Bell & Ross
The Bell & Ross BR-X2 Tourbillon Micro-Rotor
Bell & Ross
The Bell & Ross BR-X2 Tourbillon Micro-Rotor
Anyone can aspire to say, a Richard Mille RM011, but exponentially more people can actually afford an entry-level BR0 model, typically at under £3000. Conversely, Bell & Ross has used the BR0 round dial/square case formula for everything from diving models to tourbillons, but the where the irony comes in is with this “high end” of the BR0 range: even when the watch hosts complications or exotic materials, the pricing remains sensible. It’s a lesson in humility for all of the brands that are slowly – but surely – killing the geese laying all those 18k ova.
What Bell & Ross creates with its luxo-BR0 models are unusual mash-ups of military designs – the entire shtick is based on cockpit instrumentation – with haute horlogerie credentials. Yes, Panerai, Breitling and a few others do it, too, so I’m not ascribing uniqueness to this concept, but the BR0 models, especially those with an “X” in the name, do it with a delightfully weird French insouciance. Look up the magazine Metal Hurlant or Wild Planet to catch my drift. You don’t get more French.
It was followed in 2016 by the BR-X1 Tourbillon Sapphire, which redefined the possibilities of the BR0 case by providing total transparency thanks to the square case being cut directly from a block of sapphire. For 2017, the BR-X2 Tourbillon Micro-Rotor shows its X factor by forming the case from steel and sapphire, in the form of a sandwich. It thus provides structural integrity and total transparency without the agonising manufacturing process of carving a solid block of sapphire.
From the side, you see a slim strip of steel. Despite the “filling” being the movement in a square steel frame, the effect is no less “naked” just because the metal work reaches to the case’s edges. It’s perfectly offset by a grey alligator strap and it possesses the same rugged-yet-transparent presence that defines the Hublots and Milles and Cvstoses and Rebellions and other macho skeletons.
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