Launched six years ago, the Clifton collection exudes an elegant, urban style while upholding traditional watchmaking values. This contemporary addition delivers a new vision for the assortment featuring a 40mm case and a refined white dial with a porcelain finish, making it truly of its time as well as a watch for the future. Most importantly, it is powered by a revolutionary in-house mechanical selfwinding caliber: simple, robust and accurate, it is endowed with the best watch technology available today.
With their refined, porcelain-like finish, the five new models in the Clifton Baumatic™ collection by Baume & Mercier epitomize the brand’s masculine identity. They are coming with an immaculate white or an intense black dial. The understated, easy-to-read display features slender riveted hour-markers, slim lancet hands and an oversized date aperture at 3 o’clock. Topped with a domed sapphire crystal, the minute track – in anthracite gray or white – follows the perfectly proportioned curves of the 40 mm polished/ satin-finished steel case.
Clifton Baumatic © Baume & Mercier
The movement featured here’s your durable Valjoux 7753 that offers a sufficient 48-hour electricity reserve. The 7753 is visible through the case back via a different sapphire crystal and beats at 28,800vph. This is the same movement as was housed in the previous Baume & Mercier Capeland Shelby Cobra Limited Edition watches, and while the 7753 might not be the prettiest of movements, you aren’t necessarily buying this watch to get the case-back. You’re buying this watch for the sporty design and racing legacy it is meant to honor.Each of the four Baume & Mercier Legendary Driver Capeland Shelby Cobra watches is restricted to a 15-piece run and will be available only in North America at the Feldmar Watch Company in Los Angeles, CA, and Ca D’Oro in Las Vegas, NV, starting in October 2016. When it comes to apparel watches, it looks like purists seem to favor a smaller (typically round) black dial using a simple two-hander movement. While I appreciate a fantastic dress watch, I am more than prepared to detract from the “black tie” standard, as it’s handy to mix things up today and again. For instance, I actually favor a white dial, and should you swap that case shape outside to a compact rectangle, you’ve got what we’re taking a look at now — that the Baume & Mercier Hampton.And a streamlined case it’s, measuring in at 42.6mm x 29.2mm, with an instance thickness of 8.1mm. Nevertheless, that thickness measurement might be a bit misleading, due to one of the very unexpected (but pleasant) surprises with the Baume & Mercier Hampton, it is sapphire crystal. You might be thinking, well, what is so special about this? You may actually observe a large portion of this curve due to the fact that the situation sides scoop down out of it. Not only does this give you a view of the crystal, it retains the sides of the watch from appearing to be too thick.
Water-resistant to 50 meters, the transparent case back reveals the new Baumatic™ BM12-1975A caliber, the first mechanical self-winding movement developed inhouse, in collaboration with the Richemont group. This timepiece, attaches to the wrist with an alligator strap that fastens with a pin buckle. The strap is easy to change without the need for a tool, and comes in dark blue, deep black or warm brown for the two-tone version. A five-row bracelet in polished/satin-finished steel, which fastens by means of a triple folding buckle with security push-pieces, is also available to complement this line of contemporary watches.
If you need information on the Clifton Baumatic and especialy on the movement, the Editorial Team is inviting you to discover the article published on January 16 “The Baumatic : Baume & Mercier’s masterstroke”.
