Back when I was a brand new watch lover I came across something weird called the Freak. I was still too much of a novice to know who or what Ulysse Nardin was, but the strange timepiece stuck in my mind - probably because there was nothing else like it (and still isn't for that matter). Over the years the Freak kept coming back and eventually all the bits and pieces of what it was in full came together for me. I understood this freakish creation and all the innovations contained within it. My time spent trying to appreciate the Freak paid off, and it coincided with my overall horological education. Right now the Freak is about 10 years old - and still selling strong.

I recently had an ironic conversation with the CEO and COO of Ulysse Nardin. They explained to me the importance of building useful complications that people would use on a regular basis. That they weren't into making wildly designed watches that had a very niche appeal. To that I responded, "well what about the Freak?" Correcting themselves, "Beside the Freak we mean. That is why we called it the Freak, because it is wild and different." It most certainly is. The Freak has recently been followed up with the Freak Diavolo. Not exactly a replacement, the Freak Diavolo improved upon the original design in a few ways, and also added a tourbillon complication. The "Diavolo" part of the name came from two horn looking windows in the back of the watch next to another window of the mainspring that act like a power reserve indicator. I first talked about the Ulysse Nardin Freak Diavolo watch when debuting it to the world here.

Read the rest here at the watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.