The mysterious ‘X’ factor is everywhere. First in the mathematical equation, it represents the unknown; second, in psychology, it is a factor for one’s success, transcendence, and breakthrough of limitations. It is also common in the aerospace industry, and most of NASA’s test programs are named ‘X’. It is also useful in the watchmaking industry: Since 2014, Bell & Ross’s experimental watch series has been named with the letter X. Now in 2017, the new BR-X2 watch conveys the innovation, creativity and high-performance value of the Bell & Ross watchmaking brand. The meaning of ‘X’ doubled …

BR-X1 was born …
   In 2014, the BR-X1 watch was released. With its uncompromising masculine design, it shocked the world, marking Bell & Ross’s first successful step towards a more experimental and innovative arena . Combining boldness with the technical characteristics of sports watches, it features a skeleton chronograph movement and a high-tech square case made of a mixture of titanium, ceramic and rubber.
   Two years later, the BR-X1 Tourbillon Sapphire tourbillon sapphire watch set off a veritable revolution — the case is cut directly from a single piece of sapphire, giving the famous square case a clear and transparent temperament! This precious model establishes a direct link between the two fields of ‘high-end watches’ and ‘super complex and sophisticated’. Now, with the birth of the BR-X2 Tourbillon Micro-Rotor, the second generation of the X series, Bell & Ross has added a new chapter to the BR legend.

Unique concept
   If only three words are used to define a watch, there is no doubt that it is ‘case, movement dial’. It’s hard to get rid of any of these elements. However, real innovation lies in questioning traditions, challenging impossible factors, and exploring entirely new paths.
   This is exactly what Bell & Ross did when designing the new BR-X2 watch—the fusion of the case and the movement. When designing the case of stainless steel and sapphire (an extremely difficult high-tech material), Bruno Belamich, the creative director of the brand, came up with a utopian fantasy: ‘the case and the machine The core fuses into one component, making the case disappear, leaving only the movement visible. ‘BR-X2 was born from this.

Innovation and ‘High-level Watches’
   The basic design concept of the BR-X2 watch is to wear the movement directly on the wrist. The square BR-CAL.380 self-developed movement completely developed and designed by Bell & Ross is placed in two sapphire crystal glasses. The perimeter is connected by a narrow strip of stainless steel processed into a whole to ensure that the field of vision is completely unrestricted. This design makes the case disappear visually, with a skeletonized dial to reveal the movement.
   In order to highlight the inherent sheer aesthetics and expertise, the designers of the BR-X2 chose to combine simplicity with high performance. With a flying tourbillon that counteracts the effects of Earth’s gravity, this two-hand watch displays hours and minutes with ultra-high accuracy.
   Simple yet elegant and understated, this is also thanks to its medium-sized square case (42.5mm) and its exquisite ultra-thin movement (4.05mm), which is automatically wound by a micro-automatic top.

Totally transparent limited edition watch
   The BR-X2 has achieved the ultimate leap in creativity with its bold and modern design, and Bell & Ross has established itself as one of its most innovative ‘high-end watch’ brands. A very unique watch, limited to 99 pieces, dedicated to smart eye connoisseurs, creating a unique experience for them: wearing a watch movement directly on the wrist …

BR-X2 TOURBILLON MICRO-ROTOR
Limited edition of 99 pieces
Technical specifications
Movement: Movement number BR-CAL.380. Mechanical self-winding movement.
Function: hour and minute hands. Flying tourbillon at 6 o’clock.
Case: 42.5 mm in diameter. Matte polished stainless steel case.
Dial: skeleton. Metal-applied hour-markers filled with Superluminova®. Metal hollow hour and minute hands filled with Superluminova®.
Mirror: Sapphire crystal with anti-glare coating
Water resistance: 50 meters.
Strap: grey crocodile leather.
Buckle: folding. Stainless steel case.

American writer and illustrator Brian Sezini’s best-selling picture novel ‘The Secret of Hugo’ was recently moved to the big screen by director Martin Scorsese and adapted into an adventure The film ‘Hugo’ was full of climaxes and made tears. After being staged in Britain and the United States, it was immediately praised and won 11 Academy Award nominations. It is expected that coming to the mainland will set off a fever. Hugo takes us back to the bustling Paris train station in the late 1930s. The protagonist of the story is a 12-year-old little orphan Hugo. After his father was unfortunately killed in the fire, he hid alone in the dark narrow passageway on the back wall of the 27 clocks at the station and relied on adjusting the clock for a living. His greatest wish is to repair the robot left by his father, in order to read his father’s secret message. One day he was shocked that the robot who was regarded as rubbish by others knew how to write and draw. No wonder his father used him as a communication tool … The audience must be very excited when he saw that the robot was finally able to move. Back to reality, it turns out that similar robots have appeared 200 years ago! In 1768, the watchmaker Pierre Jaquet Droz, the founder of the famous watch maker Jacques Drouh, set out to make a mechanical automatic doll called The Writer. In ‘Hugo’s Adventures of Paris’, the robot connects Hugo with his father’s deep feelings. There is a gripping story behind the machine. In reality, Pierre Jacques Dro developed a robot puppet. On the way, he also received the support and help of his son Henry-Louis Jaquet Droz and adoptive son Jean-Frédéric Leschot. After some hard work, the classic ‘writer’ finally met the public at the watch factory in La Chaux-de-Fonds in 1774. Also on display at the time were their two other works, The Musician and The Draughtsman. The former was able to play the organ with their fingers, while the latter was able to draw four pictures. It is a portrait of Louis XV, a portrait of a royal couple (believed to be Louis XV and Marie Antoinette), a puppy image and a scene of Cupid riding on a two-wheeled vehicle pulled by butterflies. Later generations referred to the above three robot figures as ‘Jaquet-Droz Automata’, and the structure of ‘writer’ was the most complicated among them. Jacques de Lo designed the ‘writer’ as a three-year-old boy about 70 cm tall. ‘He’ sat on a Louis XV-style stool and waved the quill pen intently, dipping it in ink, writing and blinking, nodding, much more realistic than the robot in the movie. According to the record, the ‘writer’ is operated by two sets of gears released in turn, one set controls the movement of the wrist, and the other controls the lower half of the doll’s body. The ‘writer’ has a cymbal plate surrounded by 40 steel bolts, so it can write any 40 characters according to the setting, and the text distribution has a 3 line upper limit. In today’s advanced technology, making electric dolls is just a breeze. However, in an age of scarce tools, it is not easy to create precision parts one by one, assemble them, and push a puppet with mechanical principles, which cannot be completed by non-masters. Nowadays, the three ‘Jacques de Robo’ dolls have been housed as exhibits in the Neuchatel Museum of Fine Arts and History in Switzerland. If you want to see them, it seems that they will fly to Switzerland.