder - the Opus 11 - looks more like a lethal James Bond secret weapon than a timepiece. Bearing 566 moving components and a case and dial so complex that it defies measurement, the timepiece that was created by Manufacture Contemporaine du Temps' founder Denis Giguet, in collaboration with Harry Winston, is - as its name suggests - the 11th in the Opus series.
More than a decade ago, the famous American jeweller started the Opus series where it would work with one leading watchmaker every year to produce a revolutionary timepiece. The dial itself takes complications to new heights - there really isn't a dial but, instead, 24 rotating plates do their thing for close to 60 minutes and then go into an anarchical jig to deconstruct and then come together again to show the hour with four plates in the centre of the dial.
The transparent display on the back of the gold case reveals a manually wound movement in the style of the old pocket watch movement, with a big balance wheel. It is, as its inventor says, 'a very complicated way to show the simple time'.
Despite its complexity, Giguet says his inspiration for the watch comes from a simple source: the sight of shoals of fish swimming in the ocean. 'The idea was how to expose the time, but it's not easy to find a new system that is different,' Giguet says. 'Then I thought of the fish swimming together in a shoal. When something comes to disturb them, they swim in different directions, then they come back together again. After that, we just had to calculate to make it more mechanical.' Work began on the movement about 19 months ago once they decided on the idea for the watch. The case itself was another challenge for the watch engineers, Giguet says. 'It's the most complicated case you can see with the sapphire dome and flying display. The case is really an important part of the project because it represents Harry Winston's DNA, with the off-centre time and the free area.'
The watch, featuring a power reserve of 48 hours, comes in a limited edition of 111 pieces, 11 of which will have gem settings.
Besides the Opus 11, Harry Winston also introduced the new, elegant Midnight Collection with four references. The masculine versions come with a 42mm case.
The Midnight Big Date also houses a self-winding movement and comes with a black or silver-toned dial featuring a circular guilloche pattern and a sunburst satin-brushed hour circle ex-centred at 12 o'clock. A porthole with twin apertures at 6 o'clock displays the big date. A single diamond is perched above the large date, a reminder of Mr Winston's habit of keeping a gem in his pocket for the pleasure of rolling it between his fingers.