By Jovan Krstevski
Whenever I cover Urwerk I usually talk about elaborate designs while some remarkable use terms like a mad scientist’s design or an out of this world creation. Well, to be honest, all comments are true and judging from previous releases of Urwerk, you have to be on the weird side to truly appreciate Urwerk watches not that the weird here connotes ugliness more of an unconventional horology fan. Urwerk once again treats its fans with another fascinating release which is the remarkable Urwerk UR–210 CP ‘Clou De Paris’ watch. Literally translated Clou De Paris is Nails of Paris which means quite nothing in relation to the watch but if you look closer, the design itself resembles a hobnail pattern in a Parisian glassware. Well, that is not bad for a name but again this is very unconventional.
The case features a black and textured visual refresh which looks very much mechanical. The previous version featured a plain stainless steel edition dubbed Full Metal Jacket but for this release, we get a textured steel which is, in my opinion, better. It looks very bad ass especially the darkened yet very smooth finishing albeit with roughened textures. The end result is a very mechanical watch that can play with anyone’s unique imaginations. This is a tough watch and the design just screams that it is not playing simple tricks especially when it sports the veritable UR–7.10 caliber with its simplified version of activity tracker.
The UR–7.10 movement powering the Urwerk UR–210 CP “Clou De Paris” watch is often loosely termed by other fans as the “the pinnacle of this complication” by designer Felix Baumgartner. Needless to say the UR–7.10 movement tells more than the time particularly its activity tracker. Moreover, it also sports dual winding indicators visible on the 9 and 3 o’clock. The traditional power reserve indicator rests at 3 o’clock monitoring the 39-hour power reserve of the movement. And on the 9 o’clock is the activity tracker or sort of which is indicated by red and green winding efficiency indicator. Note that this is an Urwerk innovation telling the wearer how efficiently they are adding power to the movement with their physical activities. The indicator points towards the green side whenever the wearer is active but falls to the red side when the wearer rests for a long time. For me, this is a very simplified sporty tool.
Furthermore, more control is given at the caseback in regards to the movement. The dynamic energy collection can be controlled with three options namely sensitive (full), medium (reduced) and fully locked (stop). Of course, it is up to the wearer to determine what activity they’re in such as the differences between office hours (where the sensitive option works well) and behind a vibrating race car wheel (where the fully stop function protects the winding mechanism from being potentially damaged).
Nonetheless, we get the same Urwerk signature features such as a legible reading courtesy of the luminous green-on-black contrast “dial.” The satellite hour pointers trace the 120° arc across the dial’s minute track from right to left. In less than a tenth of a second, the retrograde minute pointer snaps back to the right of the dial to dock with the next hourly satellite. Pretty neat once you get used to reading time the Urwerk way.
For more info, please visit urwerk.com
JOVAN KRSTEVSKI – FOUNDER, PROPRIETOR & EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Jovan Krstevski has been collecting watches every since his father bought him an Omega Seamaster back when he was just a teenager. He launched Watchgeek back in 2011, which is now known as WristReview and is one of the most widely read watch blogs on the Web. He quotes ’WristReview is a site to help people find, explore, discover and enjoy wristwatches.’ Besides WristReview, he also writes for a number of publications. Read his articles here
