Christopher Ward Turned the Bel Canto’s Hidden Bird Into a Real One

Christopher Ward and Mr Jones Watches are back with their second collaboration, and this time they’ve been given the brand’s crown jewel: the Bel Canto. I caught up with Christopher Ward Product Director Jörg Bader and Mr Jones Watches founder Crispin Jones at the Windup Watch Fair in New York for a first look at the C1 Bel Canto Lucia. Full Review Here from WatchChris: https://youtu.be/cUdMLUqVsMM?si=ZzUOoe80WSwrUamo People have long said the Bel Canto’s chiming works look like a bird, and that was a happy accident of the mechanism’s symmetry. Lucia makes the bird real. Its beak is the chime on/off indicator, and its tail is the hammer that strikes the D note at the top of every hour. The scene is built from six stamped brass components, pad-printed in 19 colours at Mr Jones’ London workshop. The pieces are laminated together there, then sent to Christopher Ward’s Atelier in Biel for final assembly. The artwork is by illustrator Andy Wilx. We talk about how the follow-up to the 300-piece Celestial Moonphase came about, which sold out in under 48 hours, and why the team asked for the Bel Canto expecting to be told no. We also cover what 18 months of development taught them compared with the six-month Moonphase project, and why Lucia is an open series rather than another limited edition. C1 Bel Canto Lucia highlights: 41mm Grade 5 titanium Light-catcher case, 48mm lug-to-lug, 14.31mm thick FS01 chiming movement on the new Sellita SW200-2 Power+ base, with a 65-hour power