helios

Frederic Jouvenot Solar Deity Collection Watches

One of my favorite independent watch maker pieces of the year is the Helios by Frederic Jouvenot - which I fully profile with video here. I recently learned that the Helios will be part of a set of watches Frederic Jouvenot called the "Solar Deity Collection." The pieces are based around a "sun center" with the middle of the watch having a minute indicator and the sun rays being the hour indicators. In addition to the DLC black coated titanium model (the Helios), there is a polished steel (or titanium) model (known as the Amaterasu) as well as a women's model (in steel or white gold) with diamonds and a flower motif on the dial (known as the Suryia). The collection is really spectacular with each of the pieces having a distinct personality and appeal.

The names of the Suryia and the Amaterasu are of Japanese origin. Frederic Jouvenot gave the watches Japanese names in honor of the Japanese people and their bravery during the tough times they have endured now and may have to ahead.

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

Tags: collection, deity, Frederic Jouvenot, helios, solar, watch, watches

Frédéric Jouvenot FJ-Helios-001 Watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

Frederic Jouvenot is a brilliant designer and has really out-done himself with the new FJ-Helios-001 watch that will be debuted very soon. I first wrote about his work here when discussing his Automatic Chronograph Evolution watch here. The same case style is back for this watch. The "Helios" part of the name refers to the fact that the center of the dial is supposed to represent the sun, while the hour indicators are sun beams. Each of the beams is a rotating cylinder. The dial "adds up" hours as the beams flip over to their gold side. To tell the time you just count the gold beams and see the minutes on the centrally located minute disc. The time here would be 5:00pm.

The watch case is 44mm wide in titanium, coated with DLC for the black finish. The movement is manually-wound and likely a base ETA (or alike) with heavy modifications by Jouvenot. Functionally it just tells the time, but it does so in a wonderfully unique way. I look forward to getting my hands on this pieces soon. Very cool!

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

Tags: 001, FJ, frederic, helios, jouvenot, watch