UR-100V STARDUST

This UR-100V will tell you tales of stars and distant constellations, nascent beauty and flamboyance, flashes of lightning and transparent reflections. "The entire universe is composed of stellar particles, making their presence inevitable in all the forms of matter that surround us. Whether in their raw or transformed state, from carbon to cut diamonds, from iron mineral to steel alloy, this stardust is omnipresent. It's crazy to think that we, as human beings, are also made of this celestial substance. So, the nickname Stardust, logically associated with the setting of this UR-100V, also extends to the watch itself and to its future owner”, says URWERK’s Artistic Director and co-founder, Martin Frei.

This UR-100V is set with 400 diamonds (VVS1, Color D) totalling almost 1.90 carats of pure carbon. The technique chosen here is that of snow-setting: "We wanted a setting reminiscent of the starry heavens, with nothing at all uniform, more like ordered chaos. It wasn't so much the size of the stones that was important to us as their arrangement, this almost random design”, says Felix Baumgartner, master watchmaker and co-founder of URWERK.

Four hundred diamonds meticulously selected from eight different formats adorn the case of the UR-100V Stardust. Only the edges of the watch have been left bare. Run your finger over this mosaic of diamonds and you’ll find the structure is soft to the touch, smooth and fluid. Making this setting was however quite a challenge, because of the nature of the steel used here. Harder and less malleable than gold, steel required more complex and meticulous jewellery craftsmanship. Beneath the UR-100V Stardust's crystal globe, the minutes scale – located on the upper part of the railway-type track – is studded with 36 diamonds, while another 24 adorn the watch crown. The steel pin buckle is enhanced by two rows comprising 11 diamonds each.

In addition to its aesthetics and its wandering hour movement, the UR-100V Stardust is spatial by nature. Like all watches in the 100 collection, it features two recesses on the flanks of its satellite carrier. The first is a kilometre counter representing the distance travelled by the Earth on its own axis in 20 minutes, i.e. 555 km. The second is another kilometers counter showing the distance travelled by the Earth around the Sun during the same period, i.e. 35,740 km. In this way, the UR- 100V Stardust bears witness to the Earth's journey across the void of space, passing millions of suns and reflecting their light.