The stones are VVS1, Color D-certified and total nearly 1.90 carats of pure carbon
Urwerk wants to take your wrist game to the cosmos.
The Swiss watchmaker just unveiled a new timepiece, dubbed the UR-100V Stardust, set with 400 brilliant-cut diamonds. The watch joins the brand’s 100 collection, featuring its signature satellite hours and minutes on a skeletonised dial. And just like other models in the series, it allows space lovers to witness Earth’s interstellar journey in its own unique way.
Each diamond displayed is selected from eight different formats to adorn the case. Only the edges have been left bare. According to the watchmaker, the snow setting used for the piece was a challenge to construct due to the steel base, which requires more meticulous craftwork than a gold alternative. The result is a mosaic of diamonds, set in a structure smooth to the touch. Beneath the crystal globe, the minutes scale is studded with 36 diamonds, while 24 adorn the watch crown. Another 22 are set into the steel pin buckle. The stones are VVS1, Color D-certified and total nearly 1.90 carats of pure carbon.
“We wanted a setting reminiscent of the starry heavens, with nothing at all uniform, more like ordered chaos. It wasn’t so much the size of the stones that was important to us as their arrangement, this almost random design,” says Felix Baumgartner, master watchmaker and co-founder of Urwerk in a statement. Martin Frei, the brand’s artistic director and second co-founder, also speaks to the watch’s naming. “It’s crazy to think that we, as human beings, are also made of this celestial substance. So, the nickname Stardust, logically associated with the setting of this UR-100V, also extends to the watch itself and to its future owner.”
Beyond the constellation of diamonds, the new UR-100V model features two recesses on the flanks of its satellite displays. One of the two kilometre counters represents the distance travelled by Earth on its axis in 20 minutes (554 kilometres). The other counter, meanwhile, shows the distance traveled by Earth around the Sun during the same period of time (35,750 kilometres). Urwerk’s self-winding UR 12.02 movement powers the watch at a frequency of 28,800 vph and delivers a 48-hour power reserve. A fabric strap in “Baltimore blue” rounds out the cosmic timepiece.
The UR-100V Stardust is limited to just 10 examples a year. If you’re fast enough, you can snap one up for US$99,423 when it drops Tuesday, August 29. Check out the Urwerk website for more details.
This story was first published on Robb Report USA
