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Lot Essay
This stunning one-off-a-kind example of the independent Manufacture Ulysse Nardin’s ‘Freak X’ has been especially created in black DLC-coated titanium and pink to accord with the signature colours of ELA.
Freak : A Wild Horological Icon That Has Revolutionised 21st Century Watchmaking
Interviewed in 2023, Ulysse Nardin’s chief product officer Jean-Christophe Sabatier comments that 'You cannot overstate the impact of the Freak on Swiss watchmaking'. Indeed, since its debut in 2001, the Freak has been rewriting the rules of conventional high-end watchmaking. The Freak’s influence on watchmaking cannot be underestimated, its arrival disrupted the traditional world of Swiss Haute Horlogerie, disposing with aesthetic and technical norms. Here was a watch with no dial, no hands and no crown. And yet it was a mechanical watch, conceived by some of the wildest minds watchmaking had ever known. Not only were the design and engineering groundbreaking, the Freak was also the first Swiss watch with an escapement made of a new watchmaking wonder stuff - silicon. Silicon is light and elastic, frictionless, has high resistance properties, and can be produced to very fine tolerances. Today, the use of silicon in watchmaking is commonplace, but at the turn of the Millennium, it was absolutely revolutionary. The Freak went first.
The watchmaking landscape will never be the same again - because of the Freak. The Freak’s story has continued to gather momentum. Further inventions. New materials. Always the unexpected. And then in 2019, Ulysse Nardin broke the conventions of the unconventional Freak by introducing the Freak X. The concept? Still no dial. Still no hands. But this time, it did have a crown.
The Freak X was aimed at a new generation of Freak collectors. Its form was simplified - with the addition of a crown - but it was still an outlandish expression of analogue watch design. The movement bridges still doubled as the hands, and the movement included advanced developments such as the lightweight silicon balance wheel with nickel flyweights. Beating away at the watch’s heart is the UN-230 self-winding movement, a marriage of the UN-118 and the high-tech UN-250 that gave the Freak Vision its unforgettable look. The watch is water-resistant to 50 meters.
The present unique Freak X, inscribed ‘1⁄1’, presents pink details on the minuterie, hours and minutes pointers, hour wheel and the strap. It offers collectors the chance to obtain what is undoubtedly the most exclusive individual watch of the model whilst making an important contribution to the medical research of ELA.
Freak : A Wild Horological Icon That Has Revolutionised 21st Century Watchmaking
Interviewed in 2023, Ulysse Nardin’s chief product officer Jean-Christophe Sabatier comments that 'You cannot overstate the impact of the Freak on Swiss watchmaking'. Indeed, since its debut in 2001, the Freak has been rewriting the rules of conventional high-end watchmaking. The Freak’s influence on watchmaking cannot be underestimated, its arrival disrupted the traditional world of Swiss Haute Horlogerie, disposing with aesthetic and technical norms. Here was a watch with no dial, no hands and no crown. And yet it was a mechanical watch, conceived by some of the wildest minds watchmaking had ever known. Not only were the design and engineering groundbreaking, the Freak was also the first Swiss watch with an escapement made of a new watchmaking wonder stuff - silicon. Silicon is light and elastic, frictionless, has high resistance properties, and can be produced to very fine tolerances. Today, the use of silicon in watchmaking is commonplace, but at the turn of the Millennium, it was absolutely revolutionary. The Freak went first.
The watchmaking landscape will never be the same again - because of the Freak. The Freak’s story has continued to gather momentum. Further inventions. New materials. Always the unexpected. And then in 2019, Ulysse Nardin broke the conventions of the unconventional Freak by introducing the Freak X. The concept? Still no dial. Still no hands. But this time, it did have a crown.
The Freak X was aimed at a new generation of Freak collectors. Its form was simplified - with the addition of a crown - but it was still an outlandish expression of analogue watch design. The movement bridges still doubled as the hands, and the movement included advanced developments such as the lightweight silicon balance wheel with nickel flyweights. Beating away at the watch’s heart is the UN-230 self-winding movement, a marriage of the UN-118 and the high-tech UN-250 that gave the Freak Vision its unforgettable look. The watch is water-resistant to 50 meters.
The present unique Freak X, inscribed ‘1⁄1’, presents pink details on the minuterie, hours and minutes pointers, hour wheel and the strap. It offers collectors the chance to obtain what is undoubtedly the most exclusive individual watch of the model whilst making an important contribution to the medical research of ELA.