Clash of colours, power of know-how – Label Noir x Rebellion Re-Volt. Here is the whole spirit of Rebellion and Label Noir’s collaboration. It’s the matchup of two minds, two personalization virtuosi. For 15 years, the independent Swiss watch brand Rebellion, with its automotive DNA, has been renowned for its racy and challenging designs. As a fan of extreme customization of its iconic timepieces, Rebellion is especially keen on daring collaborative ventures.
The outcome is unexpected, as rich as a sharing of exoticism as if two cultures were dancing around a fire. Rebellion’s emblematic sporty piece becomes warm, and exotic. Label Noir’s signature minimalism moves it into a festive, heady, full-on painting, like a Macau night.
The interpretation starts with the indexes, yellow and red, glowing like flames, which circle the time display, hour, minute and small second. The central hands are tense like swords, red, slightly different from the original hands, in baton shape with a peak, in order to further increase the voltage. Then the case, which seems to be hewn out of a lava shard, yellow, red, and black.
Once the first visual jolt is over, colours soften and disclose their true essence. They aren’t so extreme, they’re all about tones and shades. The vivid colours are not offensive, they are soft and matte. Bright colours are blended with halftones. Red is not absolute, but includes just the right touch of blue and yellow to mellow it. The yellow does not scorch, it is slightly whitened, it has a patina.
Then the colours switch over. They’re there for a purpose. They seemed to win the game, to occupy the field. In fact, they serve the black, whose subtleties and shadings they underline. For black is never absolute. The truth is that there is almost no pure black but anthracite. Anthracite and grey tones, mingle with the colours on the case and focus on the calibre.
The review goes on. What appeared to be a lot of work becomes simple, as if the mix of red, yellow and black were only meant to highlight the very essence of the timepiece: a pure mechanical achievement made of an engine and a casing. The basic design tells this story, the Label Noir touch enhances its ultra-technical nature.
The case is built of carbon, one of the most challenging composite materials available and one in which Rebellion has both expertise and legitimacy, thanks to the brand’s involvement with the automotive universe. As for the engine – the mechanical movement – it’s also an piece full of expertise, a high horological but contemporary Manufacture skeletonized calibre, exclusively from Rebellion.
Label Noir has chosen to blur all the colours of the movement, leaving only black, anthracite and a few metallic greys on certain gears, on the balance wheel marqueterie and on the small second hand. The various coatings underline the movement’s architecture in all its depths and highlight the technical organs that run through the watch from one side to the other. The open back reveals the intentions: expressing the quintessence of this mechanical watch, its engine and its coachwork.
This watch is the result of a conversation between Emmanuel Curti, artistic director of Label Noir, and the Rebellion creative team. Every detail is the culmination of this exchange. Everything was debated, all was personalized, and nothing was left up to random. The result is a first for everyone. Label Noir, whose only vocation is in collaborating, had never dealt with a carbon case unit. And Rebellion never worked with such colour combinations.
However, this collaborative initiative is no art piece for art’s sake. Personalization is not a dogma, not everything has been modified. The bracelet, for example, has been kept in its original condition. Emmanuel Curti’s choice, who always felt like integrating a technical fabric bracelet into a collaboration. The choice is sound: the matte black of the weave provides continuity of tone with the movement as if the shocking colours were nothing more than fine flashes of light delicately suspended in the black interlacing of the mechanism.
Label Noir x Rebellion Re-Volt Technical Specifications
Case Materials: Colored carbon
Glass: Sapphire crystals with anti-reflective treatment
Case back: Sapphire crystals with anti-reflective treatment
Case dimensions: 38.5mm x 40.35mm x 13.5mm
Flange: Black
Water resistance: 30m / 3 ATM
Movement: Swiss made hand-wound movement
Functions: Hours, minutes and seconds
Jewels: 21
Balance frequency: 4 Hz (28,800 vph)
Power reserve: 48 hours
Strap and buckle: Two options available: Black textile, velcro closure with black DLC titanium buckle or
black vulcanized rubber strap with the folding clasp
Label Noir x Rebellion
Label Noir and Rebellion’s first ever collaboration is a pure exercise in style. The playground, Re-Volt, is one of Rebellion’s signature pieces: a technical carbon tonneau case, a skeletonised three-hand Manufacture’s movement, the perfect piece for personalization. Label Noir, which had never before collaborated on a material such as carbon in its previous projects, has entered this capsule by way of color, bringing in new, warm shades of yellow, red and black. The meaning of the colors has been revisited, until it becomes an element of understanding of the watch: a watch engine and a coachwork. The coachwork, i.e. the casing and the time-reading parts, indexes and hands, are fully charged with color. The other parts, the engine, the strap (in technical fabric), remain monochrome, black, anthracite, metal grey, to emphasize even more the technicality of the watch.