Ulysse Nardin stands out from the crowd

ROLLED out by independent Swiss watchmaker Ulysse Nardin over two decades ago, the revolutionary Freak was a “hyper watch” that defied and reconfigured centuries-old norms in watchmaking, putting Ulysse Nardin on the list of respectable and innovative watchmakers.

The Freak X, introduced in 2019, has continued with the tradition of battling conventions and making breakthroughs, this time in bringing the price of a high complication down more to earth.

Like the original Freak, and the dozens of variations that came after, the Freak X is essentially a tourbillon – an unconventional one. The gravity-defying complication, including the early Freaks, has traditionally been priced north of S$100,000. While recent models have entered the market at the sub-S$100,000 price point, they have not breached the S$50,000 floor.

Except for the rose-gold version, retailed at S$52,000, the three remaining Freak X models are retailed at below S$50,000 – two at S$37,200 and one at S$40,100. These prices are about one-fifth that of the Freak Vision launched a year earlier.

Ulysse Nardin is mighty proud of its watchmakers and integrated factories in Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds not only for their cutting-edge technology, innovative spirit and avant-garde design, but also high efficiency and cost savings.

Of course, it also helps that the self-winding movement powering the Freak X is a simpler and less costly version of the Freak Vision’s mechanism, with the orbital oscillator and silicon escapement stripped off. Yet, minus the very essence of the Freak, the Freak X still comes with one of the Freak Vision’s most important technical advances – a lightweight, balance wheel in silicon with nickel flyweights and stabilising micro-blades in its movement. 

The Freak X’s “baguette” movement remains a carousel, turning once on itself every hour to indicate the time. Still, in some way, the movement is more like a traditional automatic movement because it enables hand winding and setting by a conventional crown. And the latter is the most noticeable feature that sets the Freak X apart from the typical Freak model, which relies on the bezel to set the time and a winding device on the case-back to tune the watch. But other than the crown, outwardly the Freak X looks no different from the rest of the models in the Freak family.

The original design of the Freak was conceived by complication specialist Carole Forestier-Kasapi (now at Tag Heuer), who saw the tourbillon as an entirely new way to display time with a revolving movement. When the Freak was launched in 2001 under the watch of then Ulysse Nardin’s maverick owner Rolf W Schnyder and the technical genius watchmaker Ludwig Oechslin, it was a revolution on three fronts – design, mechanical and material – while still steeped in tradition.

Mechanical watches typically hide their workings under a dial. The Freak model has no dial. Its movement doubles as its minute hand, while the hour hand is a pointer set on a rotating disc sitting under the movement. With no dial, no hands and no crown, the Freak bores little resemblance to anything ever worn on the wrist. In other words, it’s a freak – but one that’s visually captivating nonetheless.

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The Freak brought an intellectual depth to watchmaking that only wonder-and-awe innovation can provoke. It eliminated the age-old need for lubrication in the watch mechanisms with a natural escapement, the first watch to incorporate it. The balance wheel, hairspring and escapement of its movement were crafted from silicon, a space-age material. This hard grey crystalline solid is also highly energy efficient, harder than steel, more precise, shock-resistant, more resilient and runs more smoothly; and it’s anti-magnetic.

Ulysse Nardin was the first to experiment, and successfully used silicon to make the Freak an unconventional tourbillon. Today, the material is commonly used in watchmaking.

The Freak X underscores that Ulysse Nardin remains at the forefront of applying new cutting-edge materials to advance watchmaking. The model comes in four versions and the showcase piece, at least from a technical viewpoint, is the Freak X Carbonium. It is made of aeronautic-grade carbonium – a new, super light material used to build the latest-generation airplane’s fuselage and wings, which are the most vital and essential parts in today’s modern airplanes. And Ulysse Nardin is the first to use this material in its watch.

The carbonium case of the Freak X Carbonium has a resistance-to-lightness ratio which is unparalleled and, thanks to the high performance material, displays a distinctive marbled design that makes each case unique.

Carbonium is further noted for its sustainability. The production of carbonium entails high pressures and heatings to compress carbon fibres into a robust, resilient material that has 40 per cent less environmental impact than other carbon composite material, due to the use of offcuts from aeronautical pieces.

Two of the four Freak X models feature a titanium case, one with diamond-like carbon and another with physical vapor deposition finishes. There’s also one with a 5N rose-gold case. All the Freak X cases, including the carbonium model, are 43 mm, smaller than the 45 mm typical Freak.

Reading the time on the Freak X is as easy as it had been in previous Freaks – minutes are indicated by the central bridge itself and one of the wheels’ hour, both anchored to a wheel in the centre of the dial.

Price: S$37,200 (titanium), S$40,100 (carbonium), S$52,000 (rose gold).