Franck Muller Watches: How One Watch Lover Discovered A Broader Window Of Horological Appreciation

Franck Muller timepieces were a major early influence in my appreciation of haute horlogerie.  More than ten years ago, circumstances placed a well-traveled copy of an International Watches 1996 catalog in my hands, which transfixed me right from the first turn of the page.  It took my watch appreciation from the more publicly famous brands such as Omega, Rolex, TAG Heuer and perhaps Patek Philippe, to expansive new vistas.  With countless hundreds of full color photos before me, a whole new universe appeared, and I found myself converted virtually overnight from a casual watch observer Continue Reading… »

Hearts Melt like Chocolate for this Franck Muller Watch

Granted Valentine’s Day may not be the most romantic day of the year, but it is highly anticipated every year without fail. We go out and buy 5 dollar cards, giant silver balloons and flowers of a number of varieties with the red rose being the most popular by far. Some people will take time and buy a special gift for their chosen loved one, be it a lover, a spouse, a parent, a child, or even a friend. For now, let’s chat about buying for the special woman in your life.

If you have never bought a gift for her; if you have never known what to get her; if you get gift-buying paralysis as soon as you go to the mall; or, if you just need a little help in the gift-buying department, then look here to this Franck Muller watch - to this Frank Muller womans watch. This is an 18 karat white gold Frank Muller Geneve Sweetheart watch with a diamond bezel on a red crocodile strap. The Sweetheat watch with its red strap is a perfect gift for Valentine’s Day. Notice the red strap and the red heart at 6 o’clock making this watch the perfect marker to commemorate this year’s Valentine’s Day. Every time she puts it on, every time she looks at it, every time she shows it a friend, a co-worker or a client, she will remember that you gave it to her for Valentine’s 2008! This year, give her the Sweetheart watch and watch her heart melt like chocolate!

Franck Muller watches: Pushing the Envelope of Complicated Watchmaking

There’s no question that the house of Franck Muller has presented some of the most mind-bending complicated watches of the modern era. I remember back when I first became “acquainted” with the brand around 1996, and saw some of his incredible creations–watches with every conceivable mechanical function united in a single mechanism; perpetual calendar, tourbillon, minute repeater, equation of time, and others. It didn’t take me long to comprehend why Franck Muller had created such a buzz amongst serious collectors of unusual and rare watches.

Nothing has changed that focus more than a decade later. I think that the current Aeternitas timepieces perhaps best exemplify the striving to achieve the impossible that has driven this brand from the early days. The Aeternitas IV watch, particularly, is absolutely “over the top”, combining a tourbillon, split-seconds chronograph, time equation, and perhaps most interesting of all, a perpetual calendar which bucks the divisibility rule of the Gregorian calendar, exempting it from the adjustment which most perpetual calendar watches require every 100 years.

Watches like this leave no doubt as to why Franck Muller has earned the name “Master of Complications”!

Shaking up the stuffy air of Haute Horlogerie: The Franck Muller Revolution Tourbillon

Without question, one of the tourbillon watches on the market with the highest cool factor is the Franck Muller Revolution Tourbillon. Perhaps operating on the premises that most complications don’t exist so much for any practical reason as they do to provide a source of high mechanical entertainment and fascination, the “Master of Complications” has given us this watch which enables a whole new degree of tourbillon voyeurism. Push the button, and the tourbillon cage will rise up out of the dial aperture, right up against the sapphire crystal; even better, it will stay there, as long as the button is depressed. Once you’re satisfied, let it go, and the tourbillon returns to its original positions, while the stopped hands instantly resume the correct time, as if nothing had ever disrupted them.

That’s pretty amazing, I think! In my humble opinion, it’s also admirable that Franck Muller can inject some lightheartedness into the sometimes overly serious technical gravity of haute horlogerie and the super prestige watch complications.

Trippin’ out with time: Franck Muller Crazy Hours watches

Franck Muller watches are kind of like a front running celebrity–love ‘em or hate ‘em, you know when they’ve walked into a room. While my own interest in Franck Muller timepieces has almost always been confined to a kind of goggle-eyed amazement with some of their super-complicated showpieces, I also find myself in admiration of the creative complications that Franck Muller comes up just to reinvent the basic function of telling the time. Of course, what other Franck Muller watch could I be talking about but the Crazy Hours? One look at the psychedelic, multi-colored dials with their seeming random arrangement of hours, and you might wonder if Tim Leary and the white rabbit from Wonderland were part of the design process. Of course, there’s a lot of mechanical ingenuity and order involved in producing this seemingly jumbled arrangement, which is exactly the paradox that makes the whole concept so cool.

Feminine, classy, and chic: Franck Muller’s Long Island Black Magic watch

Some of the most appealing, stylish, and beautiful timepieces for women on the market today are made by Franck Muller. While the brand that bears the name of one of the most gifted of living watchmakers is often thought of for their mind-bending complication pieces–multi-axis tourbillons, tourbillons combined with perpetual calendar and equation of time, or repeating complications–I think Franck Muller is no less impressive when it comes to offering a scintillating mixture of the things that many women watch enthusiasts care about.A prime example of this, is the Franck Muller Long Island Black Magic watch. What a great looking timepiece! Have a look at that curved rectangular case, the blackened 18K gold which is accented with pave-set black diamonds, and the mesmerizing pink guilloche dial—all of this adds up to make a definitive statement. The Black Magic is stylish, elegant, yet totally distinctive, and its not really flashy in the conventional sense of the word. Think about how many attractive rectangular watches have appeared on the market; no doubt many of them are very fine, but few can offer the uniquely chic “edge” of this one. This extremely fashion forward Franck Muller timepiece exudes a sexy attitude, but does it with a great deal of class.

Franck Muller Master Banker

The Franck Muller Master Banker watch has been a smash hit for Franck Muller, the combination of 1920’s elegance and three-timezone functionality proving irresistible for fans of the brand. With the introduction of the Master Banker Lunar Date timepiece, the watchmakers at Franck Muller have made this luxury classic even more appealing. The dial of the Master Banker Lunar Date watch features a moon phase display, which rotates continually throughout the month to show the activity of Earth’s heavenly neighbor. You also have a pointer-type date display that surrounds the moon phase window–a handy addition, and in my opinion, more elegant than a window type display, particularly when combined with a moon phase. To compensate for the added moon-phase complication, the Franck Muller watchmakers have repositioned the displays for the second and third timezones, which the traditional Master Banker watch had at twelve and six o’clock, respectively. The newly placed time zone sub-dials result in great visual harmony that suits the Cintree Curvex design perfectly, and also have the advantage of being extremely easy to read at a glance.