Hands On The Urwerk UR-106 Lotus

When would Urwerk launch a watch for women? This has been one of the main preoccupations for watch collectors around the world, and they may have been discouraged at the beginning of the year by the sight of the ultra-masculine Urwerk UR-1001 Titan, a wristwatch so large your last name better be Schwarzenegger if you want to wear it. But it seems the Baselworld novelty was merely a ruse. This morning in Singapore, the independent brand launched the Urwerk UR-106 Lotus during a private event at The Hour Glass.
“For many years, its been a tradition to launch our watches in Singapore,” explained explained Felix Baumgarter, Urwerk’s co-founder and master watchmaker during an exclusive interview with Haute Time. “It’s the best place to start.”
“We never made watches for men and watches for women because we never thought in those terms when we put our ideas down on paper,” explains Martin Frei, the company’s chief designer and co-founder.
The Urwerk UR-106 Lotus showcases the independent watchmaker’s signature satellite hours, but in a shape that has never been seen before. Three satellite hours wander across the dial to create the most graphic of horological blooms. The hours satellites and carrousel are made in titanium, peened and brushed by hand. The minutes scale is serrated and the moon is made of Lapis lazuli. The hour and minutes markers in SuperLuminova are hand-painted.
The UR-106 “Lotus” is powered by the selfwinding movement, calibre UR 6.01, and comes with 48 hours of power reserve. The finishes on the movement comprise circular graining, shot peening, brushing and chamfered screw heads.
“We thus embarked on a stylistic exercise that was unprecedented for us. We have of course long considered what we regard as the ultimate challenge, because creating for women is indeed a perilous undertaking. With its glittering gemstones and soft curves we created the UR-106 with one image in mind; that of the lotus flower, which in my imagination represents the beauty of women in all their complexity.”
The Urwerk UR-106 Lotus comes in two versions: one is in titanium and steel with diamonds on the bezel, crown and buckle; its antithesis is in black PVC-coated titanium and steel set with black diamonds.
The watch retails for SGD $160,800, or 85,000 Swiss Francs, and is limited to 11 pieces per model.