One of the novelties from L'Epée 1839 is called Time Flies. Its shape is that of an aircraft from the 1930s but it is, to all intents and purposes, a highly original desk clock made by the Delémont-based company in collaboration with Juliette Lefèvre, an eclectic and passionate designer and graduate of the Ecole cantonale d'art de Lausanne (ECAL). The front of the fuselage consists of two large cylindrical satin-finished steel discs, coated in black PVD, on which the hours and minutes are displayed printed in white. It is these discs that 'border' the cockpit, just above the wings, which makes it possible to view the escapement located inside, part of the Time Flies 'engine', a hand-wound mechanical movement with 18,000 vibrations per hour and 8 days of power reserve. Underneath the latter is a catch that rests on a removable support that allows the watch/airplane to stand in a raised position relative to the desk top. But how do winding and rewinding work? For the former, a counter-clockwise rotation is performed on the crown, represented by the engine cooling radiator at the front of the aircraft, just behind the propeller, which turns freely with a touch of the finger as if it were a toy; for the latter, a clockwise rotation is performed.
Four versions of Time Flies are available, including palladium-plated brass, gold-plated brass, stainless steel and a brand new 'aged' bronze version, all in limited editions of 99 each. Staying with the theme of 'numbers', its dimensions are 35.4 cm in length, 44.2 cm in width and 13.7 cm in height, while its overall weight is 3 kg. The price, for each of the four versions, is 27,500 Swiss francs.
