Each year, there is always that one watch that everyone talks about before the SIHH fair even begins—in 2017, the honour goes to Greubel Forsey's Grande Sonnerie, the watchmaker’s first chiming timepiece. Eleven years in the making, the timepiece is allegedly the brand’s most complicated project for far—and that’s saying something, given that the Swiss watchmaker has diligently reworked the complex tourbillon mechanism to make it as precise as possible. What’s a grande sonnerie, you may ask? Essentially, it is a chiming watch that rings out the time in passing. There are three different permutations that can be set with the press of a pusher: grande sonnerie, which chimes the hours and quarters; petite sonnerie, hours in passing; and silence, which is self-explanatory. There is also a minute repeater function—it chimes the hours, quarters and minutes on demand. While the watch’s time-keeping mechanism has a 72-hour power reserve and has to be manually wound, the chiming mechanism is autonomous for 20 hours. Interestingly, the chiming mechanism has its own rotor, and will remain functional as long as it’s on your wrist. The sound of the chimes is also loud and clear, thanks to the titanium case.

We were dismayed to hear of the demise of Walter Lange this week, descendant of the Lange family who famously revived the brand in 1994 following the fall of the Berlin Wall. But as the adage goes, the show must go on. He would have certainly been proud of the latest addition to the brand’s most technically advanced series, Pour Le Mérite. The first Pour Le Mérite was part of the four prototypes launched to announce the rebirth of A. Lange & Söhne, and featured a fusee and chain mechanism (an anachronism in today’s context thanks to its complex construction, but extremely handy in maintaining a constant flow of power to the escapement). The Pour Le Mérite Tourbograph Perpetual is the fifth in the series, and features the fusee and chain mechanism, along with a tourbillon, chronograph, splits-second function and a perpetual calendar. The platinum timepiece is weighty on the wrist, measuring 16.6mm thick. But, its bulky frame is forgotten once you immerse yourself into the timepiece’s impressive technical prowess and superior aesthetic finishes.

Ask and he shall deliver. When Richard Mille announced his partnership with Formula 1 team McLaren last year, there was plenty abuzz about the racing-inspired timepieces that would be borne from this relationship. We have to wait no further: the RM 50-03 MaLaren F1 is so light that I almost forgot it was on my wrist (if not for that pressing feeling that the timepiece costs six digits). The reason for this drastic weight loss is a new material called Graph TPT that was used for the case, which combines graphene and carbon TPT. The entire watch weighs only 40g, and features a tourbillon plus a split-seconds chronograph. Elements alluding to McLaren abound including the power reserve and torque counters that emulate the supercar’s dashboard, as well as the hollow pushers that resemble the car vents.