A new collaboration for CORUM, which has teamed up with Label Noir to manufacture a unique timepiece dedicated to the renowned Macau Master of Time Event. By partnering with Label Noir, the Swiss watchmaking company located in La Chaux de Fonds has given carte blanche to Label Noir’s creative team, which has plenty of practice! – Corum Bubble 47 Central Tourbillon by Label Noir.
The Bubble collection, and more specifically the emblematic CORUM Bubble 47 Central Tourbillon model, has been enhanced with the most distinctive features of the Geneva-based customization brand Label Noir: black, acid green, textured finishes, grey and matte tones, in order to highlight its deeply contemporary essence.
This is the fruit of this collaboration:
A watch design concentrated, loaded up with signatures, symbols and stories.
In the Year 2000, CORUM introduced the Bubble, an oversized wristwatch with an expanded glass. It a so radical design that the timepiece has become a must-have of the new millennium. It bridges the gap between two universes, between watchmaking and pop culture.
Out of nowhere, The Bubble Collection is Severin Wunderman’s rendition of his own vision. The entrepreneur had just acquired Corum when he launched the Bubble. At that time, his first inspiration was technical: extreme diving watches, able to withstand abysmal pressures, pure engineering pieces topped with a thick glass dome.
Severin Wunderman has brought out the aesthetic power of this wrist bubble, turning it into a generous 47 mm diameter theatre, an area for artistic experimentation, a lounge where Corum hosts its proms and invites other performers, graphic designers and artists. With a huge array of collaborations in the end.
Label Noir has applied all its expertise in colours and finishes to emphasize in its own way how to read the piece and make the Bubble a monument of contemporaneity. The move sounds normal, almost usual, but it’s not. The effects are impressive. All the more so since the model chosen for this collaborative venture is a milestone piece, an obvious creation, a purely technical piece of fine watchmaking, featuring an (almost) traditional complication: Bubble Central Tourbillon.
An almost conventional complication, in fact, because this tourbillon, which features traditional architecture, is brought back from the periphery to the centre. And this sidestep turns the whole architecture of the movement and the display upside down: everything is reversed, from the mechanical show in the centre highlighted by the Bubble’s dome to the display with no hands, just indicators around the edges.
Several versions of this central tourbillon have already been achieved in various materials, with the aim of anchoring this UFO in the traditional haute horlogerie’s world while playing with opposites, such as steel and blue, gold and black.
Label Noir went for a different approach. Very graphic finishes, deceptively minimalist, because the play of nuances is complex, with anthracite and argentic hues, matte finishes, bracelet (matte textured black rubber), case (grade 5 titanium treated with black ADLC), bezel (grade 5 titanium coated with satin black ADLC), right down to the plate. No longer an assembly of different parts, this watch is a whole: one continuous stripe with a bubble on top.
A few more dashes of steel to enhance the dial pattern, numerals and display discs, and to refocus the eyes on the central body, the beating heart, the tourbillon.
Finally, what must be read is highlighted with a few strokes of colour contrast: the acid green, Label Noir‘s signature the hour-minute indicators, the dual mark and the strap stitching.
Corum Bubble 47 Central Tourbillon by Label Noir Technical Specifications
Ref. L406/04433 – Unique piece
Movement
- Calibre CO 406 Automatic
- 60 hours power reserve
Dial
- Black
- Brass material
Case
- 47mm.
- Titanium grade 5 with black ADLC treatment.
- Water resistant to 100m
- Green laquer hands, black superluminova
Bracelet
- Synthetic, rubber lining.
- Black with fluorescent green stitches
About Corum
Established in 1955, Corum embodies creative and daring watchmaking. Far from being dogmatic, the Maison freely redefines the movement’s construction, the watch case and artistic skills that beautify the dial. Over and above its many technical (such as the baguette movement) and aesthetic (Coin, Feather and Bubble watches) achievements, Corum is carrying on a high-end watchmaking tradition that is ahead of its time.
Born in La Chaux de Fonds, the brand is open to the worlds of both contemporary street art and classical art, drawing attention from a wide range of avant-garde people. Both revolutionary and respectful of its watchmaking heritage, Corum is a niche brand that caters to discerning collectors of atypical watches. The brand has five collections, each reflecting it’s vision of 21st-century watchmaking: Admiral, Golden Bridge, Lab, Héritage and Bubble.