Complimenting the newer Ulysse Nardin men’s collection of Classico watches, they have released a lady’s version. This one has a diamond and jewel created exotic bird. It is supposed to be emotional, but I am not sure it is more than just a bit gaudy. In addition to the jewels the dial is made from a complex to make enamel. The 35mm wide case is in 18k white gold. While the design of the dial is a bit blase for me, I can’t deny the jewelry-like effort involved in producing it. what I do like is the shape of the lugs and the crown with a ring of sapphires around it. The blue of the sapphires and the enamel melds nicely with blue alligator use for the strap (starting to get more popular these days).

Inside this ladies watch is an automatic movement with a decorated 22k gold rotor. It is visible though the caseback sapphire crystal, and is likely more impressive to see than the watch dial itself. All of the parts are in the right place and I am sure that with the next version Ulysse Nardin will supply the Classico Lady watch with more impressive dial imagery.

Source : Luxist

Seemingly following in the footsteps of Vacheron Constantin, Ulysse Nardin steps away from aggressive modern style watches with this throwback timepiece aptly named the Classico. Forget the cheesy, super market pasta sauce sounding name and you get three versions of a pretty decent watch. The 40mm wide case is done in either 18k rose or white gold, and is water resistant to 50 meters. Dial colors include silvered, black, or blue. Design is right out of your grandfather’s heyday. If it suited his type well, how wrong can you go?

The watch has a good movement too. An in-house made UN caliber 815 automatic movement that has been COSC certified, with a solid 22k automatic rotor visible through the sapphire caseback window . Good thing it has a date as well. Some of these throw-back models are too minimalistic for my taste. I prefer a date on watches personally. Here the petite window is nicely framed in gold. The sunburst polish on the dial is a nice retro touch as well (also the lug design). Pleasing as well is the fact that the hands and luminant covered, and there are lume dots over the hour markers. The alligator straps are brown for the pictured version, while the black and blue dialed versions are matched to black and blue straps respectively. Should be available soon.

Baselworld this year, the bar was considerably raised for watch manufacturers as industry leaders introduced more complicated movements, new advancements in time-telling technology, and some of the most stunning horological concepts the market has ever seen.But while luxury timepiece brands were busy diving headfirst into innovation with completely new pieces and collections, they were also working hard to bring their classics into the 21st century with updates and additions to existing collections. This is just what Ulysse Nardin has accomplished with the newly refreshed Dual Time Collection.

The material on everyone’s mind in the watch industry is ceramic. This imperishable material is both sleek and exclusive, and requires the same high-level of craftsmanship as do the most coveted precious gems. Brands have been utilizing the material in their watch designs for everything from watch bracelets to giving the ceramic gem cuts and setting them in the pushers and bezeljust as they would with diamonds.

Ulysse Nardin has utilized this material by making it the center stage on the new, 43mm Executive Dual Time. The dial and bezel are both in a dramatic black ceramic, which boldly sets off the either stainless steel or 18k rose gold of the oversized Roman numerals, hands, crown and case.The Caliber UN-24 is a self-winding movement with a power-reserve of about 42 hours. Ulysse Nardin’s Executive Dual Time is home to the patented system that gives the collection its name. When pushed, two ceramic push pieces on the side of the case instantly adjust the hour hand to a different time zone, while the 24-hour indicator continues its cycle in a window at 9 o’clock.

Also finding their home on the dial are the oversized 60-seconds counter at 6 o’clock and the two-window date at 2 o’clock, the Ulysse Nardin name and logo resting just beneath it with the signature anchor also in either stainless steel or 18k rose gold.While the stainless steel version of the watch creates a bold and striking dial, the 18k rose gold makes a more luxurious and elegant impact, its warmer color perfect for the chilly fall season. Both watches are available with either leather or a durable rubber strap and are individually numbered on the case.

As timepieces become more and more complex, displaying their movement components in elaborate dials, it is refreshing to see a watch make a high visual impact by highlighting an ability to be sleek and classic. The Executive Dual Time by Ulysse Nardin accomplishes this skillfully, creating a watch that is not only technologically advanced, but aesthetically stunning.

This little number came out a few years ago, but a few are available floating around on the net. A watch like this is the very definition of fake militarism and merely attempted style. Apparently camouflage isn’t out of style, at least where ever most Ulysse Nardin watches are sold. This limited edition of 50 pieces watch takes everything you know about the Maxi Marine Diver and tries to hide the dial! Naw, you can still see it. I must admit camouflage looks sorta cool, even on a watch, but more in a gimmicky sense. I simply can’t stomach the idea of taking a luxury dive watch, and making just the dial (or any of it really) “camoued” out.

Ulysse Nardin tried to further “harden” the look by making 43mm wide case steel and black. If I didn’t know better I would say the watch is cool – but only if you are a bad-boy type with an obese trust fund. Inside the watch is the Ulysse Nardin automatic caliber UN-26 movement with a power reserve indicator and subsidiary seconds hand.

It also also been certified as a COSC chronometer. The hour and minute hands, as well as the hour markers are thick and easy to read. Certainly a unique and easy to love (or hate) watch. Original retail price was about $7,000 and prices now are somewhat more or less given the highly limited state of the watch.

Meeting Ludwig Oechslin, Pierre Gygax, Lucas Humair, and four other watchmakers from Ulysse Nardin’s talented horological team at the Geneva airport on September 23 was no accident: it was quite planned for everyone to get “moonstruck” together the following day on the Côte d’Azur’s sunny coast along with other key members of the Le Locle-based company’s team such as owner Rolf Schnyder, PR head Susanne Hurni, U.S. president Patrik Hoffmann, and other key members of the familial Ulysse Nardin team. The most logical place for this to take place, of course, was the phenomenal Nice observatory, a research institute steeped in astronomical history and today merged with CERGA – Centre de Recherches en Géodynamique et Astrométrie- to form the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur.

The Moonstruck model was right at home here, as this newest member of Ulysse Nardin’s exceptional astronomical line could almost be considered a scientific instrument itself. The basic premise of Moonstruck—alongside displaying the time—is to depict the effects of gravity on the earth. Gravity, as Dr. Diana Valencia of the observatory explained, is not only created by the earth’s most famous satellite—the moon—but also by the sun. Hence, the Moonstruck model simulates the rotation of the moon around the earth – in center of dial – as well as the earth-centric appearance of the sun as it “travels around” the blue planet. Both are simulated by disks making one full rotation every 24 hours. Thus the current moon phase can be determined in relation to any given earth-bound location—a moon phase that would, by the way, be accurate for 70 years were the watch to run continuously for this amount of time according to Oechslin, who not only curates the La Chaux-de-Fonds international watch museum, but also famously provides astronomical complications to Ulysse Nardin.

Thanks to the availability of both displays, a third incredible element can also be shown on the timepiece’s mother-of-pearl disk: the trend of global tide dynamics in relation to specific coastlines and oceans. Yet another first for horological pioneer Ulysse Nardin, Moonstruck is the first wristwatch to boast this capability.

In-house development

Moonstruck’s Caliber 106 is a true Ulysse Nardin development and displays more typical elements than its astronomical functions: this automatic mechanism with about 50 hours of power reserve gets its timekeeping ability from an escapement and hairspring fully crafted in silicon. Additionally, it is also outfitted with the same GMT +/- function that graces many of Ulysse Nardin’s creations: simply pushing the top button on the left side of the case sets the second time zone hand forward in exact one-hour increments. The button located directly below it performs the same task in the other direction.

Moonstruck is available in a limited edition of 500 pieces in 18-karat red gold and 500 pieces in platinum. The case diameter is a stately 46 mm, and the watch is fittingly water-resistant to a full 100 meters.

Technical horology

Ulysse Nardin made its name back in the mid-1980s with astronomical complications conceived by Oechslin that were prompted by Schnyder, who saved Ulysse Nardin from going under in the quartz inundation of the 1970s and ’80s. It, however, remains to be stressed that all of the pioneering work accomplished in the more technical aspects of horology that Ulysse Nardin has achieved since 1983 must be attributed to the extreme teamwork and talent of the entire staff, including technical director and engineer Gygax and movement designer Humair. It is this extraordinary interplay of the individuals that make up the content of Ulysse Nardin and allow the company’s remarkable timekeepers to continue to have wearers and admirers all over the world become moonstruck on a regular basis.

When a timepiece gets an exciting (and slightly ominous) name like “Black Ocean”, how can you not be at least a little curious?  I’m referring to one of  the hottest new limited edition variations of the Ulysse Nardin Maxi Marine Diver.  UN’s 200-meter rated dive watch with crown guards, a massive screw-down winding crown, and a beautiful wave dial that borrows charm from the 1846 Chronometer has worked its charms on many a lover of luxury watches, and the addition of a number of colorful variants has only added fuel to the fire.  With stealthy all-black sports watches being incredibly hot right now (witness the number of custom PVD-coated Rolex models that have surfaced) it was only a matter of time before Ulysse Nardin entered the fray.

The Ulysse Nardin Maxi Marine Diver Black Ocean watch is supremely stealthy.  There’s virtually no reflectivity at all, and you can attribute that to the DLC coating (”diamond-like carbon”) that is evenly and seamlessly applied to the 42.7mm stainless steel case.

The excellent UN rubber strap features the characteristic jointed elements bearing the brand name and “Limited Edition” seen in many other Marine Diver watches; in this model they’re manufactured from extremely scratch-resistant black ceramic, rather than brushed stainless steel, or 18-karat gold.   Ceramic  is also used for the Black Ocean’s dual-button deployant clasp.

The excellent self-winding movement offers no surprises.  It is the reliable UN-26–an ETA 2892-based motor which Ulysse Nardin has significantly upgraded through in-house modification.   This caliber earns a chronometer certificate from C.O.S.C. and offers a power reserve indicator, in addition to a date display and a small seconds function.

Evaluating the Black Ocean watch, I admire the way in which Ulysse Nardin has retained the distinctively elegant detailing of the Maxi Marine Diver line, but given customers a really sporty look that might tempt them to actually use the MMD for the task it was designed for–diving!   The finishing of the polished steel or red gold Maxi Marine Diver watches is so lovely, that many probably avoid using the watch for aquatic sports, despite the ample qualifications of this model (300 meters water resistance, a unidirectional graduated bezel, etc.) for such activity.

Whether you happen to be looking for an exclusive mechanical sports watch, or are a Ulysse Nardin watch collector with a hankering for the brand’s limited edition offerings, this is not a timepiece where too much hesitation is advised.  Ulysse Nardin will be producing just 1,846 examples worldwide–that number is not arbitrary, of course, and signifies the brand’s year of founding in the 19th century.    With a price tag of about $8,000, the UN Black Ocean is right in line, value-wise, with other models in the Maxi Marine watch group.

There may be many popular trends that claim to be “the new black,” but black will always have a special place in designers’ hearts. The Ulysse Nardin Maxi Marine Diver Black Surf limited edition watch takes the standard Maxi Marine Diver watch and adds a lot of black. That is it, but it is fun. The black textured dial with the wave patterns easily reminds you of black volcanic sand beaches. There are two styles of the watch, and all of them are done in 18k rose gold for the 42.7mm wide case.

The difference between the two models, if ever so slight, is on the strap. The Maxi Marine Diver uses a special hybrid strap/bracelet design that has two large metal links. On one version the link is in 18k rose gold, and the other version the link is in black to match the rest of the black rubber strap. Ulysse Nardin makes a very attractive bezel and the dial of the watch features large areas of lume for a good level of darkness visibility. It is hard not to like the UN-26 automatic COSC certified movement. It features a nice subsidiary seconds display with integrated date window, as well as a power reserve indicator.

An area where the Black Surf Maxi Marine watch succeeds, is in successfully matching gold with black. The color combination makes for a good duo, but can sometimes be tricky to pull off. The Black Surf Limited Edition will come in just 500 pieces with each watch being individually numbered with a small plate on the side of the watch.