Description
Bovet has finally built a watch it is willing to call a "true GMT" — and, this being Bovet, the second time zone does not travel alone. The new Récital 32 pairs a traveller-friendly dual-time display with an elevated flying tourbillon, wrapped in a compact 42 mm openworked case. It slots between the brand's recent travel pieces, the world-time Récital 28 and 30, but answers a simpler question: how do you jump a second time zone cleanly, without disturbing local time?
The answer is a pusher on the left flank of the case that advances the second-zone hand in one-hour steps. Local time stays on the sapphire-cabochon crown; the home/second zone gets its own dedicated control. Limited to 60 pieces each in titanium and red gold, the Récital 32 is priced at CHF 150,000 and CHF 175,000 respectively — firmly haute-horlogerie territory, but with a genuinely useful complication at its heart.
Design
The off-centred sub-dial at noon carries local time on an outer blue lacquered track and the second time zone on a white 24-hour ring, with a hand-painted day/night display at its centre. Below, the dial opens up: the flying tourbillon sits at 6 o'clock, raised high above the movement plate, while a cylindrical roller at 9 o'clock counts down the 10-day power reserve. To clear the elevated tourbillon and let it be admired from the side, the dial is capped by a panoramic box sapphire crystal. The hand-engraved plates and bridges wear Bovet's new étoiles carrées ("square stars") motif, with hand-bevelled, mirror-polished edges that take around 15 hours to finish. Cases are polished titanium or 18k red gold, paired with a rubber strap to match the contemporary look.
Specifications
- Case: 42 mm, polished titanium or 18k red gold
- Crystal: box sapphire (front); sapphire caseback
- Crown: sapphire cabochon; GMT pusher on left case flank
- Dial: openworked; off-centred blue/white lacquered sub-dial at noon (local + second time zone, 24-hour track); day/night indicator
- Movement: in-house, manual winding, 375 components; in-house balance spring and regulator
- Complications: local time, pusher-set second time zone (true GMT), day/night, power-reserve, flying tourbillon
- Power reserve: 10 days on a single barrel, via a patented 3D spherical rewinding system
- Finishing: hand-finished and hand-engraved (étoiles carrées motif)
- Strap: premium rubber
- Limited edition: 60 pieces in titanium + 60 pieces in red gold (three colour combinations)
- Price: CHF 150,000 (titanium) / CHF 175,000 (red gold)
- Availability: 2026
What's Exciting
What makes the Récital 32 interesting is not that Bovet built a tourbillon — it builds those routinely — but that it solved a real ergonomic problem with restraint. Using a dedicated pusher rather than the crown to advance the second time zone is faster, removes the risk of nudging local time, and spares the winding stem the wear of constant zone-hopping. Pair that with a 10-day reserve from a single barrel — made windable by a patented miniature spherical differential that doubles each turn of the crown — and you have a travel watch whose cleverness is mechanical, not just decorative. At over 95% in-house production, including its own hairsprings, Bovet remains one of the few independents engineering complications like this end to end. The price is enormous, but the engineering is the point.
History
Bovet's modern Récital line under Pascal Raffy has become a laboratory for travel complications. The Récital 27 carried three time zones; the gargantuan 46.3 mm Récital 28 Prowess 1 (2024) became the first watch to solve the global Daylight Saving Time problem, pairing a world timer with a flying tourbillon and perpetual calendar; and the Récital 30 distilled that world-time-and-DST idea into a more wearable 42 mm case. The Récital 32 continues that compacting, traveller-first trajectory, but narrows the brief to a single clean idea — a true second time zone — while keeping the theatrical tourbillon that has become a Récital signature.
