Big size watches are fashionable, we review the coolest models
The fashion of large watches began in 1970 with the Royal Oak model, designed by Gerald Genta for Audemars Piguet, the first luxury sports watch made of steel and with a diameter unthinkable for the time: 39 mm. But it took many years for large-scale watches to establish their reign. It was at the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 21st century when they really took full power.
Subsequently, in recent years, and despite the Vintage trend, which reduces the size of the boxes considerably, some examples of oversize watches keep appearing continuously because, among other things, men like to show the size of the one that today It is your fetish complement.
Signatures of all signs and models of all kinds make up the list of large displacement clocks. Personalists, provocateurs, sports or elegant, for them size continues to matter.
Corum, Bubble 47 Booba
In the year 2000 the Corum firm shook the aesthetic foundations of watchmaking with a collection that has become an icon: Bubble watches. Its source of inspiration was an experimental clock from 1960 and whose thick sapphire crystal produces a magnifying glass effect. Seventeen years later, and after having been resurrected in the collections a year ago, an extensive collection of models designed by artists - a DJ and composer, a photographer and a rapper - has been presented for which the box has been expanded up to 52 mm . Bubble 47 Booba designed by the rapper takes on the dial his eighth album, called Nero Nemesis, and the box is made of steel and PVD with rose gold treatment.
Panerai, L'Egiziano
The Italian firm is known for its oversize watches. In fact it was the only one that from its inception was characterized by the enormous size of its boxes, at least at that time, and that we talked about 1997 - the decade of the first large watches - when Vendôme (now called Richemont group) is made charge of the signature. But there is a model that surpasses all: L'Egiziano that with 60 millimeters exceeds all expectations. It is a special edition limited to 500 pieces that, launched in 2009, reproduces the model created for the Egyptian navy in 1956. Its case and its bidirectional rotating bezel are made of brushed titanium and inside it beats the caliber of manual winding P .2002 / 7 provided with an 8-day power reserve.
Hublot, MP-05 LaFerrari
It is the first hybrid built by the Maranello factory. It is the Ferrari par excellence. But it is also the watch that Hublot created in his honor and that was baptized with the same name: MP-05 LaFerrari, fruit of a partnership between both houses started in 2013. The watch is equipped with a manual winding movement consisting of 637 pieces , the one that has the most components of all those manufactured by Hublot. Arranged on a vertical axis, it has a suspended tourbillon with a diameter of 14.5 mm, greater than usually measured by this horological complication. This caliber beats a world record in terms of its power reserve, since it has a range of 50 days supplied by its 11 kites, which are arranged in line and constitute the backbone of the watch.
DelaCour, City Chrono Flyback
The Geneva house is another of the best known for the size of its clocks but also for the very characteristic shapes of its boxes, away from the classic patterns that take the circle and the square as a pattern. The City Chrono Flyback model, in an elliptical shape, is a chronograph equipped with a return function and a harmonious and highly legible arrangement of functions.
To the seconds counters at 3 o'clock and from 24 o'clock to 9 o'clock, the indication of the power reserve at 6 o'clock and that of the date at 1 o'clock is added. Although of considerable dimensions - 55.5 x 54 x 16.5 mm -, the watch is elegant, proportionate and, above all, charismatic. It is available in three limited editions: in titanium (222 pieces), titanium with rose gold bezel (188) and rose gold with carbon bezel (88).
Romain Jerome, Steampunk Urban Safari
The independent watchmaker is famous for creating pieces that belong to the new watchmaking era. In them he expresses his iconoclastic spirit through the celebration of contemporary legends.
Thus, it explores new territories with its new collection Steampunk Urban Safari, a nod to the 1970s and the SAPE, acronym of Société desAmbianceurs et des Personnes Elégantes (Society of creators of Environment and Elegant People), a clothing movement originating in the Congo considered a form of dandyism. A provocative way to pay tribute to fashion. With a sphere integrated in the movement and a box of 50 mm, it is available in two limited editions: one to 25 pieces and made of steel and black PVD and another in red gold and set with 286 diamonds. The strap is crocodile printed with leopard pattern.
