Franck Muller is a watchmaking brand that goes its own way. While Geneva might transform into the proverbial town square every April, in the village of Genthod, barely 6km away, Franck Muller’s Domaine du Grand Malagny estate offers a spot of bucolic calm and a less frenetic mode of engaging with newly launched timepieces. And at the five-day World Presentation of Haute Horlogerie held on the estate, there was plenty to see and admire, starting with more than 20 new references across Franck Muller’s most prominent collections – including Vanguard, Long Island, Round, Cintrée Curvex, and Curvex CX – as well as the new Imperium silhouette. Collectively, the novelties solidify the brand’s reputation as the Master of Complications and demonstrate its audacious technical and design philosophy.
A strong contender for the most arresting timepiece on display was the Vanguard Aero Revolution 3 Skeleton (read more elsewhere in this issue, specifically the feature on skeletonised and openworked watches). Notable for its daring construction, the 43.4mm by 52.1mm watch features a fully see-through 22.4mm-thick tonneau case that houses the Revolution 3 tri-axial tourbillon, a complication pioneered by the brand, involving three concentric cages each rotating on a distinct axis and with its own period of rotation. In a first for Franck Muller’s timepieces, the movement (here the in-house MVT FM 2031-VS skeletonised calibre, with 10 days of power reserve from two barrels) is affixed directly to the caseback, a design choice that necessitated a reconfiguration of the bridges, barrels and gear train for improved stability and visual clarity.
Equally enigmatic is the Master Jumper Skeleton that is now offered in both the Curvex CX case shape and in the Long Island Evolution case shape (read more elsewhere in this issue, specifically the feature on jumping-hour watches). The triple-jumping complication, another Franck Muller invention, debuted in 2024, and supports three synchronised jumping indications: for the hour, minutes and date (with their respective apertures helpfully labelled), displayed across five discs moving in a carefully choreographed sequence that is intuitive, legible and contemporary.Â
The bevy of 2026 novelties also included a number that brought fresh perspectives to their predecessors from last year. The latest expression of Franck Muller’s Mystery concept, with conventional watch hands replaced by concentric rotating discs, the Round Triple Mystery quickly chases its debut in 2025 with new interpretations that expand on the visual vocabulary of adding a third disc to mark the seconds and three triangle-cut precious gems acting as pointers or indicators. The MVD 2800-TMY self-winding movement drives all three independently rotating discs, backed up by 42 hours of power reserve.
Ample opportunities for decoration give this year’s Round Triple Mystery novelties creative range. Where last year round diamonds covered the Round Triple Mystery’s case and dial, this year the Round Triple Mystery explores different combinations of baguette-cut gems, gems of diverse colours, and openworked design. The Baguette execution is invisibly set with 48 baguette-cut diamonds on the case and another 139 on the dial. The Rainbow comprises 360 round-cut sapphires, rubies, amethysts and tsavorites arranged in a continuous gradient, which lines up perfectly at 10:10, plus a variation of this design using baguette-cut versions of the same coloured gems set invisibly to highlight the purity of the gemstones. The Skeleton showcases the architecture of the movement, with bridges, gears and levers finished to enhance visual lightness. The gasket on the back is omitted to afford a view of the movement from another perspective, while the movement is supported by a fully transparent sapphire casing ring machined from a solid block of synthetic sapphire. A case set with 120 brilliant-cut diamonds, plus the option of brilliant-cut diamonds decorating the skeletonised hour and minute discs, highlight the lightness of the construction.
The new Curvex CX Grand Central Tourbillon Baguette has its rose-gold tonneau case and dial entirely invisible-set with baguette-cut diamonds totalling 25.22ct (and with the diamond-set bracelet included, that brings the total diamond weight to 49.79ct), along with a diamond-set inner bezel, and edge-to-edge sapphire crystal. The end result is a wristwatch that appears to be made completely without metals, and visually centered on the tourbillon that sits at the heart of the composition. It may seem like a simple straightforward move to shift the tourbillon to the middle, but it actually requires rethinking the gear train architecture altogether as well as the time display, since a conventional handset controlled by a central pinion can no longer be used. This is resolved by having the hour and minute indicators stacked around the tourbillon cage, whose bridge indicates the seconds by its own rotation. The MVT FM CX 36T-CTR in-house self-winding movement, with an off-centre micro-rotor and four days of power reserve, underpins the whole operation.
Also a continuation of a design set in motion in 2025, the new Vanguard Lady Crazy Hours Jisbar limited edition succeeds the inaugural collaboration between Franck Muller and the French contemporary artist Jean-Baptiste Launay, who goes by Jisbar and is known for his street art and pop art, as well as multiformat collaborations spanning fashion, automobiles and even home appliances. The Vanguard Crazy Hours Jisbar of 2025 came in a case made of carbon, stainless steel, titanium, black titanium, or rose gold, featuring Jisbar’s graffiti-inspired take on each numeral, in a more assertive V43 case, and a black dial with a matching strap.
Now, the Vanguard Lady Crazy Hours Jisbar features a reimagined set of a dozen numerals, 32mm by 42.3mm cases in rose gold or stainless steel, a dial treated with 25 layers of white lacquer for a rich glossy effect, a closed caseback engraved with Jisbar’s signature, and a white strap of alligator leather and rubber. Franck Muller’s emblematic Crazy Hours is surely the ideal counterpart to Jisbar’s irreverent art style, by matching its playful energy with the seemingly random movement of the hour hand. Reading the numerals presents its own challenges, involving elimination, creative interpretation, and even some maths – the square root of 25 being placed at the conventional 9 o’clock position is a delightful brainteaser, adding a whole other layer of meaning to the word ‘complication’.
For more on the latest in luxury watch reads, click here.
