BY JOVAN
The Ulysse Nardin Freak has been doing things differently for 25 years, and that anniversary is being marked with two new versions that take the latest Freak ONE in a more decorative direction. The Freak ONE Blue Enamel and Freak ONE Guilloché bring Grand Feu enamel and traditional guilloché into the collection, giving the rotating hour display a very different look while leaving the underlying concept untouched.
The original Freak was introduced in 2001 and was about as far away from a conventional mechanical watch as you could get. There was no crown, no traditional dial, and no normal set of hands, with the movement itself rotating to indicate the minutes while a separate disc displayed the hours. The Freak ONE arrived in 2023 as a modern interpretation of that idea, and these anniversary editions now add a more artisanal side to the formula without turning the watch into something it isn’t.
Both watches use the same 44mm x 13.3mm titanium case, with sandblasted surfaces and polished details that give the relatively large case some welcome contrast. Titanium is also a sensible choice here, keeping the weight down while maintaining the strength needed for a watch with this much going on mechanically. The updated bezel is cleaner than the original Freak’s, with fewer unnecessary details, and the crownless design remains one of the defining practical features of the case, with the bezel used for setting the time and the caseback for winding. The case is finished with a sapphire caseback and offers 30 meters of water resistance, so there is no attempt to turn the Freak ONE into some kind of everyday tool watch.
This is where the two anniversary versions really separate themselves. On the Blue Enamel, the rotating hour disc is made from white gold and first receives a sunray-style engraved pattern before being covered with blue Grand Feu enamel. The work is carried out by Donzé Cadrans, Ulysse Nardin’s in-house enamel studio, and the electric blue color is intended to echo the original 2001 Freak. The result is much richer than simply putting a blue surface onto the watch, because the engraved pattern remains underneath the enamel and adds another layer to the finished disc.
The Grand Feu process itself is also part of what makes the Blue Enamel interesting. The enamel is fired at extremely high temperatures in a kiln, which produces the intense color and smooth surface but also carries the risk of the dial cracking during production. The Guilloché version takes a completely different visual approach, using a geometric diamond pattern finished in a light sand color. It is less about color and more about the texture and precision of the pattern as the hour disc rotates beneath the central movement.
Ulysse Nardin has also taken an interesting approach to producing the guilloché. Genuine hand-guilloché, traditionally produced with a rose engine, is extremely time-consuming and depends on a relatively small number of specialists, so producing identical pieces entirely by hand would be both expensive and impractical. Instead, the brand commissioned a single handmade master dial and then reproduced the pattern on the remaining hour discs through stamping, creating a compromise between the character of hand-made guilloché and the production requirements of a limited edition.
Underneath those decorated hour discs is the automatic UN-240, which retains the Freak’s flying carousel display and provides a 90-hour power reserve. The central rotating movement indicates the minutes, while the hour disc beneath it makes one complete rotation every 12 hours, so the time display is effectively built around the movement rather than placed on top of it.
The UN-240 operates at 21,600 vibrations per hour and uses a silicon balance wheel and hairspring, a DIAMonSIL escapement, and Ulysse Nardin’s Grinder automatic winding system. The Grinder system is particularly relevant to the Freak because the movement itself rotates during normal operation, creating additional mechanical demands compared with a conventional movement. Rather than simply hiding that complexity away, Ulysse Nardin has built the entire display around it, which is what makes the Freak so interesting to watch when it is actually running.
Both watches come on Ulysse Nardin’s ballistic-textured rubber strap with a titanium folding buckle, with the Guilloché version getting a light-grey treatment and the Blue Enamel a white one. The combination makes sense with the titanium case and keeps the watches from becoming too formal despite the decorative work on the hour discs. Both the Freak One Blue Enamel and the Freak One Guilloché are limited to 99 pieces. The Blue Enamel comes in at €81,700 / US$89,800 / £67,760 / CHF 73,000, while the Guilloché is priced at €72,700 / US$80,000 / £60,330 / CHF 65,000.
Of the two, the Blue Enamel is my pick, as the blue Grand Feu surface gives it a much stronger presence and works particularly well with the exposed movement, while the Guilloché is the more restrained option. More importantly, Ulysse Nardin has managed to add two very traditional forms of craftsmanship without turning the Freak into something overly decorative or losing the mechanical character that made the watch interesting in the first place.
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