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SIHH 2019: Live shot and Review of the Girard-Perregaux Bridges Cosmos

blomman Mr Blue
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Within this year’s theme for Girard-Perregaux watches “Earth to Sky”, the brightest shining star is the Bridges Cosmos.

 

While wearing this piece, encapsulated on your wrist will be a micro cosmos!

You will have both heaven and earth as we know it or like GP chose to call it, “Earth and Sky”!

This is a real showcase piece that can be customized to your likings.

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Let’s start with the obvious:

This is a large piece, 48 mm in diameter and 22.32 mm high. [Edit: correction of height measurment]

The case has the characteristic shape we know from other master pieces as the Neo Tourbillon and the Tri-Axial Tourbillon Minute Repeater.

Thin if any bezel, rounded sides, long curved lugs, similar but not exactly the same.

But there is one big difference here, there is no crown on the side of the case!

The case is completely symmetrical and so is the dial layout.

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On top we have the sub dial showing time, easy for the eye to find and easy to read.

Next is where the main focus is, the two globes!

Dark blue they both stands out from the metal and grey background.

The globes do not only stand out in colours as they are actual globes rotating around one axis each.

 

To the left is the celestial globe displaying the sky chart with all the stars, enhanced are the once forming all the zodiacs in the sky.

This celestial map can be customized according to once wishes.

One interesting detail is that the celestial globe is rotating one full turn per 23 hours, 58 minutes and 4 seconds, the exact duration of a sidereal day, working as a constellation indicator.

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Now in press pictures the globes look much bluer and the stars seem to light in the sky…

If this effect only come out in the dark, I need to confirm as in photos the globes are more greyish blue than blue.

 

To the right, the terrestrial globe.

A miniature scale model of the earth in three dimensions.

Mountains are high, oceans are lower, exactly as here on earth.

With a 24h scale around the globe it works both as a second time zone and as a night and day indicator.

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At the bottom you have the Tourbillon and Bridge.

In any “normal” cases, this would be the main attraction, but here we are not looking at a “normal” high-end piece!

Here the Tourbillon almost fade against the background.

I say almost because its there and you can see it if you are looking for it…

But each time you glance at this watch, the two blue globes will steal your eyes!

What surprise me is that the Tourbillon have good space but still my eyes are drawn away…

The Bridge shaped as a Neo Bridge is beautiful but I wonder if it would have benefit from a tad smaller size or just a little bit more space to let it breath?

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One reason for these thought I think is the crystal shape.

The curved chimney shape creates a distortion around the edges and as you can see in the photos some glare which make it harder to see the Tourbillon and Bridge.

This may sound a bit negative, but that’s not my intention.

On the contrary, I love the fact that GP went for this type of crystal instead of “bubbles” on top of each globe!

As always with Girard-Perregaux creations you need to take an architectural approach to fully appreciate movement and layout.

The “room” created by this crystal really gives the globes justice and possible to “shine”.

As the whole dial is very three dimensional, this is needed for this kind of masterpiece. 

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At the back, now it gets interesting –  

You still get to see the two globes and here you also find a second Neo Bridge.

Somehow, I find the view of the bridge is better displayed here on the back, clearer view.

In the photo you can see the distortion around the edge where the crystal is doomed. 

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Still no crown in traditional sense, instead you have four levers that can be folded out and used for winding the movement and setting the time and globes.

I think the markings are quite self-explanatory.

This Bridges Cosmos is powered by the new Calibre GP09320-1098.

Manual movement Tourbillon, hours, minutes, second time zone with day/night indicator, constellations indicator and a power reserve of 60 hours.

 

On the wrist, it is a “horological monster”!

48mm is big, but here the volume of the watch “fools” the eye.

It’s very light for its size thanks to the Titanium case and crystal.

So even if volume is big, a lot of it is space and light weight metal.

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But I think when it comes to this kind of watches, you would not care if it was a tad on the larger side…

I know I wouldn’t mind wearing this fantastic Cosmos!

 

Best

Blomman

[Photo credit: all photos taken by CrownComfort]

Girard-Perregaux Cosmos reference : 99292-21-651-BA6F

Comments:
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amanico January 22nd, 2019-12:04
Are you sure of the case thickess? 12, 5 mm that sounds way too low... I would say 17 mm. The huge super domed glass adds some thickness, too. But what a beast! Superb.  
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blomman Mr Blue January 22nd, 2019-12:06
I agree, but when I went back and read the specs... It said 12.15mm. But that might be only the metal case not including the crystal... Best Blomman
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amanico January 22nd, 2019-12:10
Including or excluding the VAT? :))) When you look at the case by the side, it is hard to believe it is only 12, 5 mm... To be confirmed...  
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blomman Mr Blue January 22nd, 2019-12:13
Yes, will try to get it confirmed.  
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crown comfort January 23rd, 2019-09:56
I guess there was a typo in the original press release specs on the GP Website it now says 22.32 mm height, which seems correct.
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amanico January 23rd, 2019-10:13
That makes more sense to me, given what we see at the GP booth.  
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blomman Mr Blue January 23rd, 2019-11:11
Thank you for the correction!  
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Ronald Held January 22nd, 2019-12:40
Where could you see one of those on the metal? (nt) NT
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blomman Mr Blue January 22nd, 2019-23:45
Cosmos were introduced by GP at the SIHH  
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Ronald Held January 23rd, 2019-13:37
Might be near the end of the year before I can see one? (nt) NT
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crown comfort
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SIHH 2019: Live shots and review: Girard-Perregaux Neo Bridges Earth-to-Sky edition

crown comfort
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Friends, let’s start with coverage of this year’s new releases from Girard-Perregaux at SIHH 2019. As usual, during the show, the booth is very crowded and you don’t really get time to deeply appreciate all the models nor do you have good natural light to take some decent photos. However, live shots will always bring a better idea on a watch than press release photos. So let’s start with one watch that has been released this year under the theme of „Earth-to-Sky“ from Girard-Perregaux.


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