Purple Haze is a typical example of this distinctive brand ethos. And by Purple Haze we mean the most recent regulator watch from Chronoswiss. Purple, for its omnipresent deep purple colour – on the case, plate, crown, and deployment clasp. No compromises or half-measures here! Aficionados of the brand will recognise the key style notes – a base plate that serves as a dial featuring a hand guilloche decoration, above which sits the mechanical beauty of Chronoswiss’ fully in-house regulator.
The hours are at 12 o’clock, marked off on a full black flange decked with Roman numerals; the minutes are in the centre, counted off on a minute track, here featuring Arabic numerals; the small seconds indicator gyrates at 6 o’clock.
This propeller-shaped hand will attract those inquisitive enough to explore the mysteries of what “purple haze” is really all about and take them, well, higher. They may meet a few divinities lurking between a couple of clouds, too – the shape of this rotating part is inspired by a particular depiction of the Greek god Chronos.
Entering the realms of man-made heaven is no excuse for not keeping your feet firmly on the ground, though; the new 41-millimetre Flying Regulator Open Gear is also a top-level piece of mechanics. Inventively, it does away with a dial in a puff of Jamaican smoke, replacing it with a functional, technical base plate that houses the Regulator’s gear train. The plate is hand guillochéd with 64 individually drawn lines, each gone over four or five times until it reaches the depth required to endow it with the subtlest, incandescent, iridescent glint of deep purple.
Talking in terms of ‘Métier d’Art’ somehow doesn’t seem quite relaxed enough here, but the idea isn’t wide of the mark. Maik Panziera, our designer, creates each of these lines by hand in our Lucerne workshop using a 100-year-old machine. The guilloché pattern on the Purple Haze is not unlike a Jimi Hendrix riff: apparently simple, but actually extremely complex. The gap between one line and the next is a mere 0.275mm. Slippage or vibration is out of the question – and the machine used weighs over 250 kilos. Not only that, apparently Maik Panziera listens to heavy metal when on the job.
The Cordura woven strap should be able to stand just about any kind of treatment, up to and including re-enactments of Woodstock in your back yard. And let there be no mistake: even if you choose to spend most of the weekend on cloud nine, the Purple Haze will be right on time on Monday morning, thanks to its 42-hour power reserve.
