Arnold & Son has been at the forefront of creating unique and truly original skeleton timepieces; a number of which have become iconic symbols of contemporary haute horlogerie with classical inspiration. Now, Arnold & Son brings one of its most outstanding skeleton watches to a female audience, with an execution conceived exclusively for women: The Nebula Lady.
The skeleton watch just for her
Whether its faces or timepieces, our eyes tend to naturally find beauty in symmetry. This goes a long way toward explaining the watch lover's strong attraction to the refined Arnold & Son Nebula, which is symmetrical not only horizontally and vertically but also front and back.
Besides the evident careful attention to balance, the powerful allure of the Nebula also derives from the meticulously calculated proportions and ratios of diameter versus height and the size and placement of every gear and wheel. Rather than being an assembly of disparate components - case, dial, and movement - Nebula was designed from the ground up to be completely holistic, with all components blending harmoniously into one. The "dial" actually acts as a bridge in supporting some of the intricate gearing.
The movement bridges − there are no less than ten in this complex caliber, compared to four in a standard watch − form the dial. More than just a superficial surface coating, the bridges of the Nebula Lady are crafted from solid 18-karat Red Gold, with beveled and polished edges. Set against a silvery palladium-tone base plate, a subtle play between cool silvery tones and warmer gold accents transforms the Nebula's open display into an alluring and feminine masterpiece of mechanical art.
The name "Nebula" (Latin for "cloud") was selected because with its bridges distinctively radiating from the perimeter of the dial toward the center, the sculptural movement looks like an inverted, exploded star. Nebulae, an astronomical term describing a cloud of cosmic gas and dust, are formed from the debris of exploding stars and constitute the regions in our universe in which new stars will born, a stars nursery.
In the Nebula Lady, the highly legible central hours and minutes hands as well as the small seconds hand are given a black treatment, as are the applied faceted and polished hour markers to provide a bold contrast against the palladium chapter ring surrounding the open movement display.
From the dial side, symmetry at top to bottom is provided by the two mainspring barrels, which provide a very healthy 90 hours of power above, and small seconds plus the oscillating balance wheel below. Seven of the skeletonized and chamfered triangular 18kt Red Gold bridges with polished edges fixed around the perimeter of the movement and radiating inward offer a contemporary take on traditional English movement architecture.
The 41.5mm Red Gold case is further enhanced with the addition of 90 brilliant cut white diamonds with a total weight of approximately 0.52 carats, meticulously set onto the bezel. Echoing the feminine tones of the dial and open, symmetrical movement, the Nebula Lady comes on a white calf leather strap.
The Nebula Lady is a limited edition of 50 timepieces.
