When Harry Winston added a fourteenth chapter to its long-running Opus series last year, the launch set to rest the question of whether the highly anticipated annual limited-edition collaborations would continue. When the Swatch Group bought the storied New York watch and jewelry company in 2013, more than a few observers predicted an end to the Opus, which by then had seen thirteen launches since former Harry Winston Managing Director Maximilian Busser started Opus for Harry Winston in 2001.
The Opus series annually debuted the work of an independent watchmaker working in collaboration with Harry Winston and the pre-MB&F Busser. Opus debuts at Baselworld were celebrated among aficionados and typically awaited with bated breath by the watch press and collectors.
At the Opus 14 launch last fall in, oddly enough, the spa town of Baden Baden, Germany, Harry Winston’s CEO Nayla Hayek stated unequivocally that the Opus would remain on Harry Winston’s schedule, though a new Opus might not necessarily to be released on an annual basis. She seconded earlier word from her son Marc Hayek, Swatch Group Board member and CEO of Breguet, Blancpain and Jaquet Droz, that the new Opuses would be launched only as they are perfected and ready for the wrist. This in part explained the 2015 debut of the Opus 14 six months after Baselworld and more than two years after a somewhat controversial Opus 13.
In other words, don’t expect a Harry Winston Opus 15 at this year’s Basel fair.
Without an Opus to debut and showcase, Harry Winston at Baselworld this year will nonetheless debut watches replica that extend its own distinctive collections, likely including new models in its core Premier, Avenue, Midnight, Ocean and Histoire de Tourbillon collections.
Already for Baselworld 2016 we’ve seen the Harry Winston Premier Moon Phase 36mm, a new addition to the firm’s Premier collection of ladies watches replica. The newest of what will likely be several new additions to the collection features a customized quartz movement powering a moonphase display on a mother-of-pearl dial.
History
Harry Winston himself founded this famed jewelry company in 1932 and gained notoriety in 1943 after he became the first jeweler to loan diamonds to actresses for the red carpet pre-Academy Award ceremony. Winston also famously donated the storied Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in 1958.
The first Harry Winston full-fledged watch collection debuted in 1989 with the Harry Winston Premier collection. Premier, which remains in the Winston timepiece lineup, features a case with three arches at the top made to echo the facade of the Harry Winston Salon on Fifth Avenue. But that same year Harry Winston also debuted a notable complication created by watchmakers Jean-Marc Wiederrecht and Roger Dubuis (before he launched his own eponymous brand).
That watch, the Harry Winston Bi-retro Perpetual Calendar, featured a debut double-retrograde calendar complication that Harry Winston continued to utilize in different forms for years to come. Its co-inventor Wiederrecht later (in 1996) founded the watch movement company Agenhor and has since provided inventive calibers to Hermès, Van Cleef & Arpels and MB&F, among many others. Wiederrecht would return to Harry Winston in 2009 to make the Harry Winston Opus 9, which he developed with watch designer Eric Giroud. That year the Opus 9 earned Harry Winston the prize for Best Design Watch of the Year at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève.
By the time of Opus 9, Harry Winston had been operating in a new manufacturing facility in Plan-les-Ouates, the Geneva neighborhood known for its concentration of high-end watchmaking companies. Opening the facility in 2007 was a clear statement of confidence by Harry Winston that its watchmaking division, which had expanded almost annually, would remain strong. When the Swatch Group acquired Harry Winston in 2013 for approximately $1 billion, the company gained access to that Group’s deep supply of movements and manufacturing expertise, further underpinning its more recent expansions.
Select Models
Harry Winston prepares to unveil all its 2016 debuts at Baselworld. Here’s a look at a few of its defining watches replica in recent years.
Bi-retro Perpetual Calendar
Harry Winston’s Bi-retro Perpetual Calendar was a world first in 1989 and features a retrograde mechanism by Jean-Marc Wiederrecht and was made in collaboration with Roger Dubuis.
Opus 1
Watches made by François-Paul Journe launched the Harry Winston Opus series in 2001. Journe made a series of three watches replica, each made in six examples. One, the Opus One 5 Day Automatic, featured an F.P. Journe five-day automatic chronometer movement with free-sprung balance, four adjusting weights, in-line lever escapement and fifteen-tooth escape wheel. The second was the Opus One Resonance Chronometer with two time zones and a specially made version of Journe’s resonance chronometer. The third was the Opus One Tourbillon with Journe’s one-minute tourbillon movement with constant-force remontoir.
Histoire de Tourbillon
Since 2009, with its Histoire de Tourbillon N° 1, Harry Winston has offered a set of daring contemporary tourbillon watches replica. The first model consisted of two single-axis tourbillons inclined at 25º each making one revolution in 36 seconds. This watch’s 48mm case is constructed of white gold and Zalium, the ultra‐light zirconium‐based alloy that was originally used in the aerospace industry. Zalium, known for its low density, high‐thermal resistance, and high durability, won’t be found encasing any other watches replica; it is exclusive to Harry Winston timepieces.
In 2013 Harry Winston continued its tourbillon saga with Histoire de Tourbillon 4 that features a single oscillator contained within three concentric cages, each of which rotates not only at a different speed, but also at a different angle with respect to the other cages. The innermost cage encloses the oscillator and escapement and rotates once every 45 seconds. The intermediate cage, which encloses the first, rotates once every 75 seconds. And the third, outermost, cage rotates one revolution every 300 seconds. All this activity takes place within a white gold case with a Zalium case band, arches and lugs. Expect Histoire de Tourbillon No. 7 this year.
Project Z
Harry Winston last year expanded its ongoing collection of Project Z sport watches replica cased in a customized alloy called Zalium. Zalium is a combination of zirconium and aluminum that Harry Winston developed in 2004 for its timepieces. It is light, hypoallergnic and non-corrosive, all of which makes a perfect case for a complex movement. Most Project Z watches replica boast chronographs or other extra functions. In 2015 Harry Winston launched the ninth model, called Project Z9, a high-speed (36,000 bph) fly-back chronograph with an openworked two-tone dial on a galvanic black base. Like its predecessors, this ninth chapter in the Project Z saga was issued in a limited edition: only 300 are being produced. The earlier Project Z6 (2010) was a hand-wound, 24-hour alarm clock movement that, when fully wound, would ring for twenty 20 seconds.
Avenue
The Avenue Collection is inspired by Fifth Avenue and captures the style and architecture of Harry Winston’s home in New York. The classic lines and rectangular shape of the Avenue case recall the decorative elements of the Art Deco period during which Harry Winston founded his namesake business. While most are ladies models, several wide-cased Avenue watches replica feature automatic dual-time movements.
Premier Feathers
Starting in 2012 Harry Winston began to expand its artistic offerings with dials formed from genuine bird feathers. Working with Nelly Saunier, a master feather artist, Harry Winston added to its Premier collection with new models issued in limited production that display marquetry created with the feathers of a bird belonging to an authorized species (pheasant, guinea fowl and peacock) specifically bred for the purpose of making dials. The 36mm gold watches replica show their plumes under the Premier collection’s three-arch case design, evoking the façade at the Harry Winston flagship store in New York. Other Premier models feature butterfly wings, lace and other artisanal treatments.
Premier Glacier
Of course diamonds and Harry Winston have always been best friends, and high-carat timepieces have been offered within most of its timepiece collections over the years, particularly within its Avenue and Premier collections. From 2013 the pictured Premier Glacier looks as though its diamonds have been randomly set to look like a glacier, but diamond setters at Harry Winston worked tirelessly to create an extremely precise and complex setting. To create this 18-karat white gold watch, Harry Winston’s in-house design team first had to develop a specially made dial plate with an elaborately carved grid. This base is then engraved and etched to hundredths of a millimeter’s precision so that each diamond is set exactly with no metal showing. Harry Winston only made five of these watches replica, each with a total of 497 diamonds (weighing approximately 30.59 carats).
Ocean
As the sportiest collection from Harry Winston, Ocean features a range of models with impressive technical features including dual time, chronograph capability, jumping-hour indications and even several tourbillon regulation. From 2013 this 44mm Chronograph Blue Edition in Zalium offers an automatic skeleton chronograph with 42-hour power-reserve, three-dimensional smoked blue sapphire dial, blue minute and hour subdials, luminescent hands and a rotating bezel.
Midnight
Harry Winston introduced this collection at BaselWorld 2011. Midnight was designed as the firm’s new classically elegant collection, a sort of middle ground between the brand’s elaborate Zalium or Ocean models and its high-jeweled pieces. Though most Midnight watches replica are dressy and fairly simple, like the pictured Midnight Retrograde Second Automatic 42mm, a small number of more recent examples add complications, including one with a GMT Tourbillon and another with a minute repeater. Other recent examples feature feather dials, first seen in Harry Winston’s Premier collection. Earlier this year Harry Winston featured its Midnight design as the basis for its charity auction timepiece to honor its second year as a partner with amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. That limited-edition timepiece was made in a two sizes, 42mm and 32mm, in a limited edition of twenty pieces each.