SimplyAbuDhabi XXXIII

E stablished in 1898 in the St. Imier valley of Switzerland, Manufacture Minerva originally specialised in high-quality stopwatches. Montblanc enriched their own rich heritage when they acquired Minerva, which is located in the village of Villeret, a few kilometres from La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Swiss Jura. The luxury conglomerate Richemont, which owns the majority of the brands exhibiting at SIHH, acquired Minerva in 2006 and set up the absorption of the manufacture into the German Maison, Montblanc. Jean-Marc Pontroué, Executive Vice President in charge of Product Strategy and Development, said at the time that, “Montblanc needed to compensate for the lack of engineering complexity and uniqueness of movement in its watch assortment, the very thing that distinguished its writing instruments. That lack of competence has been highly compensated by adding Minerva’s tradition in very specific complications. That was the missing piece of our puzzle.” The high-level facility in Villeret now produces between 200 and 350 haute horlogerie movements a year, balance springs included. Davide Cerrato, who was appointed at the head of Montblanc’s Watch Division in 2015, has made the most of the rich heritage Minerva offers. The Montblanc Star Legacy Metamorphosis Limited Edition 8 is a one-of-a-kind timepiece that celebrates Minerva’s rich history. Back in 2010, following five years R&D, Montblanc launched the Metamorphosis Concept, which revealed two different faces on one unique timepiece. The new Metamorphosis presents an alternative way of appreciating the time. The new model marries the patented Exo Tourbillon, held by a sapphire crystal bridge, with a new kind of three-dimensional realistic moon display on an aventurine disc that turns around a Northern Hemisphere globe. The Montblanc Star Legacy Metamorphosis Limited Edition 8 pays tribute to Minerva’s rich 161-year heritage and it is developed and produced entirely by Montblanc’s engineers and master watchmakers. The watch can transform itself to reveal two different faces. At the heart of the watch is the proprietary hand-crafted calibre MB M67.60, a highly complicated movement that took three years to develop. The mechanism is activated by a sliding lever on the side of the case that is connected to a dial. Comprised of a fixed part and moveable shutters, which can be opened and closed, it offers the wearer different ways to enjoy the time and also the Earth and Moon system. When the shutters are closed, the watch’s face displays a world time function at six o'clock in the form of a turning, domed Northern- Hemisphere globe. The globe is surrounded by a 24-hour scale and a day/night indication. At 12 o'clock, the rhodium-coated balance wheel with blued hairspring and 18 screws, beats at the traditional frequency of 18,000 oscillations per hour. When its shutters are opened, the dial reveals the beauty of Montblanc’s patented one-minute Exo Tourbillon that represents the sun at 12 o'clock. The brand says, “This was feasible thanks to the Exo Tourbillon construction, which allows the balance wheel to be positioned outside of the cage. The tourbillon is held in place by a sapphire crystal bridge. Around the Exo Tourbillon, a jumping date disc, with a part to hide the other numbers, is visible.” A complication at six o’clock shows a realistic moon with its exact position in the sky as viewed from Earth. This jumping, three- dimensional moon turns constantly around the globe in a gyroscopic way as it would make its journey around the Earth. The astronomical moonphase complication need be adjusted just once in 122 years. The process of the metamorphosis is reversible, and the opposite movement is initiated when the control device is activated again, meaning that the sliding shutters at the top and bottom of the dial are redeployed. The transformation between the two faces is highly complex and involves more than 320 individual components, all of them meticulously crafted by hand, and which move at the same time. In addition to this, the Exo Tourbillon construction contains more than 100 components on its own. In total, the timepiece is comprised of 718 components, including the shutters, the globe, the moon and the aventurine disc, attesting to its complexity and sophistication. 1 0 9 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I