When it comes to Blancpain’s latest updates (£11,800-£27,500) to its Villeret Golden Hour series – essentially three watches but sixteen new references in total – there are plenty of common denominators. The leaf hands have shed some of their already slender profile and had their luminosity enhanced; the applied “12” numeral has made way for an applied “JB” symbol; their case architecture has been tweaked with slimmer bezels, now complemented by reworked lugs, autumnal shades and movements with a level of hand-finishing worth paying attention to.
Each of the three models has its own personality. The 40mm time-and-date Villeret Ultraplate – a classic Blanpain dress piece –comes with opaline or golden-brown dial, in steel or red gold, and packs a Calibre 1151 movement, visible through the caseback. Also measuring 40mm, the Villeret Quantième Complet Phases de Lune – as anyone with a passing knowledge of French has already surmised – features what is technically the oldest complication in watchmaking (a version of it was built into the 2000-year-old old mechanical computer known as the Antikythera Mechanism): the moonphase. It also comes with opaline or golden-brown dial and metal choices of either 18kt white or 18kt red gold.
Left: Blancpain Villeret Quantième Phases de Lune with its elegant diamond-set bezel in a 33mm case.
Middle: Detail of the moon face in the 40mm, the Villeret Quantième Complet Phases de Lune.
Right: A classic among classics, the Blancpain Villeret Ultraplate in steel with opaline dial.
Finally, we have another moonphase piece, the Villeret Quantième Phases de Lune, this time smaller (33mm), in either a steel or 18k red gold case, with dials in opaline or golden-brown graced with a diamond-set band. Curiously, in this smaller iteration, the domed, satin-finished 18kt gold moon’s face, set within a sky fashioned from blue ceramic, is sleepier than on its larger siblings. Make of that what you will – but it’s a neat flash of mischievous detail on the part of Blancpain’s Métiers d’Art studio in Le Brassus.
There is no question that the Villeret Ultraplate offers a masterclass in elegant simplicity but the two pieces with a moonphase – a complication introduced by Blancpain in 1983 as part of its rallying cry for mechanical watchmaking in the face of the rise of quartz watches – are likely to cause the most buzz in horological circles. Indeed, for this writer, watch lovers who are innately wooed by the enduring charm of that complication dedicated to Earth’s only natural satellite and harbour a genuine appreciation of proportion and finishing, should really consider Blancpain their go-to manufacture.
American poet and journalist Carl Sandburg called the Moon, “A friend for the lonesome to talk to” but wearers of the two moonphase pieces in this trio won’t find themselves alone for long in any room frequented by sharp-sighted, horologically savvy types.
Author: Nick Scott
Fond of a moonphase watch? You may enjoy reading our review of the Tudor 1926 Luna.
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