At Watches and Wonders 2026, Ulysse Nardin once again used its most disruptive watch to make a point: the FREAK still matters. And not only that it still matters, it kept the same disruptive soul. It still has the power to stop you in your tracks, and it still asks the same question it posed at launch – what if a watch could ignore the rules and still feel coherent?
For this interview, we sat down with Jean-Christophe Sabatier, CPO at Ulysse Nardin, to talk about the WandW launched [SUPER]FREAK and the thinking behind its latest evolution. We discussed the challenge of keeping such an icon fresh without tarnishing off its oddness, the technical choices that shaped the watch, and why the FREAK continues to sit in a category of one. In a fair full of polished novelties and safe updates, Ulysse Nardin arrived with something far less predictable. This is why I love the FREAK, the people behind it and Ulysse Nardin.