Christophe Claret X-TREM-1 Chocolate Brown

Christophe Claret is an unusual watchmaker. He’s known for his highly complicated watches and the eccentric displays he’s able to create, for his own collections or many other brands that rely on his creativity. We’ve seen that ‘different spirit’ in the Christophe Claret Poker Watch, in the Christophe Claret Kantharos or in the Christophe Claret X-TREM-1, that is now available in a very nice pink gold / Brown PVD colour combination.

We’ve already been impressed by the X-TREM-1, a watch that we had the chance to wear for a while and that we reviewed after its introduction in Baselworld 2012. The whole concept of this timepiece is to indicate time by means of magnetism. The two transparent tubes, placed on each side of the watch contain a metal ball that goes up and down and so indicate the minutes (on the right side) and the hours (on the left side).

These hollow balls are driven by magnetic carriages following a double sliding rod on each side, and they really have no mechanical connection with the movement. The movement, in order to power this complicated mechanism, has two independent barrels. The first one gives energy to the magnetic system and the other one drives the tourbillon and main gear train. Each of them has to be wound independently by a ingenious system on the caseback.

The tourbillon takes place in a dedicated window, on the lower part of the case. It is inclined at 30 degrees on a separated convex titanium plate. The timing gear train is regulated by the tourbillon, while the display gear train is regulated by a special escapement which picks up the relevant information from the timing gear train. The latter is composed of a lever that releases a tooth of the pallet-wheel of the display gear train every 25 seconds, which is is driven by a cam connected to the timing gear train. It is clearly, as usual with Claret, an impressive and ingenious movement.

For this year, the Christophe Claret X-TREM-1 comes in a new limited edition made of pink gold and chocolate brown PVD coated titanium. The alligator strap is also matching the tonality of the case. On the wrist, as we’ve seen during our review, this is a large watch indeed but a highly comfortable and light one. And this new edition shouldn’t set new cards to the game in terms of wearability but it adds a warmer atmosphere with its very nice colour combination.

As for every of its editions, such as the black one you can see here, the new chocolate brown Christophe Claret X-TREM-1 will be available in only 8 pieces. It is priced at $308.000 USD.