Regardless of one’s feelings about Chinese culture, we can all appreciate how the annual Chinese New Year celebration, with its 12-year cycle of associated animals, continues to inspire watchmakers to new heights of creativity. 2025 will usher in the Year of the Snake.
Serpentine charms
The snake offers considerable design benefits. Unlike relatively rigid forms such as cows, pigs or dogs, the snake’s shape is infinitely flexible in terms of both arrangement and size. This allows design studios to create sinuous motifs that are perfectly adapted to a watch dial, without compromising the animal’s natural form.
Some brands are particularly well-positioned to capitalise on this. Genus, for instance, already incorporates snake-like curves into its standard displays. Jaquet Droz, too, has brilliantly utilised the snake motif in a one-of-a-kind automaton. Perrelet, however, takes a different approach. The uniqueness of this piece lies not only in the dial but also in the superimposed turbine, a feature developed in 1995 and patented in 2009.
A snake for the Middle Kingdom
To commemorate the Chinese New Year on 29 January, Perrelet has created the Turbine Snake in a limited edition of 88 pieces. This watch is a masterful blend of aesthetics and technical prowess. The dial is a work of art, entirely treated with red PVD and adorned with a Chinese-inspired geometric motif, in a quintessentially Chinese red and gold colour combination.
Overlaying this composition is a stamped three-dimensional snake figure. Perrelet has expertly utilised the creature’s natural flexibility to adapt it precisely to the dial’s dimensions. The reptile coils around the central opening housing the hour, minute and second hands.
The blades of time
The technical highlight is Perrelet’s signature turbine presiding over the dial. Comprising 12 black anodised aluminium blades, it activates with the slightest wrist movement. The faster the blades rotate, the more distinct the snake figure becomes. Conversely, when the turbine is stationary, the dial is nearly invisible, lending the piece a discreet elegance when desired.
This limited edition boasts a modest 41 mm diameter, making it suitable for daily wear by both men and women. Perrelet has further enhanced the Turbine model’s elegance with a latest-generation design, featuring a better-integrated strap and a slimmer profile thanks to a flat, slightly flared bezel. Anyone lucky enough to have worn the watch will know that, despite its ultra-fast rotation, the rotor operates in perfect silence.
At the heart of the Turbine Snake beats an automatic manufacture calibre created by Soprod, a movement maker owned by Miguel Rodriguez, who is also the proprietor of Perrelet. Priced at just 5,180 CHF, this makes the Turbine Snake one of the most affordable manufacture limited editions on the market, offering a unique and playful horological experience.
