A signature of URWERK since day 01, black is an important element of the maverick horologer. The brand’s newest creation, the UR-100V Full Black Titanium Jacket is plain yet brimming with life and adrenaline – the beauty of UR-100V in its raw, pure state
The UR-100V Full Black Titanium Jacket is a 25-piece limited edition. From his first sketches for URWERK until the present day, Martin Frei, artist and co-founder of URWERK, has always envisioned and designed his creations on a metal bracelet. The latter is an extension of the watch around the wrist and, in his mind, it complements the design perfectly.
Frei likes the fact that the material – in this instance titanium – is quite cold when you put it on your wrist. It warms up slowly on contact, acclimatising to you and gently embracing your skin. This extremely light bracelet also makes a special sound when you play with its links. It feels good. It is beautiful. To Frei, this watch is a real success and he comments that he is happy to see it come to life for real. This very special bracelet is composed of 32 black DLC-treated sandblasted titanium links ensuring a perfect aesthetic result.
For URWERK co-founder and master-watchmaker Felix Baumgartner, his goal was to make the most comfortable watch to wear. The UR-100V Full Black Titanium Jacket is a perfectly ergonomic watch. Its bracelet is ultra-light and incredibly soft against the skin. It’s a bracelet synonymous with pleasure.
Under the UR-100V’s dome, in addition to URWERK’s trademark satellite configuration of the wandering hours and minutes, the UR-100V Full Black Titanium Jacket brings your spin through space into sharp focus. When the minutes hand has completed its 60-minute journey, it reappears on a 20-minute scale of 555 kilometres. This is the distance you travel in 20 minutes if you are standing on the equator of our rotating planet. The opposite scale tracks your journey through space around the sun: 35,740km every 20 minutes.
In the display on the UR-100V Full Black Titanium Jacket, time and distance are on a par, the hours and minutes in blue, and the kilometres in bright white. Baumgartner, reveals that he got the idea from a clock given to him by his father, Geri – a noted restorer of antique clocks. It was made by Gustave Sandoz for the Universal Exhibition of 1893. Instead of showing the time, it showed the distance travelled by a point on the equator.
URWERK’s new Calibre 12.02 drives the carousel carrying the wandering hours on three satellites. Baumgartner explains that this movement enabled a redesign of the carousel, bringing the hours closer to the minutes as they travel in succession along the 60-minute scale. The result is an easier and more intuitive reading of the time. This carousel, as well as the structure on top of the hours, are forged from anodised aluminium then sanded and shot-blasted, while the satellite screws are each circular sanded.
The satellites rest on a sanded brass-plated ruthenium carousel. The structure on top of the hours display is in sanded and shot-blasted aluminium. The self-winding rotor of the UR-100 is governed by a profiled airscrew known as the Windfänger.
There’s a nostalgic look about the case of the UR-100V Full Black Titanium Jacket. Many owners of URWERK watches will recall the independent brand’s first models. Frei explains that they have adopted some of the stylistic features of the brand’s first constructions, and then deconstructed them. For example, the steel dome of their early models is now in transparent sapphire crystal. The hard outlines of the titanium and steel case highlight its perfection.
