THIS luxury wristwatch maker pays tribute to ISRO, unveils watches made out of outer space rocks

Bengaluru: Bangalore Watch Company, luxury wristwatch makers, on Monday paid tributes to ISRO with a limited edition of watches made of outer space material.

This edition of watch is named Apogee, and with it the company became the first watch brand to create a specific line of automatic watches to celebrate the Indian space programme, the company statement said.

The collection consists of four watches, namely Horizon, Supernova, Deepspace and Extraterrestrial, with a meteorite dial. These watches are powered by Swiss Automatic movements, house Sapphire crystals with cases formed with Grade 2 Titanium. The collections are designed and built in Bengaluru, the statement said.

The watches are priced starting at Rs 68,000 and are available for purchase directly from the company's website, it said.

"The Indian space programme is a constant source of inspiration for a billion people ... At Bangalore Watch Company (BWC) we are committed to making world class watches that tell inspiring stories from 21st century India, and this is a story we are proud to tell," Founder and Brand Creative Director Nirupesh Joshi said.

The watches from the Apogee collection are machined out of a single block of Titanium, uses a Swiss Automatic movement, and has a 3D engraving of the Aryabhatta satellite on the caseback, and uses a fumé technique for gradient dial colours. These watches make for excellent conversation starters that our owners will love to sport.

As part of the launch, the brand also announced a limited edition watch with dials made of a meteorite rock recovered from Sweden. These dials from the Muonionalusta meteorite have unique patterns formed due to millions of years of slow-cooling in space. This pattern is impossible to reproduce on earth. Each watch is unique, and no two watches are alike.

"Meteorites are outer space rocks, they mostly burn up when entering Earth’s atmosphere, but some of them make it through. We found one such rock, and worked with our manufacturing partners in Switzerland to create watch dials from it. Because of the rarity of the material and the challenges in manufacturing, we can only make small batches at a time," Joshi said.

The Apogee collection is an addition to the customers' collection as an avant-garde watch with a futuristic design, and an incredible backstory that we’re all proud of, Founder and Customer Head Mercy Amalraj said.

"These are very unique watches that become excellent conversation pieces," he added. (UNI)