Introducing Bell & Ross Made A Watch With Alain Silberstein, Master Of The Squiggle

If you are even the tiniest bit familiar with Silberstein you will recognize his punchy aesthetic a mile off. In fact, you would recognize his work without being given any sort of prompt because that's how singular he is in his vision. Close your eyes and you see red, yellow, blue. Triangle, circle, and square.

Silberstein is no stranger to watch collaborations. After his namesake company was declared bankrupt in 2012 he kept a foothold in the industry by successfully partnering with the likes of MB&F and Louis Erard. Last year for the first installment of Grail Watch he worked together with Benoît Mintiens on a limited edition Ressence – a colorful and supremely unique watch that captured my attention during a particularly long stretch of stainless steel coverage.

This Grail 4 release sees three new watches all based on the 42mm × 42mm BR03 and all uniquely decked out in Silberstein livery. There's a BR 03 time-only model with date, a BR 03 diving watch, and a BR 03 chronograph.

All three watches are made of black ceramic and fitted with black rubber straps: the Bell & Ross canvas onto which the trademark Silberstein primary colors and shapes are applied. The BR 03-92 KLUB 22 is time only, but does feature a  blink-and-you'll-miss-it date display at 4:30. It has a very large red circle to mark the hours, an oversized blue arrow to indicate the minutes, and a squiggly S-shaped yellow seconds hand. The watch houses an automatic movement Caliber BR.CAL-302.

The BR 03-92 Marine 22, a dive watch, features Silberstein's "Maxi" hands, a blue circular hand with a large luminous plot for the hours, and a red triangle inlaid with luminous material for the minute hand that provides a reading for elapsed dive time. There's a two-tone ceramic bezel with the last 20 minutes of the insert colored red and featuring a full set of 20-minute markers with luminous indexes. The diver model is depth rated to 300 meters, features a screw-down crown, and is powered by the same automatic movement with date function as the time-only model, caliber BR.CAL-302.

The Chronograph, the BR 03-94 Krono 22 is fully loaded with no less than five different Silberstein hands. The same red circle for the hours and blue arrow for the minutes as the time-only, but now the yellow S-shaped hand serves as the chronograph seconds indicator. In addition, a blue triangle serves as the indicator for the chronograph 30-minute counter, with a yellow arrow for the continuous seconds indicator. The chronograph pushers are inlaid with a yellow lacquered rectangle for the start/stop function and a blue rectangle for the reset function. The crown features Silberstein's signature red triangle. The watch features an automatic chronograph movement with date, the caliber BR.CAL- 301.

I'll admit that it is a lot to look at. Even for me, and I am a devout maximalist. Yes, I was drawn in by the mad shapes and the layers of color and the fact it looks like a zany scientist made in his Bauhaus color lab, but I stayed with the watch because there is still a strong sense of balance. Every hand, every marker is intentional. The larger hands actually do make these watches weirdly more functional than you would imagine. 

I have a soft spot for wacky avant-garde design in the watch space, I belive it serves as much-needed lighthearted relief in a sea of seriousness and reference numbers, so I was already pretty familiar with Silberstein. Every time I look at any of his namesake pieces in old auction catalogs it conjures up images of the living room in the '80s movie Ruthless People (A Danny DeVito classic that you must watch if you are into horrendous/borderline amazing '80s interiors).

Despite his now-on-trend '80s Memphis bonafides, no doubt Silberstein's primary design tenets are classic Bauhaus. You'd have to be reading this with your eyes closed to miss that. But the serious industrial design mixed with his trademark dose of humor is the clever part here. And hey, isn't that what modernism is all about, form following function?

Is this really the watch you are buying to measure a lap or time a dive? Probably not. But it's fun and I'll take a healthy dose of fun in the middle of an otherwise very grey January.

Brand: Bell & Ross x Alain Silberstein
Model: BR 03-92 "KLUB 22", BR 03-92 "MARINE", BR 03-94 "KRONO 22"
Reference Number: BR0392-AS-CE/SRB, BR0392-D-AS-CE/SRB, BR0394-AS-CE/SRB

Diameter: 42mm x 42mm
Case Material: Ceramic
Dial Color: Black
Indexes: Applied
Lume: Yes
Water Resistance: "KLUB 22" 100m, "MARINE 22" 300m, "KRONO 22" 100m.
Strap/Bracelet: Black Rubber with additional black fabric.

Caliber: BR.CAL-302. and BR.CAL- 301
Functions: BR.CAL-302. Hours, minutes, seconds and date and BR.CAL- 301 Hours, minutes, small seconds, chronograph and date.
Diameter: BR.CAL-302. 25.6mm and BR.CAL- 301 28mm
Power Reserve: 42 hours
Winding: Automatic
Frequency: 28800
Jewels: 25 + 37

Price: "KLUB 22" $4,400, "MARINE 22" $5,600, "KRONO 22" $6,700.
Availability:
Limited Edition:"KLUB 22" numbered and limited edition of 200 pieces; watches 1 to 50 will be sold in a special box set comprising all three watches of the trilogy. "MARINE 22" and "KRONO" numbered and limited edition of 100 pieces for both; watches 1 to 50 will be sold in a special box set comprising all three watches of the trilogy.

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