badollet

Badollet Crystalball Bamboo White Diamond Watch

Badollet borrows some lessons from fellow Swiss watch brands for the creation of this marvelous looking luxury tourbillon timepiece. The first influence is Roger Dubuis, who themselves have a few timepieces with "bamboo" scaffolding style skeletonized mechanical movements. Though admittedly, Badollet has done a better job making movement bridges actually look like bamboo (and scaffolding). The combo of the sticks and gears makes for a provocative look. The movement features a flying tourbillon - which is also trendy to combine with ultra minimalistic movements.

According the Badollet, the Calibre BAD5600 movement bridges are cut from high-tech aluminum lithium alloy. I believe that this is the same (or similar) material that Richard Mille uses in their famed ultra-light RM07 $525,000 watch for star tennis player Rafael Nadal. While simple, the manually wound movement does have a large mainspring which offers 5 days worth of power reserve. The case of the Crystalball Bamboo watch is 43.2mm tall by 40.2mm wide and done in 18k palladium white gold. According to the brand, customers can order the watch in various case materials and metals such as ceramic, various types of gold, titanium, and even get the case jewel-encrusted or engraved.

Seen here, the case is decorated with 52 baguette diamonds (almost 7 carats), and has a dial that is in white gold with mother-of-pearl inlay. Though in reality the dial region is highly complex and customizable also having optional titanium, enamel, and ceramic elements. With a crocodile strap and lots of customization options, this impressive super-luxury watch can be deemed unisex, but certainly does target preferences seen often in the luxury watch buying habits of the Asian male consumer. I don't even want to know the price as it will be ludicrously high. Best to just enjoy the visuals in this instance unless you have some spare gold bullion laying around.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: badollet, bamboo, crystalball, diamond, watch

Badollet Observatoire 1872 Minute Repeater watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

Very classy, and very pricey (not sure of the exact price, but trust me), Badollet releases a new piece, the Observatoire (observatory) 1872 Minute Repeater watch. Available with or without precious stones, the watch has a serious elegance that can be customized by the buyer. Don't like the hands? Don't worry about it! Badollet has you covered.

The watch case is 44mm wide in 18k white gold, and has unique hinged lugs attached to a black crocodile strap. If you opt for precious jewels, see here the watch as 72 diamonds and and 12 sapphires. Without the jewels, the watch uses Arabic hour numerals. I usually don't say this, but I like the watch with precious jewels better than without.

Functionally the piece uses a highly complex manually-wound mechanical movement. I do not believe that Badollet produces the movement. The Calibre BAD1655 features the time, a flying tourbillon, and a minute repeater complication. All with a very interesting partially skeletonized dial (that reminds me of the Jaeger-LeCoultre Hybris Mechanica Grand Sonnerie watch. The rest of the dial is finely machine engraved.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.

Gallery: Badollet Observatoire 1872 Minute Repeater watch