A new limited edition collaboration has arrived: discover the Blast [Amoureuxpeintre], fusing fashion with fine watchmaking.
We’re three weeks into the new year and new watch launches are happening aplenty. But it takes a lot to cut through the noise of newness and land the spot as the hottest launch of the year to date. Earning such a title, trailblazing watchmaking for offbeat enthusiasts, Ulysse Nardin, offers up a fresh collaboration to truly honour the sentiment of bringing watchmaking to new audiences.
That’s right, there’s a new collaboration on the market, but don’t scroll away just yet. This one’s a keeper. In the manufacturer’s spirit of doing things differently, the Swiss maestros have summoned the eyes of independent designer, Vsevolod Sever Cherepanov, known by his artistic moniker Amoureuxpeintre, in a bid to merge the realms of fashion and timekeeping. Meet the Blast [Amoureuxpeintre].
As the two universes collide, stripping the slur of “fashion watches” once and for all, this exclusive drop – offering 29 timepieces to a handful of lucky wrists – tells a unique story. It’s a tale of looking, but not truly seeing, a wake up call if you will to look at the world around us, and to look again. To see through the blur and find hidden meaning in the everyday.
At the best of times, the watch industry is a niche community, where reference numbers are spoken like a secret language, and collectors come together to serenade these small objects. In keeping with this spirit of curiosity, the watch takes cues from a simple observation: the glass panes you typically find in office board rooms, where frosted glass distorts figures in view. The result is a silhouette that is caught in a blur – obvious, but not apparent.
This same dichotomy is one articulated through the watches design language with a dial that partly reveals the movement from both the front and caseback view. Hold it up to the light and it’ll even look like you’re taking an X-Ray of the watch and its innards.
But something so simple is never as such by execution. The work of three years of development and one of the brand’s most complex creations to date, due to techniques in metallisation and the fumé effect achieved on the sapphire, it’s a testament to both Ulysse Nardin’s progressive vision, and the challenge of finding harmony with a non-horological thinker.
Both minimalist and muted in palette – the crux of Amoureuxpeintre’s vision – fasten this new model to your wrist and you’ll be reminded not only of the time, but prompted to appreciate the beauty of what’s around you. It’s a calling to look, and then look again.