The Low-down

The industry’s greatest technical resource The Naked Watchmaker has collaborated with Frederique Constant on an openworked version of the brand’s Slimline Perpetual Calendar Manufacture. Launched in 2015, the Slimline Perpetual Calendar Manufacture remains the most affordable in-house perpetual calendar on the market. Its simple, industrially optimized construction along with its restrained, classical exterior made it the perfect canvas for The Naked Watchmaker to work its magic and do what it says on the tin, which is to reveal the module’s inner gearwork.

Founded in 2017, The Naked Watchmaker is a venture by English watchmaker Peter Speake and Daniela Marin after leaving the company that bore his name. The website documents his incredible movement teardowns in great detail, offering a rare insight into their inner workings and to which many of us owe an insurmountable debt. The especial nature of the educational platform, being founded and run by a talented watchmaker already makes this collaboration a highly unsual one. While it marks the first endeavour of its kind for the company, it will also be the only one on which both Peter and Daniela have worked together; Peter, who has been the platform’s technical expert, will be sitting out of future collaborations.

Limited to 99 pieces, the TNW x Frederique Constant Slimline Perpetual Calendar has been cleverly open-worked, retaining its original dimensions – 42mm by 11.3mm – while adding height and depth to the dial. The movement is the self-winding FC-775 movement, which is made up of a perpetual calendar module built on top the Frederique Constant caliber FC-100. The perpetual calendar module employs a traditional, textbook construction. It is governed by a grand lever that samples a 12-month cam with notches of varying depth corresponding to the length of the months in a year, with deepest being February. Because it only accounts for a single year, the 29th of February can’t be encoded in this cam, hence an additional arm of the grand lever contacts a leap-year cam fixed on a 48-month wheel. This cam makes a quarter revolution a year, with a high step accounting for 29th February, preventing the beak of the grand lever from reaching the full depth of the February notch.

In the TNW x Frederique Constant Slimline Perpetual Calendar, the entire mechanism is exposed on the dial. In fact, the chapter rings for the day and date sub-dials are made even larger so the sub-mechanisms for each indication can be seen more clearly. The day sub-dial on the left reveals the seven-point star, driven by a 24-hour wheel while the date sub-dial on the right exposes the 31-point star wheel and its snail cam. Taking this idea to an even greater extreme is the moon phase display; the moon phase disc is left completely exposed with both moons visible. They are filled with SuperLuminova which should offer a beautiful light show in the dark.

The most significant change is the sub-dial for the month and leap year, which conventionally are indicated by a pair of co-axially mounted hands. In revealing the month wheel, behind which lies the 12-month cam, the leap year indicator was smartly modified. Instead of a pointer indicator, the leap year is shown in an aperture between January and March. Each year in a four-year cycle is indicated by a different colour with the leap year represented by red. All the hands have also been redesigned and open-worked so as to ensure greater visibility of the mechanics. The main hour and minute hands feature luminous tips while the rest are red tipped for better contrast.

The brilliant play of colours aids in accentuating the mechanism while maintaining a good level of legibility. The steel and gold-coloured wheels are contrasted against the blue module plate while the skeletonised dial is in brown, against which the white indicators can be read at a glance. In all, the quirky hands, unusual colours and playful typeface lend an otherwise visually staid complication an endearingly distinctive character.

IMHO

The Insta-age has fostered a humongous appetite for watches with sheer wow factor, and the safe and logical thing to do when working on a collaborative watch is to base it off a timepiece that already has that in spades. To run with that train of thought for a bit, the Slimline Perpetual Calendar Manufacture is not the most expected and obvious choice given its straightforward construction with optimized designs of standard parts and humble finishing – no doubt tethered to its price point. But yet it was a watch chosen amongst the hundreds of watches The Naked Watchmaker has dissected, which begs a different viewpoint and makes this collaboration all the more intriguing. Thoughtful in its modifications, and ultimately, a celebration of mechanics, the result is a tutorial, watchmaker’s watch.

In the same way a Unitas 6497 serves as the starter movement in watchmaking schools, a carefully engineered, textbook perpetual calendar built for longevity makes the perfect tool for education and this purpose permeates its open workings, e.g., the usual function of a moon phase display is forfeited to show what lies beneath. This earnest effort in respecting the mechanics beneath brings a certain kind of charm you can’t help but appreciate, and with its striking and tasteful contrast of colours, it’s also a feast for the eyes.

Tech Specs

The Naked Watchmaker X Frederique Constant Slimline Perpetual Calendar Manufacture (Ref. FC-775TNW4S6)

Movement: Automatic FC-775 Manufacture caliber; 38 hours of power reserve; 28,800 vibrations per hour (4Hz)
Functions: Hours, minutes, moonphase, date, day, month, leap year
Case: 42mm x 11.3mm; Stainless steel; depth rated to 30m
Dial: Skeletonized brown dial with a luminescent printed outer chapter ring and white lacquered hands with luminous treatment; moons with luminous treatment
Strap: Brown fabric strap with beige stitching
Price: EUR 9,995
Limited Edition: 99 numbered pieces
Availability: Can be ordered directly from a dedicated website here.