BASELNEWS 2011Global in the Most Beautiful Way: Zürich Weltzeit
“Heimat” stands to the right of the dial of this worldly watch – a minor contradiction, a wink that is very German but understood in many other countries, too. And that the watch’s testers felt to be “very NOMOS.” Wherever the watch’s wearer happens to be, the “Heimat” indicator shows what time it is at home – whether the meeting at headquarters has begun, whether the suppliers can be reached, and whether one’s darling is asleep. What makes this possible is a 24-hour disc integrated in the caliber. It beautifully complements the work of the elegant hands.
This watch enables you not only to demonstrate your ties to home, but also to be a bit lazy, because you don’t have to calculate. Every foreign time zone can be called up rapidly by pressing a button repeatedly until the desired place appears in the 12 o’clock position. Then the hands show what time it is there. Two years of development, 23 completely new precision parts, and umpteen design hours were required before this watch was finished. The case, a creation by the exceptional Swiss designer Hannes Wettstein, is all that existed before; its construction is almost identical to that of the Zürich and Zürich Datum models. The manufactory movement Xi and the dial were developed anew for the Zürich Weltzeit.
A broad-based test with a limited prototype edition concluded this developmental work at the end of 2010. A very few technical and optical details were altered after the test, for example the kind of oil used to lubricate the caliber. The concept paid off: the wearer is spared the guessing that complicated indicators require, the hours of studying complex instruction manuals, and the despair of endlessly repeated attempts to set the watch. A simple button on the case, a small time disc, and the name of the place on the dial are all one needs to have an elegant and yet beautifully simple journey – in reality or one’s imagination.
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