Artya`s pioneering VentureThe Tesla Skeleton Tourbillon by Yvan Arpa
A bold statement of Artya’s boundless creativity, the Tesla Skeleton Tourbillon is a superlative demonstration of mastery in the art of watchmaking cloaked in a contemporary design. Sculpted with an electric charge of 1,000,000 volts, the case offers the staggering perspectives of the openwork movement enveloped in the transparency of two sapphire crystals.
Yvan Arpa’s state-of-the-art watchmaking vision teams up with Valérien Jaquet’s technical expertise to assemble, connect and fuse Tesla coil, barrel, mainspring, copper wires and electronic resistors to the sophisticated tourbillon movement. The movement’s arrangement, inspired by Tinguely’s artistic approach, draws the eye’s attention towards a spectacular superimposition of the components: its pierced main plate displays beveled and sandblasted bridges that emphasize the fascinating interplay that takes place between the rhodium plated gears and the red, blue and green electrical cables. Brushing aside stingray, alligator, ostrich and other varieties of exotic leathers commonly used in Haute Horlogerie, the Tesla Skeleton Tourbillon is instead fitted with an American cane toad skin strap!
According to an ancient Amazonian legend, lightening can never harm the cane toad. Its peculiar hide, constellated with rough bumps and nodules, presents sturdy characteristics. Only a few Parisian master tanners possess the secret to adorn and embellish it. The matt black cane toad skin straps that enhance Artya’s horological creations are resistant to perspiration and UV radiations. Of course, much like the amphibian from which they originate, they are also perfectly at ease in any aquatic milieu.