An opus is an artistic composition, a work of art, a masterpiece. In 2001, the Harry Winston watch brand set out to create its own collection of masterpieces, opuses, and collaborated with the best master horologists and independent watchmakers in the world to create one masterpiece every year and add it to the Harry Winston Opus collection.
The collaboration has flourished for over a decade with the watch brand working with the likes of Francois Paul Journe for Opus 1, Antoine Prezuiso for Opus 2, Vianney Halter for Opus 3, Christophe Claret for Opus 4, Felix Baumgartner for Opus 5, Greubel Forsey for Opus 6, Andreas Strehler for Opus 7, Frederic Garinaud & CSH for Opus 8, Jean Marc Wiederrecht & Eric Giroud for Opus 9, and lastly with Jean-Francois Mojon for Opus X, which was released in 2010.
For its Harry Winston Opus 11, the watch brand partnered with Denis Giguet who is no stranger to the master craft of watch making as founder of the Manufacture de Contemporaine du Temps or MCT, a privately owned watch brand that creates about 50 exclusive and exquisite time pieces in a year. Giguet is also no stranger to the Harry Winston Opus collection, having previously worked behind the scenes as head of production for Opuses 1 to 6.
The Harry Winston Opus 11 was officially introduced at the Baselworld fair in early 2011 to rave reviews. It is a watch like none other, with a daring technological innovation and complication on its time display and dial. The watch itself consists of three circular dials, with the main dial flanked on the right by two external sub-dials.
The Harry Winston Opus 11 main dial, at first glance, looks filled with a jumble of broken bits and pieces. More like a jigsaw puzzle than a watch dial. Upon closer inspection, however, the dial reveals a system of four rotating gears on a central circular platform that is also rotating. These gears are all designed to rotate while the
seconds are ticking and then at every hour on the hour, the beauty of the movement comes to fore when four placards (out of the 24) unite to form the Hindu-Arabic numeral for the hour.
The movement may sound confusing but it is beautiful in action as you can see on this video here.
Of course this is a watch that does not only track hourly time. The uppermost sub-dial on the right tracks the minutes using two discs with a smaller inner disc displaying the tens unit from 0 to 6 through retrograde movement and the larger outer running disc at the bottom displaying the ones unit from 0 to 9. The bottom sub-dial simply houses the titanium balance wheel or tourbillon for the wearer’s enjoyment.
The complicated mechanical movements of the Harry Winston Opus 11 watch are made possible through the use of 155 jewels and a total of 566 separate components.
The Harry Winston Opus 11 masterpiece is in limited release of only 111 pieces, with 100 pieces in white gold casing and the remaining eleven in diamond-encrusted casing.
Visit the Harry Winston watch brand’s product page to view more information about the Opus 11: http://www.harrywinston.com/store/timepieces/opus/products/opus11.
















