HIGHLIFE TOURBILLON PERPETUAL CALENDAR
MANUFACTURE
A PARAGON OF READABILITY
The dial layout has been painstakingly designed. The day, date and month indications are at 12, 3 and 9 o’clock respectively, each with its own hand – or, in the case of the display at 12 o’clock, two: in addition to the month, another hand indicates leap years on a scale running from 1 to 3 – plus an ‘L’ marking leap years.
Positioned at 6 o’clock, the tourbillon completes the arrangement, housed beneath a cut-out characteristic of the Maison’s style featuring an upper indentation so that it fits snugly into the layout of the perpetual calendar. This expansive aperture reveals the sophisticated escapement for which a patent application was first filed in 1801. Atop it sits the seconds hand, gliding above the balance wheel, blued screws and baseplate with its gold finish, engraved with each piece’s individual serial number.
HIGHLIFE TOUCH
This carefully designed arrangement, featuring outstanding complications whose modernity is matched only by their setting, sits amid a dial imbued with the Highlife collection ethos, engraved with a globe complete with meridians and parallels. The hour markers are suspended, secured at their base to the flange displaying the minutes. The different dial sectors benefit from their own specific finishing (satin or sunburst) to ensure optimum readability. Similarly, the hours and minutes hands, which match the colour of the case, are coated with luminous material to ensure they can be read however dim the light.
Lovers of fine Swiss Made watchmaking will also appreciate the sapphire caseback, revealing all the innermost workings of the FC-975 Manufacture calibre. Decorated with circular grained and Côtes de Genève finishes, it boasts a 38-hour power reserve and is guaranteed water resistant to 3 ATM.
THE POWER OF YOUTH AND ITS FUTURE PROSPECTS
As it turns 35, Frederique Constant is still a young manufactory with almost boundless possibilities before it. In addition to its main collections, whose aim remains that of providing painstakingly produced yet affordable watches, the Maison has gradually added more elite timepieces destined for experienced collectors to its ranges. The Tourbillon and the Perpetual Calendar are undeniably among their most prized complications. Frederique Constant thus continues to look to the future as it seeks to produce ever more advanced watches, featuring increasingly sophisticated styling and finishes that are constantly being refined and enriched.