Elite Traveler Fall 2019

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LOUIS VUITTON VoyagerMinute Repeater Flying Tourbillon Not surprisingly, La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton produces highly colorful, fashionable, eye-catching watches; it's also at the forefront of high horology and complicated timepieces. This year, it got our attention with its Voyager Minute Repeater Flying Tourbillon. Housed in a 9.7mm case, it's one of the world’s thinnest watches with both a minute repeater and a flying tourbillon. The distinctive watch also marks the first time Louis Vuitton offers a minute repeater with cathedral gongs: two hammers and two gongs that chime the time. The manual-wind LV100 caliber takes a single master watchmaker 320 hours to assemble. The movement is skeletonized with a mainplate finished in horizontal stripes recalling the brand’s famed striped canvas. The 42mm Voyager case has an unusual cushioned shape and is partially invisibly set with approximately eight carats of baguette-cut diamonds. $463,000 in 18K white gold, Louis Vuitton in Boca Raton, Florida, +1 866 884 8866, louisvuitton.com The new Defy Inventor lives up to its bold name with an unusual movement and case material: It's the first time the patented Zenith Oscillator appears in a production watch. The Oscillator control system replaces traditional sprung balances, allowing the removal of about 30 components. The monolithic regulator is silicon, eliminating friction and the need for lubrication, as well as rendering it anti-magnetic. With a precision-enhancing speed of 18Hz, the 44mm watch has a bezel made of Aeronith, a lightweight aluminum-polymer composite that's one of the lightest materials on Earth. The watch is triple certified for anti-magnetism, thermal resistance and chronometric precision by ISO and TIMELAB - Foundation of the Geneva Laboratory of Horology and Micro-engineering. $17,800 in titanium with Aeronith bezel, Cellini Jewelers in New York, +1 212 888 0505, zenith-watches.com ZENITH Defy Inventor

PANERAI Radiomir 1940Minute Repeater Carillon Tourbillon GMT (Pam600) Panerai packs a host of high complications into the Radiomir 1940Minute Repeater Carillon, which chimes the time, and offers a GMT function and a patented tourbillon escapement. The hand-wound skeletonized movement (P.2005/MR caliber) consists of 633 components; it's the most complicated timepiece ever built by Panerai. With two barrels and four days of power reserve, the 49mmwatch displays hours, minutes, seconds, GMT indication, local time, home time and, on the caseback, the power reserve. The minute repeater strikes the hours, 10-minute intervals (not the typical 15-minute intervals) and the minutes past each 10-minute interval using three hammers and gongs in three different sounds. The chimes can be activated for local or second time zones. The patented tourbillon regulator, the result of four years of research, rotates once every 30 seconds. Customers can select case metal, strap, hands and more. From $403,000 in titanium, Panerai in New York, +1 212 223 1562, panerai.com GLASHÜTTE ORIGINAL Senator Chronometer Tourbillon A world first for German brand Glashütte Original, the new Senator Chronometer Tourbillon joins a one-minute flying tourbillon with a stop-second mechanism, zero reset and minute detent (the minute advances in one-minute increments during time-setting), which sets time with ultimate precision, ensuring the minute and hour hands are perfectly synchronized. As soon as the crown is pulled out to set the time, the tourbillon cage and the second hand attached to it both stop, and only restart once the crown is pushed back in. The manual-wind Caliber 58-05 undergoes extensive testing and each watch is a certified chronometer. The newly designed 42mm case features a slimmer bezel allowing for more dial space to view the blue galvanic time dial and the constantly moving tourbillon. All of the components are meticulously hand finished. $152,300 in platinum, Wempe Jewelers in New York, +1 212 397 1000, glashuette-original.com

DE BETHUNE DB28GS Grand Bleu This watch from independent brand De Bethune represents a host of firsts. It houses an all-new caliber, is the brand’s first dive/water watch, is equipped with exclusively developed lighting and features a bezel that rotates the crystal to indicate dive time. De Bethune worked in tandemwith James Thompson of Black Badger Advanced Composites and with Super- LumiNova to create both the lighting and unique shade of blue that is now proprietary to De Bethune. The photoluminescent blue light source, named Blue Moon, illuminates the watch and movement from the inside to improve readability of the hands, indices and timer. It is created by a mechanical system that works on a dynamo principle, so when the pusher is activated, the necessary energy is provided to light the watch via a gear train. The 400-part DB2080 hand-wound movement powers the 44mmwatch, which is water resistant to 100 meters. $93,500 in titaniumwith black zirconium, Stephen Silver Boutique inMenlo Park, California, +1 650 292 0612, debethune.com Thanks to six years of research and development, the Master Grande Tradition GyrotourbillonWestminster Perpétuel watch is one of the most complicated pieces ever produced by Jaeger-LeCoultre. It is the brand’s fifth Gyrotourbillon (an escapement with multiple-axis tourbillons rotating at different speeds). This model was particularly difficult for the brand to create because it is 15 percent smaller than any other version, a feat of miniaturization that took three years. The new movement, Caliber 184, consists of a staggering 1,050 pieces and offers constant force (constant energy from full power to end of power), a perpetual calendar that can be set forward or backward, and a minute repeater with a retractable pusher that sounds the time using Westminster chimes with four gongs. $893,000 in 18K white gold, Jaeger-LeCoultre in New York, +1 646 828 4328, jaeger-lecoultre.com JAEGER-LECOULTRE Master Grande Tradition GyrotourbillonWestminster Perpétuel