A flying tourbillon comprising 395 components housed in a 41-mm case just 10.5 mm thick—this alone is a design challenge that few independent watchmakers are willing to tackle without compromise. Vanguart, a Geneva-based workshop founded in 2021, now adds ceramic to the equation—and with it, a stated goal: to makethe Orb suitable for everyday use.
The statement might seem trivial. It is not.
The flying tourbillon—a cage suspended in mid-air, without a closing bridge—is, by definition, a technical statement. It exists to correct the effects of gravity on the balance wheel, but in contemporary haute horlogerie, it signifies something above all else: the acceptance of visible fragility as a mark of excellence. To say that such a mechanism is designed to be “worn and lived with every day,” in the words of CEO Axel Leuenberger, is to shift the focus from a collector’s item to a tool for everyday life—a culturally significant shift.
Detail · The function selector
Since its launch in 2024,the Orb has been the first flying tourbillon watch to feature a dual winding selector: manual or automatic, at the wearer’s discretion. The switch is operated via a pusher housed in the crown, which acts directly on the oscillating weight—fixed in manual mode, it is released in automatic mode and begins to rotate. A PVD ring with three windows on the barrel (positioned at 12 o’clock, laser-engraved) indicates the active mode: M, A, or H.
For the two new versions — Vanguart Orb Pink Ceramic Titanium and Vanguart Orb Blue Ceramic Rose Gold —, the central technical challenge lies in integrating the ceramic into the case sides and the crown push-button. Ceramic is a material with low flexibility, difficult to bend, and not well-suited to complex shapes. Vanguart reports that it took a year of research and development to adapt the material to the contours of theOrb, with each piece hand-finished to reveal the bevels. The colored elements on the non-ceramic surfaces undergo a treatment borrowed from the automotive industry: high-precision micro-painting, developed over several months to reproduce the visual effect of ceramic on shapes that this material cannot accommodate.
The mainplate, bridges, and tourbillon cage are made of Grade 5 titanium, featuring a combination of microbead-blasted, satin-finished, and mirror-polished surfaces, as well as hand-chamfered edges. On the rose gold version, a high-intensity PVD coating is applied before hand-finishing to reveal the bare titanium edges. On the blue version, the barrel bridge and tourbillon cage are treated with a gold PVD coating that highlights their presence within the movement.
The oscillating weight is set with a brilliant-cut diamond—a detail that captures light automatically and visually highlights the difference in power reserve. It is an elegant solution to a problem of functional readability.
Both versions are limited to 25 pieces each. Material Good (New York) is the exclusive global distributor of the titanium version, which features an “MG” monogram engraved on each case back. The rose gold version is also available at Ahmed Seddiqi and directly from the brand.
The question Vanguart raises with these two pieces isn’t really about color. It’s about the status of the complication: an object of contemplation or an instrument of presence? The answer offered bythe Orb —a flying tourbillon that you can choose to wind yourself each morning—is, at its core, as much a philosophical answer as it is a mechanical one. What Vanguart has been building since 2021 may well be a definition of luxury watchmaking that makes the intimacy of the gesture—and not rarity alone—its main selling point.
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