by Kyle Stults on January 21, 2010
I wrote a few days ago about an intriguing new watch presented at SIHH 2010 by Montblanc (see here) – the “Montblanc Metamorphosis” – and I promised to be back with more details about it. Well….I now have more information about this most curious and clever watch.
Basically, by moving a slide down or up, the dial of this timepiece changes from a wristwatch with hour, minute, second display to a chronograph and vice versa. Four wings in the lower half of the face open, slide under one another, and finally disappear to the left and right beneath the dial’s middle bar. A similar sequence transpires with two wings on the regulator’s hour dial at the “12.” After all the wings have opened, a subdial rises like the floor of an elevator at the 6 o`clock position, an aperture in this rising disk “swallows” the date-hand. The newly risen rotating disc is the minute counter of the chronograph. This fully mechanical, elevator-like function will no doubt evoke the admiration of aficionados of the fine art of watchmaking who witness this unprecedented transformation. Whoa!
I would like to point out that this watch is credited in large part to two obviously very gifted and creative talents, Johnny Girardin and Franck Orny. They used methods from the traditional art of “automatons” construction (basically, the art of making old school mechanical “robots”) with great modern day application! Nice work guys!
Now – if you want to see the “metamorphosis” in action, check out this video from Montblanc:
One face of the Montblanc Metamorphosis……
…and the other…the same watch, mind you (not 2 different watches!)
Also, you can read more and in depth about this watch here on our SIHH Forum / Montblanc stream.
p.s. – I still don’t like the droopy shape (“teardrop” Montblanc calls it) of the watch. Cool mechanics, though!
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