CIGA Design’s collaboration with Label Noir last year may have been cosmic in its theme but the Central Tourbillon Everest Summit brings them back to terra firma in dramatic fashion. Not only is it an ode to the world’s tallest mountain, but it also features a dial that’s made from Mount Everest’s bedrock that was collected personally by CIGA’s Chief Designer, Jiang Xin, on a trip to the mountain. Throw in the haute horological central tourbillon and you have quite the striking timepiece.
Jumping straight to the aforementioned dial, it’s made from rock taken from the slopes of Mount Everest. While semi-precious stones are becoming more commonplace in the industry, straight up rock remains very uncommon – the only other example that comes to mind is the Tissot RockWatch. There are good reasons for this. Rock is generally quite brittle when sliced to the thinness of a dial and it doesn’t have the natural pretty qualities sought for in semi-precious stones.
As they’re working with rock with a very specific provenance, CIGA’s options were even more limited in terms of having to work with what’s available and the challenges of making it look good. The solution was to use a combination of laser shaping and CNC machine engraving to accentuate and exaggerate the natural contours of the rock dials, creating a dramatic three-dimensional landscape across the surface of the display that looks like it could be the flank of Everest itself in micro form. Adding to that is a depiction of the mountain at 12 o’clock along with its altitude, made from lume.
In the middle of the display is the central tourbillon. Of the many styles of tourbillon that exist, the central tourbillon is regarded as one of the more difficult to produce because it necessitates the complete restructuring of the internal architecture of the movement. A challenge CIGA took to gladly, designing the movement themselves, the calibre CD-05. Alongside the central tourbillon they fitted it with quad power barrels to provide a power reserve of 120-hours, equivalent to 5-days.
Orbiting the edge of the central tourbillon are the watch hands, which here are shaped as the ice picks used by Edmund Hillary on his ascent of Everest with Tenzing Norgay in 1953. While both the hour and minute hands are the same size, you can identify which is which by the length of the lume strip down their centre. One of my favourite details about the watch is that while it looks at first glance like there are no hour markers – leaving you to approximate the time – there actually is a 12-hour scale on this watch. It’s just not on the dial.
The 45mm titanium case has 12 notches in its bezel and caseband, positioned exactly in the normal positions of a 12-hour display. At 45mm it’s an unavoidably large watch but that’s offset somewhat by the lightweight properties of titanium. It also has a rugged, adventure-ready design to it, despite being a haute horology timepiece. It’s evidently the de facto style for Everest themed watches as Vacheron’s Overseas Everest in 2021 was also rugged with titanium elements.
The CIGA Design Central Tourbillon Everest Summit is priced at $2,699 (approx. £1,950). For a central tourbillon with 5-day power reserve and a dial made from the world’s most famous mountain, that seems like pretty good value. And collectors evidently agree because the first release of this watch at the tail end of last year sold out, but it’s now back for its second wave of release.
Price and Specs:
More details at CIGA.
