Jaquet Droz Grande Seconde Skelet-One Ceramic Blue

Inspired by a pocket watch created by Pierre Jaquet-Droz in the 18^th century, the Grande Seconde embodies the essential Jaquet Droz style. Its artful simplicity feels timeless yet modern. With the Grande Seconde Skelet-One introduced in 2018, Jaquet Droz ventured into a more technical and dynamic territory. Doing away with its dial, it offers a new design language for the brand. As a preview of its 2019 collection, the brand now releases a new, more modern version of the model clad in black and blue. Here’s an early hands-on look.

The Jaquet Droz Grande Seconde Skelet-One is a sculptural watch design that reveals its inner workings in full transparency, a mechanical sculpture consisting of watch components, space, light and shadows. The dynamic ceramic case and the black finish of the movement gives the watch a resolutely modern personality.

The Skelet-One is built around the automatic calibre JD2663 SQ. The structure of this skeletonized movement revolves around the JD signature 8 display with off-centred hours and minutes and the “grande” second at 6 o’clock displayed on a sapphire dial. Thanks to its openworked structure, the movement can be discovered in a striking way. In particular, the transparent caseback and skeletonized rotor offer an unobstructed view of the inner workings of the watch, the twin barrels, the gear train, the escapement and the balance wheel (with its distinctive shape and external screws).

This in-house calibre features a silicon balance spring and silicon pallet horns. It beats at 28,800 vibrations per hour and boasts a comfortable 68h power reserve. The advantage of the lack of a casing ring is that the movement fits seamlessly with the contours of the case.

With a relatively reasonable diameter of 41.5mm, the round case is presented in zirconium oxide ceramic. As you have come to expect from Jaquet Droz, the devoted attention to detail is evident. Its inky black case is paired with perfectly aligned blued screws (each screw is turned towards the centre of the watch). The brushed steel hour circle features white gold indexes. The Grande Seconde sub-dial is a sapphire disc printed with a seconds ring and the brand logo.

The Jaquet Droz Grande Seconde Skelet-One Ceramic Blue is available on a blue canvas strap secured with a ceramic and PVD-coated steel folding buckle. Price is set at CHF 24,300. For more information, please visit www.jaquet-droz.com.