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CIGA design never pays homage half-heartedly. Lately, we’ve seen it turn The Moon Walker into an Apollo 11 tribute, equipped with a miniature footprint of Neil Armstrong and an astronaut as a minute hand. Now, the Chinese watchmaker has taken on another human feat, nodding to the first-ever summit of Mt. Everest with its Central Tourbillon Watch Everest Summit.
The Feat
For decades, individuals had tried to climb to the top of Mt. Everest, but it wasn’t until 1953 when New Zealand’s Sir Edmund Hillary and Nepal’s Tenzing Norgay reached the 29,000-foot peak for the first time ever. It wasn’t just the heights of the treacherous mountain they reached but the highest point of any human ever.
The Watch
Winning the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève back in 2021 with its game-changing Blue Planet watch, CIGA design showed the world that quality timepieces can be made outside the likes of Switzerland, Japan, and Germany. And it’s shown no signs of slowing down since.
For its latest masterpiece, CIGA built the Everest Summit around its Central Tourbillon Watch, powered by a self-developed Caliber CD-05 movement that took just 120 days to perfect. Boasting 120 hours of power reserve, the caliber features four mainsprings and a constant motion evocative of a climber’s rhythm. You can see the movement through the exhibition caseback, around which is a mirrored text, “IT IS NOT THE MOUNTAIN WE CONQUER BUT OURSELVES.” The tourbillon itself is placed right at the center of the dial.
Rock On
Housed inside the 45mm grade 5 titanium case, the dial is made of actual fragments of Mt. Everest’s bedrock from its foothills. After 30 days of precision cutting, the stones were CNC engraved and laser shaped. As CIGA puts it, “what was once raw rock now embodies endurance, carried into the watch, to forge a lasting bond between the summit and its wearer.” The top of the dial features a carved relief of the summit with its altitude “8848.86m” underneath.
Titanium has seen increased use in watchmaking over the years (and is a material trusted in aerospace engineering) for how it combines lightness with strength. Despite being 45mm, the Everest Summit wears very comfortably.
Around the crisp, clean dial, the time is deciphered through a pair of ice-axe hands, based on Sir Edmund Hillary’s own tools which you can see at the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Both the hands and the Everest emblem are coated in Super-LumiNova lume. Lastly, the watch is adorned with a black fluororubber strap.
Spec Sheet
Case Material: Grade 5 titanium
Case Size: 45mm
Case Thickness: 11.65mm
Movement: CIGA design Caliber CD-05 Manual Central Tourbillon
Power Reserve: 120 Hours
Dial: Everest Bedrock
Hands: Ice Axe Skeleton Design with Swiss Super-LumiNova®
Strap: Fluororubber
Water Resistance: 50m
Pricing & Availability
Priced at $2,699, the Central Tourbillon Watch Everest Summit is available now from CIGA design’s website.
Recap
CIGA design Central Tourbillon Watch Everest Summit
CIGA Design’s latest watch pays tribute to the first-ever Everest summit with a dial made from actual fragments of the mountain’s bedrock and ice-axe hands modeled after Sir Edmund Hillary’s own tools. At $2,699, the 45mm titanium Central Tourbillon is one of the more inventive horological tributes we’ve seen in a while.
