Franck Muller’s cigarette lighter watch was the wackiest creation of Geneva Watch Week
Jamie WeissI started this Watch Carry Wednesdays column as a way to highlight and share cool watch accessories. However, this time around, the watch is the accessory. Unveiled at the World Presentation of Haute Horlogerie (WPHH) – Franck Muller’s annual novelties showcase timed to coincide with Watches and Wonders, as well as Geneva’s other big watchmaking showcases in April – the Master Lighter is the first-ever cigarette lighter to show off the watchmaking inside through skeletonisation. It’s also completely batshit crazy, easily the wackiest thing we saw at Geneva Watch Week… And totally on-brand for Franck Muller.
To produce this horological accessory, Franck Muller teamed up with esteemed French luxury goods manufacturer S.T. Dupont, one of the top high-end cigarette lighter makers in the world and a master of goldsmithing. Reportedly the result of over two years of development, the Master Lighter boasts a skeletonised movement and three-day power reserve, housed within a hobnail-finished stainless case. Of course, the lighter is fully functional, with a traditional spark wheel (as opposed to the vertically mounted spark wheels that are something of an S.T. Dupont signature).
One side of the Master Lighter features a traditional Franck Muller lacquered guilloché dial, with characteristic spade hands and multicoloured numerals. The other side exposes its skeletonised movement, with a central seconds indicator and movement elements in multicoloured aluminium. What’s particularly interesting about the Master Lighter is that the hands’ axis traverses the lighter, passing through the centre of its fuel reservoir. A crown at the usual 3 o’clock position is used for winding and time-setting. While you can in theory use the Master Lighter to light anything, I think it would be rude to use it for anything other than Davidoffs or cigars. Or maybe blunts.
Franck Muller plans to offer four different variants of the Master Lighter: white, blue and black dial variants (with the black dial model featuring Super-LumiNova numerals), and this ‘Color Dreams’ model, which to date is the only variant that we have images of. Each variant will be a limited edition of 88 pieces. The Color Dreams model is the most expensive at US$65,300, the black will come in at US$58,700 and the blue and white dial models are priced at US$56,400.
To be honest, I bloody love this. Watchmaking can be a bit of a stuffy hobby; you can always rely on Franck Muller to shake things up and offer something ridiculous, and that’s exactly what they’ve done with the Master Lighter. I do feel as if they’ve missed a trick, however: S.T. Dupont offers a lighter necklace, and I reckon the Master Lighter should also be offered on a necklace, too – or at least have a ring integrated into the case so you have the option of putting it on a chain or something. Piaget presented necklace watches at Watches and Wonders this year – Franck Muller could’ve upstaged them with a cigarette lighter necklace watch!
The Master Lighter Franck Muller & S.T. Dupont is available exclusively from Franck Muller boutiques. Price: US$56,400 (blue/white dial), US$58,700 (black), US$65,300 (Color Dreams).