The Bovet watch brand was incorporated in 1822, but its foundations were laid four years earlier, in 1818, on a now-legendary trip to Asia during which watchmaker Edouard Bovet and his brothers introduced their ticking masterworks to a collector in the Chinese city of Ghuangzhou, thus establishing the Fleurier-based manufacture as one of China’s most admired purveyors of timepieces. This year marks 200 years since that fateful journey, and today’s Bovet, under the stewardship of globetrotting owner Pascal Raffy, is commemorating it with what it calls a high-end timepiece dedicated to travel: the Edouard Bovet Tourbillon, unveiled today ahead of the 2018 SIHH.
The Bovet Edouard Bovet Tourbillon displays three time zones simultaneously. Bovet first introduced a flying tourbillon model into its collection in 2015; it is that watch’s in-house movement, albeit fully redesigned, that provides the base for this new model, which is distinguished primarily by its ability to display three time zones simultaneously. The movement is comprised of 472 total components and, even more notably, amasses a lengthy 10-day power reserve despite the array of complications it drives.
Getting back to those three time zone display, they are executed thusly: The local time, indicated by the central hour and minute hands, along with a domed day-night disk, occupies the center of the complex dial. This domed indicator rotates counterclockwise to realistically depict the day’s c...