With Fourth of July celebrations officially behind us in the United States and a record-setting heat wave spreading across mainland Europe, I think it’s fair to say that we’ve arrived in the dog days of summer. With all the discussion over the hot weather taking place on both sides of the Atlantic, it’s reminded me of a timepiece that arrived in my inbox a few months back. That watch, the Ulysse Nardin Skeleton X Magma, is an extremely bold take on the Executive Skeleton X design that was first unveiled in January at SIHH.

The Executive Skeleton X is, with all intents and purposes, a more accessible version of the Executive Skeleton Tourbillon that was launched in 2016. Ulysse Nardin effectively took the design of that watch, sans tourbillon, and rearranged the movement architecture to where it is now held in place via a rectangular bridge that extends outwards in four directions to form an “X” ? hence the name. Four different versions of that watch were presented to the press in Geneva earlier this year in titanium, titanium black DLC, rose gold, and Carbonium gold ? each offering a different take on the skeletonized look. The Carbonium gold iteration provides the most similar aesthetic to the new Magma watch. Carbonium is a lightweight material made of carbon fibers that is more typically associated with aeronautical engineering (Ulysse Nardin also released a version of the Freak X with a Carbonium case at SIHH 2019).
For the Skeleton X C...