BA111OD CHPTR_Δ AGIL LIMITED EDITION REDEFINES TIME

04 april 2024

The young watch brand presents this new model (pronounced Chapter Delta Agil) featuring its first manufacture complication, in an exclusive version of 111 numbered pieces. It offers a new interpretation of time with an elegant interplay of light between the deep black case and the golden triangle.

Baillod remarks, “I particularly appreciate this aspect. Besides being mesmerising, it’s the symbolic aspect of life that fascinates me. Like those precious moments that last or slip away...the hour dot slows down and then speeds up again in a movement that appears irregular yet is perfectly calibrated and precise.”

This project, initially imagined by the designer Diego Böttger-Zevallos, turns out to be complex to realize. Thomas Baillod takes on the challenge. To ensure its technical development and production, he once again calls upon the brilliant watchmaker Olivier Mory, who is already responsible for the paternity of the BA111OD Chapter 4 Tourbillon.

“There is hardly anything but the transcendent beauty of mathematics to obtain a triangle using only things that rotate in circles! And it is a discreet tribute to the several centuries-old use of the cycloid in watchmaking. Galileo, Newton, Huygens, Euler, Cantor or Roberval, to name but a handful, have all worked on the amazing properties of these curves,” says Olivier Mory.

Rather than simply rotating a hand around a central axis, the movement was designed to “roll” a satellite hour wheel around a fixed central hour wheel. When a wheel is rotated around another wheel, the trajectory described by any point on this satellite wheel is a cycloid. There are several types of cycloids, some of which have particular trajectories, depending on the size ratio between the fixed wheel and the satellite wheel, as well as whether the satellite wheel rotates inside or outside the fixed wheel.

In this new chapter for BA1110D, the chosen cycloid is a deltoid (with a ratio of 1/3), and as a result, the trajectory described by the tip of the hour hand is...a triangle.

A particular shape highly appreciated by BA111OD is the triangle. With its three legs, this geometric shape that rises up represents direction and determination. It symbolizes stability and balance. This balance echoes the brand’s business model, which is based on three letters, BAC (Business → Afluendors → Clients), breaking with the linearity of traditional distribution (B2B, B2C). Even the name BA111OD incorporates the number 3, with its three 1’s.

Original article (in English) : BA111OD Chptr_Δ Agil Limited Edition redefines time (europastar.com)