The 12 animals of the Zodiac are engraved chronologically on the situation middle with all the rat positioned at the upper right corner of the watch. Some highlights worth mentioning include the tiger, which is positioned on the crown; and the dragon and snake, which are intertwined between the base lugs of this case. The bezel is hand-engraved using the champlevé technique too and features a pattern which calls to mind that the grids found on historical Chinese doorways. The dial is made of solid 18k gold, also. Such as the circumstance, it is hand-engraved using a lattice pattern that is similar to that of the bezel. On the dial at 12 o’clock is a big date display. Below are the endless calendar signs. At 3 o’clock, we’ve got the month and leap year signs, and at 9 o’clock we have the day and 24-hour indicators. Finally, at 6 o’clock there is the tourbillon which makes a spinning every minute. Powering the watch is your caliber 02.15-L that features 353 components and Chopard’s Quattro system, which means it has four mainspring barrels along with a power reserve of 216 hours or 9 days. As mentioned earlier, it includes the ceaseless calendar complication and a tourbillon mechanism, and it beats at 4Hz. The motion comprises extensive hand-finishing such as beveled bridges, polished screws and jewel countersinks, and continues to be awarded the Geneva Seal. The operator may also be sure of exceptional timekeeping performance as it is also chronometer-certified from COSC. The motion could be admired through the watch’s sapphire display caseback.
Chopard’s latest L.U.C wristwatch is something of a surprise. L.U.C watches, being the top of the line, serious horology offered by Chopard, are typically conservatively styled. The L.U.C Time Traveler One ‘Time of the Desert’, on the other hand, is strikingly coloured.
Only just concluded, Dubai Watch Week was five days of exhibitions, talks and seminars, but also a platform for several watchmakers to introduce special editions unique to the Gulf, like the TAG Heuer Autavia UAE edition we covered last week.
A variation of the world time watch Chopard Watch Expensive Replica announced last year, the L.U.C Time Traveler One ‘Time of the Desert’ was another unveiled at the event, which was scheduled to take place just after the Chopard Classic Rally Dubai; the watchmaker’s co-president Karl Friedrich Scheufele is a classic car enthusiast.
While, the ordinary Time Traveler One in steel is fitted with a sporty black and orange dial, the UAE edition has a striking dial. While salmon- and copper-tone dials are fashionable right now, the dial on the Time Traveler One is neither colour, being instead a metallic sand.
While the dial colour is almost uniform, the dial surface has different textures, giving the colour tones that vary with the light. The centre is radially bused, while the chapter ring for the hour and minute markers has a stamped concentric guilloche.
All of the 24 cities on the world time disc are the conventional placeholders for each time zone, save for Gulf Time Zone, or GMT+4, which is represented by Dubai written in Arabic script – “دبي”.
The rest of the watch is identical to the stock Time Traveler One. The steel case is 42mm in diameter, which is largish though it feels smaller than it actually is. But at 12.09mm high with brushed, vertical sides, the thickness of the case is apparent.
The case has two crowns: one at two o’clock for local time and the other crown for world time. Each time zone is via the 24-hour ring and adjacent cities disc, and on the innermost ring sits the date indicator.
It’s powered by the in-house cal. L.U.C 01.05-L, an automatic with a 60-hour power reserve.
The movement as seen in the stock Time Traveler One
Price and availability
Limited to just 20 watches, the L.U.C Time Traveler One ‘Time of the Desert’ (ref. 168574-3005) is priced at AED52,900, equivalent to US$14,400. It’s available from Seddiqi & Sons in Dubai.