“With its successive periods which are constantly repeated, the night star has naturally occupied an essential place in the division of time into days, months and years,” explains American author Jeffrey S. Kingston. Moon phase watches indicate the lunations in a circular cut-out disc where our satellite evolves, by convention, over a period of twenty-nine and a half days. Because the lunar cycles are slightly variable, this complication can lack precision and, as a result, is readily associated with a poetic register.
Nearly half a century after Patek Philippe created, in 1925, the first perpetual calendar wristwatch, equipped with a moon phase, Blancpain restored this complication to its former glory in 1983 and remained faithful to it. over the decades, notably today on the Villeret Perpetual Calendar.
A leap year requires, calendar complications will experience renewed interest in 2024. A mischievous Moon, embodied by the feminine face of the Millésime Automatic Phase de Lune model, is displayed at Raymond Weil, while two half-moons kiss on the Classics Elegance Luna by Frederique Constant.
Others try the exercise for the first time. Thus, Laurent Ferrier, with his Classic Moon and an interpretation of the star on aventurine glass (variety of quartz) topped with translucent blue enamel. Or Trilobe, which marks the house’s entry into the world of watchmaking complications by adding a moon phase to the L’Heure Exquise reference. As for IWC, the Schaffhausen watchmaker is pushing the limits with the Portugieser Eternal Calendar and its display of the course of the Moon which will move away by one day after… forty-five million years.
An article from the special Watchmaking section published in L’Express on June 6.