Popularized by aircraft and Formula One race cars, carbon fiber is now a trending material for watchcases
Hublot Fusion Cathedral Tourbillon Minute Repeater
CARBON GRANDEUR
Hublot Fusion Cathedral Tourbillon Minute Repeater
If you’re looking for the carbon-cased watch of the year, the winner by default is this Hublot timepiece. Having already
bagged the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève Award for the Best Striking Watch last year, the current version packs the same intelligent movement and boasts a beautiful in-house tourbillon at 6 o’clock.
Hublot couples that intricate feature with a minute repeater, which is a watch complication that tells time through chimes. This can be activated by pulling the pusher on the left bezel upward.
Additionally, Hublot stays true to its “material fusion” approach by combining leather and rubber for the strap. Bearing all these elements in mind, the watch is surprisingly thin and light.
Case size: 45MM
Dial: Skeleton
Strap: Rubber and leather
Movement: HUB8001, Manual
Power reserve: 80 Hours
Water resistance: 30M
Limited edition: 99 pieces
TAG Heuer Monaco V4 Phantom
DARK INVADER
TAG Heuer Monaco V4 Phantom
Sometimes the hardest feat to beat is one’s own previous achievement. Luckily, TAG Heuer is not an ordinary brand.
Following its groundbreaking V4 tourbillon movement last year, the first tourbillon with a belt-driven mechanism, comes a serious material reboot that might throw one for a loop at first sight. The black-gray carbon fiber case is quite uncanny for a grand complication, yet the renowned Swiss brand went all the way by also using the same material for the seven bridges on the one-of-a-kind movement.
Given the almost homogenous shade, it is practically impossible to see the micro-belts (at 0.07mm thick) that connect
the gears. The watch has an arresting movement rotor visible from the case-back, to boot.
Case size: 41MM
Dial: Black
Strap: Leather
Movement: V4 Phantom, Automatic
Power reserve: 42 Hours
Water resistance: 50M
Limited edition: 50 pieces
