If there’s one thing watchmakers hate it is gravity, as this unavoidable natural phenomenon affects the accuracy of the movements they create with so much love, attention and craftsmanship. That’s why they reach for the tourbillon when they really can’t take it anymore. But apart from the tourbillon, which equals out gravity, it is also possible to use a carrousel. The carrousel in a watch has nothing to do with the traditional fairground attraction.
The carrousel, which is used much less frequently than a tourbillon, looks the same as the mechanism invented by Abraham-Louis Breguet but is subtly different. The main difference is that a carrousel is linked to the main spring with two gear trains and a tourbillon with only one gear train. Blancpain installed both these complicated mechanisms in its calibre 2322V2 to achieve the ultimate in accuracy. And, of course, to show us how much they know about complications, and, we suspect, to start the debate about tourbillons and carrousels.
The extremely delicate and beautifully contrasting movement ticks in an L-evolution case with a diameter of 47.4mm. The plain lines and matte finish of the case may make you think that the material used is titanium – very modern – but in fact it is platinum. Very noble, very expensive, so not surprisingly the price is upon request.
