iW Magazine iW Magazine Summer 2017 | Seite 180

Backstory BY MICHAEL THOMPSON REAR VIEWS OF NOTE FABERGÉ VISIONNAIRE CHRONOGRAPH ROSE GOLD Agenhor Manufacture has made several movements for this storied luxury name, adding a chapter about inventive, beautiful timepieces to Fabergé’s already rich history. You may recall that the brand’s Lady Compliquée Peacock drew raves at Baselworld 2015 and took home the Ladies High-Mech prize at the 2015 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève. With time- pieces, it seems, Fabergé is quickly making a name for itself that, in time, may even rival the brand’s renown as a jeweler to the tsars. This beautiful movement, perhaps the most innovative chronograph movement of the year, is at the root of Faberge’s bold re-imagining of how we read watch dials. Fabergé apparently is not content to only remake the dual time dial as it did with last year’s Visionnaire DTZ, which picked up another GPHG award. Fabergé and Agenhor, led by horological wizard Jean-Marc Wiederrecht, this year start- ed with that root technology and cre- ated the Visionnaire Chronograph, which takes aim at standard, multi- subdial chronograph. Instead of reading the time with elapsed hours, minutes and seconds subdials placed around two or three centralized timekeeping hands, the Faberge Visionnaire Chronograph pro- poses that you might prefer to find the results of a timed event in the center of the watch, all within one standard watch dial. The ongoing time itself is visible along the perimeter of the dial, shown via disks. To make this a reality, Agenhor has built this movement as a broad circle or ring with a wholly new, patented chronograph clutch and innovative gearing (the central chrono- graph wheel is tooth-free, for example) all moved to the center. Fortunately for us, the ball- bearing-free platinum rotor powers the watch on the dial side, clearing our view of the impressive caliber 6361. THE ESSENTIALS CASE 43mm pink gold/titanium or ceramic/titanium, 14.7mm thick with domed sapphire crystal MOVEMENT Automatic Caliber AGH 6361, dial-side platinum rotor with opaline decoration, twin spring barrels, 21,600 vph, patented regulator, circular- grained mainplate, bridges finished with Cotes de Genève, hand polished chamfering PRICE $39,500 178 | INTERNATIONAL WATCH | SUMMER 2017 iWMAGAZINE .COM