Lot 28
LUDOVIC BALLOUARD x BRITTANY NICOLE COX
UPSIDE DOWN BLUE FEATHER
Watchmaker Ludovic Ballouard teams up with guilloché artist Brittany Nicole Cox to present Upside Down Blue Feather. Featuring a blue dial decorated with an original hand-guilloche pattern depicting flying birds, it offers a unique message of hope, generosity and protection.
Description
For the 10th Edition of Only Watch, acclaimed independent watchmaker Ludovic Ballouard has teamed up with accomplished guilloché artist Brittany Nicole Cox to present a one-of-a-kind platinum edition of Ballouard’s time-only tour de force Upside Down. More than a unique timepiece, Upside Down Blue Feather offers a unique message of hope, generosity and protection, in keeping with the values of Only Watch.
Its sapphire-blue fine silver dial is decorated with an eye-catching hand-guilloché pattern depicting birds in flight.
This original motif – boasting a multitude of carefully-placed cuts and facets – was designed and engine-turned by Cox, who took inspiration from Emily Dickinson’s poem “Hope is the thing with feathers” to create it. While the soaring birds denote optimism, resilience and perseverance, their blue feathers symbolise looking out for and giving back to others.
Only the current hour is displayed the right way up, reminding us it is only the present moment that truly matters.
Specifications
Model name:
Upside Down Blue Feather
Case:
Material: 950 platinum — Water-resistant to 30 meters (3 ATM) — Sapphire crystal front and display back — Off-centred platinum crown located at half past 2
Dial:
Fine silver dial plate — Decorated with a unique hand-guilloché pattern depicting birds in flight — Engine-turned by guilloché artist Brittany Nicole Cox — Coloured sapphire blue via ALD
Calibre:
Calibre B01 (in house movement) — Patented jump-hour mechanism, central minutes — Manual winding — Power reserve: 36 hours — Number of jewels: 51 — Number of components: 228 — Balance frequency: 21,600 vibrations/hour (3Hz)
Bracelet:
Hand-stitched blue alligator leather strap — B-shaped platinum pin buckle
Dimensions:
41mm x 11mm
Specificities:
Blued fine silver dial — Decorated with a unique hand-guilloché pattern depicting birds in flight — Engine-turned by guilloché artist Brittany Nicole Cox — Symbolising hope, resilience, generosity and protection
Collaboration
To create Upside Down Blue Feather, acclaimed watchmaker Ludovic Ballouard has collaborated with accomplished guilloché artist Brittany Nicole Cox. Cox was responsible for decorating the watch’s blue dial with an eye-catching hand-guilloché pattern depicting birds in flight. Ballouard discovered Cox’s artistry thanks to the documentary Making Time (2022). Both horologists were chosen, along with three others, as subjects of this film which explores their eventful life stories in fascinating detail. After the pair met in person at the film’s showing at Dubai Watch Week, Ballouard invited Cox to collaborate on this special creation for the 10th Edition of Only Watch.
The brand
Ludovic Ballouard x Brittany Nicole Cox
Since turning independent in 2009, Geneva-based watchmaker Ludovic Ballouard has been putting a smile on the faces of watch collectors with his witty and philosophical expression of high-end watchmaking, backed up by serious craft and considerable technical prowess.
Ballouard spent a decade honing his skills as a watchmaker – first at Franck Muller then at F.P.Journe – before realising his long-held ambition of making watches under his own name. Ballouard’s philosophy is to live for the present and his watches – featuring ingenious, patented complications – reflect this upbeat attitude and optimistic message by only displaying the present hour. The brand’s tagline is “Only the present moment has a meaning”.
Brittany Nicole Cox is an antiquarian horologist specialising in the conservation and restoration of antique automata and mechanical music objects. One of few independent female clock- and watchmakers in the world, she is a highly skilled practitioner and teacher of engine-turned, hand-guilloche decoration. In 2015, she opened her Seattle-based workshop Memoria Technica.