It's a little harder to sell a watch (or, for that matter, luxury consumer goods in general) than it was even 12 months ago, if the figures recently released by the Swiss watch industry are to be believed, and increasingly, people who love fine watchmaking seem to be inclined to look more carefully at whether or not there's actually something more behind what they're buying than novelty, or a strong brand name. Depending on who you are and what you're making, this can be a bad thing, or it can be an opportunity. For a company like Chopard, which makes some very beautiful haute horlogerie watches, but which has never quite had the recognition as a watchmaker that the Pateks, Vacherons, and APs of the world enjoy, times like these are a chance to make potential clients more aware of what they've got to offer. The L.U.C. Perpetual Twin, in steel, therefore, is both an end in itself, and a means by which the company hopes to get out the message that there's more out there at the high end than the usual suspects.
Currently, there are eight collections of watches offered by Chopard, from the simple Classic and Classic Racing models, to high jewelry timepieces, to the famous "Happy Diamonds" collection. At the very top, from the standpoint of horological sophistication, is the L.U.C. line. If you visit Chopard's manufactory in Fleurier (as HODINKEE did in 2014) you'll see two separate buildings: Fleurier Ebauches, and Chopard Manufacture. The latter is where you find L.U.C. movements being manufactured. Creation of Chopard's L.U.C. movements makes extensive use of traditional watchmaking techniques, including quite a lot of elaborate hand-finishing. When the first L.U.C. movement, the 1.96, debuted, it surprised an awful lot of enthusiasts; so much so that Timezone.com's Walt Odets entitled his review "From The House Of Happy Diamonds" as if to underscore how unexpected such a high grade, micro-rotor, self-winding movement from Chopard really was. He also called it (in 2002) "probably the finest automatic movement being produced in Switzerland today."
The L.U.C. collection has since then expanded dramatically, and Chopard's website shows over 80 models, but of course, what makes an L.U.C. watch an L.U.C. watch is the movement. However, a beautiful movement in a mediocre case with an undistinguished dial is not going to win hearts and minds, and Chopard's gone to great pains to make sure its designs are recognizably different, without losing the fundamental sense of balance and harmony you expect in a watch whose movement has a classic haute horlogerie execution.
The L.U.C. Perpetual Twin's dial and case have a very definite Art Deco feel – especially the hands, which, with their setbacks just past where the lume begins, look like stylized skyscrapers. The oversized, mirror-polished Roman numerals, large date display, choice of fonts, and black-and-white color scheme all further underscore the Deco influence on the design of the Perpetual Twin. The design's distinctive, without falling afoul of the trap of trying to seem novel for the sake of novelty. It's always difficult to come up with original and also genuinely tasteful designs in watchmaking, and most watches resort, more or less, to a fairly small repertoire of well-worn visual tropes; the Perpetual Twin has a great, individual design identity that also happens to work very well.
As we mentioned already, any L.U.C. watch is really all about having a fantastic movement in a case whose aesthetics are a natural extension of both mechanical excellence, and good taste in movement design and layout. The movement here is the Chopard L.U.C. 96.51-L. This is a 33 mm x 6 mm, micro-rotor equipped, self-winding movement, running in 27 jewels, with twin mainspring barrels and a 58-hour power reserve, beating at 28,800 vph. The overall layout of the movement is one familiar to anyone who's been following movement production at Chopard since the 1.96 caliber debuted; for a closer look at the 1.96, there are still not many image libraries better than Steve G's Watch Launchpad (a place that really drives home the point that it's not the camera, it's the photographer; his images of 1.96 were taken over a dozen years ago). The overall layout and construction are so similar that caliber 96.51 basically appears to be 1.96, with a perpetual calendar plate added under the dial (this is, of course, the traditional location for perpetual calendar works in any case). The only thing I miss in 96.51 that is present in 1.96, is the very attractive swan's neck regulator (and the equally attractive, kidney-shaped stud for the balance spring). Without these, the balance cock in 96.51 seems a bit plain. That's in comparison with 1.96, however, and taken on its own, caliber 96.51 offers the same well-thought-out and well executed arrangement of components and bridges that you find in 1.96.
Quality of movement finishing is excellent, as you'd expect in an haute horlogerie movement. Transitions are crisp (in fact some of the sharp outer corners on this new movement look as if they might even be a bit sharper than in 1.96) and the Geneva stripes have the slightly creamy softness you don't see in less expensive movements, where in general more metal is removed, producing a slightly brittle-looking shininess. Screw slots are beveled, countersinks are neatly formed around the screws and jewels – in general, the layout and execution of the 1.96, as incarnated in 96.51-L, have aged very well. I miss the sharp inner corners characteristic of the very highest level Genevan/Swiss/Fleurisanne finishing, but then, such inner corners were not present in 1.96 either, and while they're always wonderful to see, their absence here feels more like a design decision than a lapse per se.
On the wrist, the Perpetual Twin wears a bit large (the case is 43 mm in diameter, and 11.47 mm thick) but I didn't find the size excessive, probably thanks to the fact that the width/thickness aspect ratio makes the watch wear a bit on the thin side. So what don't you get from this watch? Well, if you want a design that's as classic in features and execution as the perpetual calendar itself, the slightly idiosyncratic design of the Perpetual Twin will probably not ultimately appeal to you enough to make you seriously consider owning one. However, I think this watch makes a very interesting offering. It's qualitatively excellent overall, and in terms of haute horlogerie complications offerings, it's a very attractive value at $22,890.
There are of course much less expensive full perpetual calendars these days – the complication seems to be something of a poster child for showing just how democratically priced a high complication can actually be, and the fact that perpetual calendar work is usually done as cadrature (under the dial work) anyway, and is therefore usually out of sight, makes it a high complication that's a bit more about information delivered, than about seeing the mechanism in action. But in watchmaking (especially mechanical horology, and especially nowadays) as in so many things, how you do something is at least as important as what you do, and the Chopard Perpetual Twin does what it does extremely well.
The Chopard L.U.C. Perpetual Twin, as shown, in steel, $28,890; available now in Chopard boutiques. Case, stainless steel, 43 mm x 11.47 mm, water resistant to 30 m. Sapphire crystals front and back. Movement, micro-rotor automatic caliber L.U.C. 96.51-L, 33 mm x 6 mm; 27 jewels, twin barrels, 58-hour power reserve. Chronometer certified by the COSC. Perpetual calendar with large date display. See the entire L.U.C. collection here.
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