New Watch! • 02 Sep 2015
URWERK Blossoms In Style With The UR-106 “Lotus” Model For Women
URWERK watches have the reputation of being rare, technically advanced, elaborate to the point of complexity, and classy. However, one thing lacks among the various attributes of the brand — its watches are not seen as feminine. Until now. Because the new URWERK watch, the UR-106, is the first from the independent brand that is especially made for women. Elegant slender and graceful, it shows the sensitive side of URWERK’s nature. For you, ladies, URWERK unveils the UR-106 “Lotus”.
The UR-106 “Lotus” features the brand’s signature satellite hours in a guise never before seen. Three satellite hours wander across the dial to create the most graphic of horological blooms. “We never made watches for men and watches for women because we never thought in those terms when we put our ideas down on paper,” explains Martin Frei, the company’s chief designer and co-founder. “We thus embarked on a stylistic exercise that was unprecedented for us. We have of course long considered what we regard as the ultimate challenge, because creating for women is indeed a perilous undertaking. With its glittering gemstones and soft curves we created the UR-106 with one image in mind; that of the lotus flower, which in my imagination represents the beauty of women in all their complexity.”
“We wanted to create a clean and elegant watch,” adds master watchmaker Felix Baumgartner, the brand’s other co-founder. “We’ve already made complicated watches, solved some tough technical problems, put huge hands into motion and we have gone to the limits of micro technology, but I must admit that we found this new challenge quite scary. We know how to conceive a new URWERK model or extend the technological limits; after all that’s what we’ve been doing since our watch company was founded 18 years ago. But to talk to women about women is something else. Thinking about the remarkable women who have accompanied us on our journey from hesitant beginnings to our present success made us take the step.”
The UR-106 “Lotus” comes in two versions: one is in titanium and steel with diamonds on the bezel, crown and buckle; its antithesis is in black PVC-coated titanium and steel set with black diamonds. “We confronted the two aspects of the same watch — light on one hand and darkness on the other,” enlarges Martin Frei. “We are all creatures of light, but it is our shadows that complete, and define who we are. Tangible dualities are qualities essential to understand the nature of things. In darkness and light, the UR-106 “Lotus” is a double watch.”
The UR-106 Lotus features a revised version of the satellite hours. Three satellites, each with four hour numerals, sweep along the minutes scale in an analogue and digital indication of time. A moonphase adds to the display. “We have taken particular care over the slightest details of this UR-106. It has taken us 18 years to perfect this concept, so we are making no concessions. The carrousel and its satellites have been meticulously satin-finished by hand, and we have painstakingly painted each numeral for the hours and minutes. The extremely fine minutes scale was fashioned in our workshops, the lapis lazuli blue of the moon was selected from hundreds of other colours, while the outline of the lotus on the back of the watch follows Martin’s design exactly. The UR-106 Lotus is just as we imagined it.”
The Hour Glass is the exclusive retailer for URWERK in Singapore.