Since Replica Harry Winston launched the Opus series in 2001, it has become a popular item for watch lovers at the annual Basel Watch Fair.
After being absent for a year, the new Opus 14 restarts from where its predecessor left off with exciting complications.
Opus 14 was launched in November by Robin Sikh, the new brand ambassador of Harry Winston, as a complication inspired by jukeboxes. Just like the way a music player works—select a piece of music, and then take out the record to be played from a stack of records with one arm—the watch works exactly the same way. The difference is that instead of vinyl records, you choose whether to display a second time zone, date, or stylized Harry Winston record. The entire system is miniaturized into a movement that is only 46.7 mm wide and 17 mm thick.
Opus’s consistent style of open collaboration with independent watchmakers continues in this edition. Franck Orny and Johnny Girardin, famous for designing Montblanc Metamorphosis watches in 2010, are the creative brains behind Opus 14.
Both are thought-driven innovators and business partners, and they have emerged in highly respected brands. Orny started as a custom machine manufacturer and later joined Nivarox as an escapement and regulator expert. He also collaborated with Atokalpa, a company that produces escapement components. As for Girardin, his career started at Patek Philippe as a draftsman for mechanical movements and as a project manager at Girard-Perregaux and Greubel Forsey. Together with Orny, they founded Telos Watch in 2009, a company that specializes in developing custom watch mechanisms-of course they have added color to their already outstanding resume through this collaboration.