Franck Muller has a special relationship with this part of the world. Last year, the flamboyant watchmaker built a temporary exhibition at its flagship in Wisma Atria—a retrospective of 30 years of watch-making and -designing.
This year, coinciding with Cortina Watch’s 50th anniversary, Franck Muller created the Vanguard Revolution 3 Skeleton Cortina Watch 50th Anniversary Special Edition. Only five unique pieces—one in emerald, another in ruby and three different diamond iterations—were made.
This year alone, the Swiss maison released multiple models exclusive to the South-east Asian region. These include the Vanguard Casablanca, the Round Rainbow Skeleton, and the Vanguard Rose Skeleton Black Diamonds Southeast Asia Exclusive.
The latest, and arguably the most technically proficient: the Vanguard Skeleton Colour Dreams in 43mm. First presented at Franck Muller’s World Presentation of Haute Horlogerie (WPHH), the timepiece is an engineering marvel.
Franck Muller continued using CarboTech—made when multiple layers of carbon fibre are compressed with immense amounts of pressure together with a high-end polymer called Polyether Ether Ketone for nine hours at 120 degrees Celsius—to house the FM 1740-VS Calibre. It was previously used in the earlier 45mm iteration.
Because of CarboTech’s nature, each watch is unique because of the different striations that emerge. The case is buffed completely by hand.
The Colour Dreams range has been around for 20 years when Franck Muller first splashed the colours of the rainbow on its signature oversized hour markers. The result was so popular (and inspiring) that Franck Muller extended the range to its other models.
This year, it was the skeleton’s turn.
But, the smaller case size of 43mm meant that the movement had to be adjusted. The stacked twin barrels, which deliver up to seven days of power, and the large balance wheel—running at 18,000 vph—have been tweaked with no compromise on technical accuracy and proficiency. Instead, the team has secured the satin-finished, anodised aluminium bridges directly to the inner case, which has been machined precisely to fit within the curved outer case.
And what about the colours? There are no paintbrushes at the Franck Muller atelier. Instead, the plates and bridges are coloured using electrolytic anodisation, accomplished by dunking aluminium into an acid electrolyte bath and passing an electric current through the metal to attract oxygen ions onto the material. Because of this, Franck Muller had to engineer the watch components from aluminium, instead of the traditionally used brass or nickel silver.
It’s a visually stunning watch, made even more spectacular when you understand the effort that goes into making this Vanguard Skeleton Colour Dreams in 43mm. Horology has always been a winning mixture of art and engineering and this Franck Muller masterpiece is the perfect example.
