What happens when a watchmaker teams up with a comic book illustrator
Perhaps no other watchmaker has quite as much fun as Ulysse Nardin. When they're not pushing the boundaries of chronometry and silicon utilise, they're building watches with no crown, hands or punch and calling them Freaks, or directing their mastery of repeater technology to crafting jacquemarts getting freaky in the biblical sense.
The Le Locle-based brand is quite expert at the latter; for years Ulysse Nardin has been making erotic watches that are mechanical and artistic masterpieces, featuring sculpted figures in precious metals moving in time to a loud and clear hitting mechanism set against highly detailed engravings. This year'south sensual novelty continues the tradition, but this fourth dimension with the assistance of notable comic volume illustrator Milo Manara.
READ> From mysterious felines to comic book characters: Watches with artsy dials
Manara's fifty-year career includes artwork for Italian filmmakers Federico Fellini and Alejandro Jodorowsky, author Neil Gaiman and covers for Marvel comics, and he's built his reputation on his erotic all the same elegant style. This style has been manifested in the Ulysse Nardin Classico Manara watches, a limited-edition series of 10 different dial designs that together tell a story of a woman named Nadia and her steamy honey affair with the mermaid Ulyssa. A voyeuristic shark is besides involved. "The clock lends itself particularly precisely to this theme because in eroticism there is eternity," said Manaro in a printing statement.
The fantastical tale unfolds sequentially through the dials merely Manara has ensured that each pattern, realised in stunning watercolour detail, can stand lonely. Ulysse Nardin and so enlisted the help of some of the best miniature painters in the industry to reproduce Manara'southward design onto watch dials. Given how the dials are about ten times smaller than Manara's original drawings, each one took approximately 50 hours to consummate, and required the use of unmarried-hair brushes equally thick as an eyelash.
Since the fine art takes centrestage, just hours and minutes are offered, via luminous leafage-shaped hands. Information technology is powered by the in-firm automated UN-320 movement, which is equipped with a silicon hairspring and the brand'southward signature anchor escapement, and comes with a standard 48-hour power reserve. The collection consists of x pieces per drawing, in stainless steel or 18K rose gold, making a total of 200 pieces.
As far every bit artistic watches go the Classico Manara collection is certainly stunning, and the fact that they're all mitt-painted means no lookout will be identical. Merely it could exist disappointing for long-time fans who valued the technical prowess of Ulysse Nardin's previous erotic watches. Miniature painting in watchmaking isn't quite as rare as little figures whose amorous activities could be brought to life on demand.
But these changes are in line with CEO Patrick Pruniaux's plan to have the make channel a more youthful energy. With a new (if slightly cheesy) tagline of "We Xplore, We Xcite. We Xist. We are Ulysse.", the introduction of the entry-level Freak X lookout man this twelvemonth and now a collaboration with a comic book fable, Ulysse Nardin is clearly trying to make its luxury watches more accessible to a new generation. But as long as the squad keeps the fun live with radical, brow-raising innovations, that's just fine and bang-up with u.s. geezers.
0 Response to "What happens when a watchmaker teams up with a comic book illustrator"
Post a Comment