Armin Strom Tourbillon Collection Unveiling
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Armin Strom Tourbillon Collection Unveiling

By DonCorson · Oct 26, 2012 · 9 replies
DonCorson
WPS member · Horological Meandering forum
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DonCorson reports on the inaugural presentation of the Armin Strom Tourbillon collection in Interlaken, Switzerland. This event marked a significant milestone for the young manufacturer, showcasing their in-house manual-wind, dual-barrel movement with a 10-day power reserve. DonCorson details the four elemental themes—Earth, Air, Fire, and Water—that define the collection's variations in casing, dials, and decoration, emphasizing Armin Strom's dedication to movement visibility and traditional skeletonizing artistry.

Armin Strom Tourbillon - First Presentation in Interlaken

Armin Strom is a young watch manufacturer in Biel Switzerland.  Although founded only 6 years ago they are already presenting their new tourbillon collection with in-house movement.  As with most of their other models the tourbillons are declined in four versions, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, themes allowing interesting variations in casing, dials and decoration.   This movement, as well as the other Armin Strom in-house movements, was designed by Claude Greisler, Armin Strom's technical director.  It is a manual wind, dual barrel movement with 10 day power reserve.  The tourbillon is visible at 9 o'clock on the dial, as well as the winding mechanism.




Celebrating the unveiling of their tourbillon Armin Strom is making a four stop tour around the world, each stop also themed to an Element.  The first stop of the presentation tour of their new tourbillon collection was yesterday in Interlaken themed to Earth. The tour will continue in Dubai - Fire, Singapore - Air and Los Angeles - Water. 




Here in Interlaken we are thinking of Earth – deep in the earth - and the unveiling will take place in the aging cellar of a brewery and distillery making Swiss Single Malt Whiskey.  From our rendez-vous point we went by bus to the brewery and took the long descent by elevator to the whiskey aging cellar.












There we were greeted by Armin Strom CEO Serge Michel and technical director Claude Greisler.  After a short speech by Mr. Michel describing the history of the brand Mr. Greisler continued.  Armin Strom sees themselves as a movement maker, placing the movements and their decoration in the foreground through openwork dials.  In this they continue in the tradition of their namesake watchmaker, Mr. Armin Strom, a master of watch skeletonising.  And as a platform to see the movement a tourbillon can't be out done.








Mr Greisler then begins the unveiling…








with a short description of the particularities of each of the watches.




The interest was great.





















Earth - Stainless steel black PVD case, black dial with ceramic inserts.












Air – Titanium case, white dial













Water – 18ct white gold case, white dial, plate and bridges set with 44 diamonds, 76 light blue and 159 dark blue sapphires.












Fire – 18ct rose gold case, Black dial, plate and bridges hand engraved.
















These watches form a special series of 4 of the tourbillons that are specially decorated and will be sold to collectors as a 4 piece set.  The introduction of the standard tourbillon models will be at BaselWorld 2013.





Note the dial side visible ratchet wheels on this two barrel movement.
















On the way out: “For Friends”
The evening continued among the guests with a dinner also themed Earth.  Truffles and other kinds of root vegetables, etc., etc. AndrewD will be posting more in the near future.



If you have a chance to be among those taking part in one of the events in Dubai, Singapore or LA be sure not to miss it.  I think you won't be disappointed in the watchmaking.

Don


This message has been edited by DonCorson on 2012-10-26 13:26:55 This message has been edited by MTF on 2012-10-27 20:13:18 This message has been edited by AndrewD on 2012-11-03 14:15:54

Key Points from the Discussion

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The Discussion
PP
pplater
Oct 27, 2012

"Air" looks pretty cohesive: it would be interesting to see it on a black or dark blue strap. The back-side detail on that one is also a plus. How good are the dial-side ratchet wheels!?! Cheers, pplater.

ED
ED209
Oct 27, 2012

Thanks Don for the report. Looking forward to seeing the Armin Strom Tourbillon set here in L.A. in November. Regards, ED-209

KS
KStults
Oct 29, 2012

I am partial to the Fire -- love that decoration!

HO
Hororgasm
Oct 29, 2012

strangely attracted to Water and Fire. thanks for the coverage. best, Horo

DX
dxboon
Oct 30, 2012

...quite there. I feel like there are lots of great elements present in the Armin Strom collection, but their designs are a turn-off. The dials on these watches seem unbalanced in conjunction with their casings. I don't know, maybe they present better in person. Great report, Don. :-) Thanks for the pictures and commentary! Cheers, Daos

MT
MTF
Oct 31, 2012

Daos, I expect the response to all the new Armin Strom watches to be 30% Positive, 30% Negative and 30% Undecided, with 10% Spoilt votes :-) The raison d'etre of cutting edge design is NOT to be bland and appeal to as many people as possible. Armin Strom do not expect to make 700,000 'cookie cutter' watches per year and profit by sheer volume. That's the job for XXXXX or XXXXX or XXXXX brands. (Hey! I just noticed that they all have 5 letters - Is that some secret Da Vinci Code?) I expect they d

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