The Most Audacious TAG Heuer Releases from LVMH Watch Week

TAG Heuer marked LVMH Watch Week with some high-end experimental pieces. With fancy watch complications and highly scientific lasers and lab work, the watches represent impressive steps forward in technology in general. They’re also just really cool to look at.

The TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon Glassbox uses the same circular brushed finish as the Carrera Chronograph we told you about last week, and the same eye-catching teal green, which TAG Heuer says is meant to pay tribute to vintage racing colors. But the rest of its dial’s details diverge radically from that of the Chronograph. Two registers, one at the 9 o’clock and the other at the 3 o’clock, and an aperture at the 6 o’clock that lets you look into the tourbillon give the watch a very balanced and maximalist look.

TAG Heuer knows they’ve got something with the Glassbox crystal design and decided not to mess with a good thing. The Carrera Chronograph Tourbillon has the same domed sapphire crystal that TAG fans have loved in other releases since this form factor debuted a year ago. The exhibition caseback is also sapphire, giving you a good look at the Heuer 02–TH20-09 movement inside.

Tourbillon movements are incredibly complex, with a rotating cage surrounding the movement that offsets the effect of gravity on the accuracy of the watch. As a result, the movement is a bit bigger than the TAG Heuer Carrera Chronograph’s automatic movement, necessitating a 42mm dial with a 48.6mm lug to lug measurement, and 14.33mm thickness.

The price is also steeper with the tourbillon (though quite approachable as tourbillons go), coming in at $27,000 versus the Carrera Chronograph’s $7,500 price tag.

The TAG Heuer Carrera Date Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde is a technical marvel of another kind, with a dial made entirely of lab-grown diamonds. The 2.9-carat dial is the result of a large number of lab-grown diamonds essentially grown as one while still retaining their own unique crystalline structure. The subsequent diamond then gets cut into shape by a laser. Impressively, TAG Heuer has also figured out how to influence the growth of diamonds to the point that the company can also create uniformly colored diamonds, which it took full advantage of with this watch, which features some stunning yellow diamonds.

The polycrystalline dial features white gold and diamond indexes and a yellow lab grown diamond in the shape of the TAG Heuer shield logo. Even the winding crown is a 1.3-carat yellow diamond. With an 18 carat white gold case to boot, the price is not currently listed, but one imagines it won’t be cheap. A previous version of this watch made by TAG Heuer featured pink diamonds and cost a whopping $100,000.

The 36mm case houses a TAG Heuer Calibre 7 Automatic that is visible through a sapphire exhibition caseback. Getting to look at the movement powering a watch is always cool, but with the TAG Heuer Carrera Date Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde it feels almost unnecessary: With 4.8 carats of diamonds on the front in total, not many people will be looking at the back. TAG Heuer