Panerai has debuted an entirely new composite material for case manufacture. The material results from an electrochemical process called ceramization. Officially known as Panerai Composite, it is harder than steel, titanium and even most of the ceramics normally used ofr watchmaking, yet it retains the lightweight characteristics of aluminum.

Finally, the firm introduced a wholly new tourbillon called the Exo-Tourbillon Chronographe in which the balance has been separated from the cage to isolate it from the disturbing movements of the escapement. This separation made it possible to create the world’s first tourbillon in which the rotating cage is smaller than the balance, which oscillates outside the cage and on a higher plane.

Also developed at the firm’s Institute Minerva, this groundbreaking tourbillon model boasts a column-wheel chronograph (based on Minerva’s wonderful caliber 16.60) and a regulator layout. To be made in limited editions of eight in two types of gold and one edition in platinum, the Exo-Tourbillon Chronographe will likely be the subject of as much discussion in the near future as the Metamorphosis. In fact, we’ll write more about both these models in a future issue.

Simply stated, by moving a slide down or up, Metamorphosis changes from a watch with hours, minutes and seconds display to a chronograph right before your eyes. Prior to its transformation, a subdial with a lone hour hand occupies the 12 o’colck position on the dial, while a retrograde minute hand sweeps between eight and four from the center of the main dial. A large second hand shares the central axis. A date display is located at 6 o’clock.

The black bezel is notched with 120 teeth to insure accurate setting, and when the crown at 9 o’clock is screwed in, the bezel cannot move. The screw-down crown at 3 o’clock moves the hour and minutes hands and sets the date. The dial is available in black or deep blue with applied rhodium-coated Arabic numerals and indexes-all with luminescent coating. The Aquascope is fit with the automatic JR1000 movement developed and produced at the JeanRichard workshops, with 48 hours of power reserve. The watch is water resistant to 300 meters and comes on a black or white structured calfskin strap with a polished stainless steel folding buckle.

The second window, at 6 o’clock, displays a choice of 24 cities for the different time zones. The city indication is change via the crown located at 9 o’clock, while the crown at 3 o’clock set and winds the watch nad sets the date. The use of two PVD-coated titanium screwed crowns gives the watch a uniquely balanced look. In another nod to unique materials, the strap is rubber-coated alligator leather.

One of the phenomenal characteristics of this piece of engineering is its hacking seconds, which occurs without stopping the balance wheel, naturally making the manually wound mechanism far more precise than other hacking movements.

Other delicacies include the new Memovox’s caliber 956, the Reverso Duetto Duo in the feminine watch’s biggest case to date (40 x 25 mm), and the new Marc Newson Atmos 566 in a Baccarat crystal case limited to twenty-eight pieces ( forty-eight pieces in the transparent version).

Like the first LAB watch, LAB 2 boasts a great deal of innovative experimental technology such as a silicon escapement . This chronograph, however, is out fitted with a traditional vertical clutch and olumn wheel, complete with Jaeger-LeCoultre’s own movable inertia balance wheel. A large spring barrel guarantees sixty hours of power, and the watch is resistant to magnetism of up to 240 Gauss-without utilizing an inner iron core.

For a manufacture known as the “watchmaker’s watchmaker” with more than forty movements currently in production, it might seem like no great feat to add four more to the roster on the occasion of the twentieth edition of the SIHH. When the movement are of such technical magnitude, however, it can be considered a grand accomplishment no matter how you look at it.