The Legend of Franck Muller - Westime

“To combine the Crazy Hours indication with
the tourbillon, to me, is to double the visual
pleasure of the timepiece”
Robert Rauschenberg or Jasper Johns, a
vivid joyous defiance of the cold,
emotionless oppression of civil time.
Says Muller, “In the Crazy Hours, there
appears to be no sense as to what hours
come next, and so, you are compelled to
focus on the moment you are in. In this
way, this watch was the world’s first
emotional complication in that it uses a
mechanical complication to delight and
engage its owners.”
But when asked what use a watch that
cannot tell time has, Muller replies, “Ah,
but you see, human beings are logical
and they will always find their way.
Similarly, with the Crazy Hours, the hour
hand on the watch will always jump to
the right time. With the Crazy Hours, I
have found a way to deconstruct and
restructure time.”
The Crazy Hours complication finds its
roots in a watch Muller created in 1986, the
world’s first free-oscillation tourbillon
wristwatch. What was unique about this
timepiece was that it featured not just a
precision device intended to combat
the erosive force of gravity, but also a
jump-hour indication. There are two types
of jump-hour watches: watches that
feature an aperture in which the hour is
displayed, and watches with traditional
hands that, instead of a sweeping,
leap from one hour index to the next,
jumping precisely at the stroke of each new
hour. The Crazy Hours is similarly a
jump-hour watch using a traditional hour
hand. The distinction is that instead of
leaping one index at the stroke of each
hour, it leaps forward five places. As such,
an examination of the seeming disarray on
the Crazy Hours dial sheds light on the fact
that the numeric jumble is actually spaced
such that each subsequent number is not
one but five spaces in progression around
the dial.
Upon the release of the Crazy Hours in
2003, the watch-collecting world was
universally stunned. The advent of the
Crazy Hours, a watch whose sole purpose
was the abstraction, deconstruction and
reconfiguration of time with the intent to
shock and delight otherwise emotionally
disengaged owners, has been associated
with the first Impressionist paintings that
divorced themselves from replications of
reality, focusing instead on the sublimation
and expression of emotion as their primary
objective. The Crazy Hours is the first work
of watchmaking Impressionism.
Today, many brands have laid claim to the
ground of emotional complications. But
each of these brands owes its very existence
to Franck Muller and the revelation he
experienced beneath the stars of Mauritius,
the determination it created in him to
fabricate a timepiece that would break our
enslavement to time and unearth a purer
form of existence, sensuality and
appreciation for life.
TOTALLY CRAZY
Adding the practical advantage of a date
indicator, the Totally Crazy watch adds
another startling pinwheel of fiery dial-side
animation with a date indicator that echoes
the seemingly random order of the legendary
Crazy Hours dial. This time, the secret lies
in the date hand leaping seven indices to
always find the next number in the
progression through the month. Nothing
offers more entertainment than the
sudden and simultaneous jump of the
hour and date hand precisely at the stroke
of midnight.
CRAZY HOURS TOURBILLON
The Crazy Hours Tourbillon combines two
of Franck Muller’s iconic achievements,
the dial-side tourbillon and the Crazy
Hours complication. As with many of his
timepieces, the Crazy Hours Tourbillon
was inspired by a friend; in this instance,
Tay Liam Wee, the group executive
chairman of Sincere Watch and the head of
Franck Muller’s distribution in Asia.
Says Muller, “Liam Wee is very innovative
and it was his idea to create a watch with the
ultimate dial-side animation. To combine
the Crazy Hours indication with the
tourbillon, to me, is to double the visual
pleasure of the timepiece. On the one hand,
you have the total folly, the seeming wildness
of the Crazy Hours indicator, and on the
other hand, you have the world’s most
famous precision device.” But the two
complications work together beautifully,
both combining their technicity and
bravado to create what to many connoisseurs
is THE ultimate Franck Muller timepiece.
Adding a beautiful touch of whimsy, the “8”
index has been divided into two in a King
Solomon-like act of horological prowess,
with half of the index placed on the dial and
the other half integrated into the
flying tourbillon’s cage. This “8” serves
both as an index and a seconds
indicator, completing a full rotation once
every minute.
Regardless of which Crazy Hours
complication you choose, every watch from
this series is intrinsically linked to Franck
Muller’s ultimate act of horological
rebellion. To gaze at the dial of any of these
timepieces, be it the Crazy Hours, Totally
Crazy, or Crazy Hours Tourbillon, is to be
reminded of the fact that time itself is the
most precious commodity in life.