Girard-Perregaux Quasar Light
The Girard-Perregaux Quasar Light showcases the revered Maison’s penchant for innovation while upholding the values which have underpinned the brand for generations.
Girard-Perregaux, the high-end watch company based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, will forever be known for making the Tourbillon with Three Gold Bridges. In the 19th century (circa 1860), Constant Girard-Perregaux, a man with a keen interest in Breguet’s ingenious tourbillon, created a pocket watch.
Constant’s horological masterpiece featured a tourbillon with three parallel bridges spanning the movement. This pocket watch received a first-class award from the Observatory of the Canton of Neuchâtel. Constant’s distinctive three bridge design was repeatedly used thereafter.
Monsieur Girard-Perregaux, eager to protect his three bridge design, registered a patent application with the United States Patent Office which was approved in 1884. The legendary three gold bridges with arrow-shaped tips have since appeared on a plethora of GP watches. Indeed, it is part of the brand’s DNA.
Girard-Perregaux has a rich history, dating back to 1791, and upholds traditional crafts, but it never shies away from avant-garde designs and cutting-edge technical know-how. For example, back in 2013, the company unveiled the Girard-Perregaux Constant Escapement, a watch featuring a flexible silicon blade that stored up energy and then released it in a uniform dose to the escapement.
Now, the esteemed exemplar of haute horlogerie has released another neoteric creation, the Girard-Perregaux Quasar Light, a generously-proportioned watch housed in a sapphire case.
The brand’s press release
The ability to reveal the art in precision engineering is among Girard-Perregaux’s greatest achievements. The Quasar Light honours this legacy by engineering transparency to the extreme. Named after the most brilliant of astronomical entities – the Quasar – it is an epic masterpiece with gleaming aerial views of the Manufacture’s most iconic movement encased in Swiss-made Sapphire, exclusively available in just 18 pieces.
Like its namesake, the Quasar Light outshines all others in its class. The glittering tourbillion appears to float inside an invisible case made from a single sapphire disk. Sculpting and polishing its curves to produce such extreme transparency required over 200 hours of work and hundreds of operations with techniques perfected over two centuries.
Viewing its sensational aerial volumes feels as if stargazing through a telescope. The sapphire crystal box that extends from the case delivers this intergalactic 360° view. Achieving the perfect gloss within the movement required three times more sapphire than standard with a unique diamond and chemical polish.
The watch glitters with starry lustre when light radiates across its movement and Ruthenium barrel. Selected for its diamond-like brilliance, Ruthenium is a rare platinum metal in extremely limited production. It forms dazzling crystals that burst with sparkling light in all directions on the watch face.
The arrow shape of the Aerial Neo-bridges, a Girard-Perregaux signature, were inspired by architectural marvels in the world’s greatest cities. Finished yet again in Swiss-made sapphire, the bridges reveal the smallest details of the mechanism with a light, but powerful presence on the wrist.
The tourbillon cage is powered by a unidirectional automatic winding system featuring a micro-rotor made of white gold. Visible through the sapphire crystal box, the micro-rotor is engraved with an eagle – an instantly recognisable hallmark of the Swiss Manufacture.
The Quasar Light is a brilliantly bold expression of the technical mastery, contemporary design and rich heritage that exemplifies Girard-Perregaux. The 18 exclusive pieces are now luminous stars at the centre of an entirely new galaxy of watchmaking excellence.
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