No dial, no crown, no hands, still a watch
By Marco Bellini, Zurich ·
No crown. You set it by turning the bezel, and the whole movement rotates once an hour on the dial side, its bridge acting as the minute hand. The original Freak of 2001 did this first, and it was also the watch that put silicon escapement parts into a production wristwatch, years before the rest of the industry admitted silicon was the future.
I like the Freak because the strangeness is functional. The carousel tourbillon isn't decoration. The entire movement is the carousel.
The UN-240 in the Freak One is automatic, 72 hours, wound by Ulysse Nardin's Grinder system, which is far more efficient than a normal rotor and nicely odd to watch. 44 mm by 12.4 mm in titanium, black, on leather. 30 m.
Criticism. Reading the time is a skill you have to learn, and in bad light you won't. 30 m on a watch of this attitude feels low. And 102,000 to 106,000 USD is serious money for something that, honestly, most people will wear for the conversation.
For the engineer who wants a watch nobody else at work could explain. That would be me, if the price were half.