NEW YORK (October 17, 2024) – Arnold & Son has reworked its Nebula collection, giving it a more striking case with a universal diameter of 40 mm while retaining its remarkably finished movement and unique abundance of watchmaking tradition. Today, the Swiss watchmaker unveils two new Nebula versions – one with a rhodium-plated and black caliber, the other with golden accents. The new Arnold & Son Nebula models are set to make their official debut at the WatchTime New York event in Manhattan this weekend, taking place October 18-20, at Gotham Hall.
The case of the Nebula collection has been redesigned, modernized, and refined. With streamlined lugs, a softly rounded bezel, a more vertical case middle, and a diameter of 40 mm in harmony with its thickness of just 9.10 mm, this steel case opens a new chapter for the collection. Featuring the A&S5201 skeletonized caliber offering an ultra-graphic layout, Nebula retains its identity as a watch whose movement fascinates, captivates, and draws the eye into its depths.
Black and Gold
Nebula 40 Steel is being launched in two initial steel versions. The first features a black mainplate, flange, and barrel covers, designed to match a choice of three bracelets: one in steel with a three-link design, the second in alligator leather, and the third in textured rubber. The second version is only available on a steel bracelet in a limited edition of 88 timepieces, with gold-colored movement components. Both pieces showcase meticulous finishes, such as the ‘Rayons de la Gloire’ motif – one of Arnold & Son’s discreet aesthetic signatures – as well as palladium-finished skeleton bridges, which add brilliance and contrast with their satin-finished surfaces and polished corners.
Seven Bridges
The new generation of Arnold & Son cases focuses on the purity of lines and curves. Softened flanks and plunging lugs strip back the aesthetics of Nebula 40 Steel to the essential: its signature movement, the central star around which the aesthetics of the collection revolve.
The caliber was born with Nebula, for which it was specifically developed. Its architecture, inspired by the nebulae from which the arms of stars radiate, is what gave the collection its name. Here, these arms are represented by seven bridges, all functional, skeletonized, and harmoniously arranged. Facing the inside of the watch, they converge toward its center, creating an incomparable impression of order, symmetry, and transparency.
At the Heart of the Star
Behind the radiant appearance of the A&S5201 caliber, the shape of the bridges is just as important as their arrangement. They have hollowed-out centers and their chambers, both internal and external, are carefully polished. Each bridge brings together one screw and two pins to create a rhythm that reinforces the structured appearance of the caliber. On the case back, two large intersecting ogival bridges support the movement’s functional organs at the back.
With its two large barrels arranged in series, Nebula 40 Steel offers a power reserve of 90 hours: exceptionally long for a skeletonized piece, but typical of Arnold & Son calibers. Their energy is transmitted to the gear train, whose layout follows the star-shaped arrangement of the bridges. The balance at the end oscillates at a frequency of 3 hertz. These attributes combine to make the A&S5201 caliber a rare phenomenon in the watchmaking cosmos.
ABOUT ARNOLD & SON
Arnold & Son is named after John Arnold, a renowned English watchmaker of the 18th century. The golden age of maritime explorations and discoveries ushered this precision into a new technical ideal – determining longitude at sea. Its immediate corollary was the identification of local time, which changed constantly as the observer moved along an east-west axis. Astronomy, chronometry, and what we now call world time are thus inextricably linked within one and the same question, to which John Arnold and his son devoted their lives, their art, and their genius.
This is how these three dimensions – Astronomy, Chronometry and World Time – have come to be embodied in the House’s contemporary timepieces. Echoes of John Arnold’s inventions and preoccupations, these principles represent the foundations on which the Arnold & Son collections are based. The twenty-plus calibers presented to date by Arnold & Son have all been designed and developed in-house and produced by its sister manufacturer, La Joux-Perret in La Chaux-de-Fonds (Switzerland). This independence and creativity demonstrate the House’s ability to perpetuate John Arnold’s exceptional inventions.
For more information, visit arnoldandson.com.
