While Franck Muller Cintrée Curvex Remember has often astounded us with breathtaking high-complications and world premieres, Franck Muller’s latest offering is, shall we say, a lot more technically restrained.
The Remember watch is a playful, yet sentimental take on time, with the numbers read in reverse. Sure, it’s not as technically complex as, say, a tourbillon, which Franck Muller is known for, the Remember certainly lacks nothing in the poetic department. Full of romance and charm, the watch appeals very much to one’s sense of nostalgia. And although it appears like such a simple idea, you can’t help but wonder why no one (as far as we know, anyway) has thought of it before.
That it’s a Franck Muller Cintrée Curvex Remember creation should come as no surprise, though. After all, this is the brand that devised the Crazy Hours watch, a jumping hour complication where the numbers on the dial are placed in a seemingly random order.
Conceived while founder Muller was on vacation in Mauritius, the Crazy Hours complication sees the hour numerals placed at an arc roughly 150 degrees away from the preceding number, so the hour hand snaps almost halfway across the dial with the advance of each hour while the minute hand moves conventionally.
With the Franck Muller Cintrée Curvex Remember watch, all three hands journey in an anti-clockwise direction, giving you the illusion that time is moving backwards. This is seen most clearly through the sweep seconds hand, which gracefully glides around the dial in reverse.
Admittedly, correctly reading the time takes a little getting used to, especially since it differs from the Crazy Hours complication where the minute hand moves clockwise. But then again, part of the appeal is really looking at time in a different way, isn’t it? If you still get confused though, the brand recommends looking at the watch through a mirror to see the correct time. It’s a stretch, we know, but this is really for watch buffs seeking something less conventional.
Aesthetically, the Franck Muller Cintrée Curvex Remember watch adheres very much to Franck Muller’s brand DNA, with the Cintrée Curvex case, emblematic font and guilloche sun pattern stamped on its dial. Painstakingly finished with 20 layers of enamel, the dial also features a sprinkling of hologram numbers in the same signature font.
Available only in 18K rose gold for now, it would be lovely if the Remember watch could evolve into a full-fledged collection, much like the Crazy Hours. Different executions, a date display, and maybe even a tourbillon would grow the collection nicely. But for now, we’re happy just to sit back, reminisce about days gone by and just enjoy this beautiful complication.