Black Hole… a swiss-style black hole we should say.
My memory is failing me so Wikipedia comes in to help me. It states that the black hole is a singularity in which the curvature of spacetime (4 dimensions: space with its length, height and depth and time) tends to an infinite value. The black hole attracts everything with a gravitational field so powerful that nothing can escape, not even light.
You may be asking yourself… what does astrophysics have in common with horology? Well, usually not that much. However, with the new Vanguart Black Hole, a lot more than you might think!
Vanguart’s beginning
Vanguart is a recently founded brand, launched on September 20, 2021, super young.
The authors of this startup are: Axel Leuenberger the CEO (5 years from Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi as a mechanical designer in the research and development department and assistant to His Majesty Giulio Papi), his colleague here and former colleague from Audemars Piguet Renaud & Papi Jeremy Frelechox (from AP, was head of movement creation projects), and Thierry Fisher, creative director from Etude de Style with a brilliant mind.
Mehmet Koruturk, the chairman with whom I had the pleasure of speaking, comes from finance, represents a team with stellar potential, as well as having told us that basketball player James Harden was fascinated by the project and wanted to participate. In fact, the NBA star is the brand’s Creative Advisor and shareholder.
It was worth giving you some hints of who is behind Vanguart, startups are born and die at the speed of light. Such a team has all the credentials to do well.
The Vanguart Black Hole
Coming to the part we like most. The watch case shape is extraordinarily unique like the inside of the timepiece.
We immediately notice the central, flying tourbillon. Here is our black hole, which by rotating absorbs everything around it. In fact, the dial has a concentric curvature that leads our eye to focus on the central part, the one with the visible mechanism.
The founders will all be superfine technicians and designers, but from a marketing point of view the message arrives loud and clear.
We find all the elements that distinguish the singularity of the black hole: space (height, length and depth), time and curvature. If we want to play with words, the same singularity of the design rhymes with everything that the Black Hole wants to transmit.
Our friend has a tourbillon that runs at 3hz. Hours, minutes, power reserve and countdown indicator at “6 o’clock”. It all seems a bit complicated in reality it is as immediate as telling the time with an iPhone.
Each one of the wheels on the dial represents, outside-in: hours, tens of minutes and minutes. This system is as simple and beautiful in its result as incredibly complex in its realization
To make you better understand, in the picture below it is 12 : 0 0.
If telling time is easy, setting it is even easier. It’s all done rotating the the Joystick at 3 o’ clock… yes, those thrusters coming from Star Trek enterprises
At the moment the Vanguart Black Hole is available in three different versions: platinum, titanium and rose gold. Each one of the three versions is limited to 8 pieces.
The starting price for having a black hole on your wrist is circa €290.000.
