Not all images were able to load for printing. Please close the print window and try again. Blancpain Villeret Traditional Chinese Calendar 2025 “Year of the Snake”
Fusing Gregorian and Chinese Calendar elements, Blancpain welcomes the Year of the Snake with a luxurious platinum edition with a green Grand Feu enamel dial.
Blancpain’s longstanding tradition of calendar complications stood it in good stead when it approached the complexities of fusing elements from Chinese and Gregorian calendars to produce the Villeret Traditional Chinese Calendar in 2012. Celebrating the Chinese New Year that kicks off on January 29, 2025, the latest Villeret welcomes the Year of the Wood Snake. Making the first edition to pair a platinum case with a green Grand Feu enamel dial, the Villeret Calendrier Chinois Traditionnel or Villeret Traditional Chinese Calendar 2025 is a mechanical marvel.
The challenge of producing a Traditional Chinese Calendar with Gregorian features resides in the two different approaches to quantifying time. Although the Gregorian calendar is used in China for civil purposes, the Chinese calendar is still used for agricultural production and to determine seasonal holidays. The difficulty in fusing the two is that the Gregorian calendar is based on a solar day, and the traditional Chinese calendar is lunisolar and relies on the cycle of the Moon and the Earth’s course around the Sun. Furthermore, to account for the different number of days in a solar and a lunar year, the Chinese calendar adds an extra month (intercalary).
Blancpain’s Year of the Snake comes in a luxurious polished 45.2mm platinum case with a thickness of 15.1mm and five correctors hidden under the lugs to adjust the calendar. Like all former editions of the Villeret Traditional Chinese Calendar, the animal of the Chinese Zodiac is discreetly revealed on the dial in a small aperture at noon but features a more detailed snake engraved on the frosted white gold rotor.
The gorgeous green Grand Feu enamel dial offsets the copious information relayed on the dial with pleasing symmetry. The small Arabic numerals on the periphery corresponding to the date are indicated by the serpentine hand. Applied white gold Roman numerals and dots at 12, 3 and 9 o’clock mark the hours, while the moon phase aperture at 6 o’clock features Blancpain’s signature smiling moon face.
Moving to the more complex indications, the three sub-dials with white enamel Mandarin inscriptions relay the signs of the zodiac, double hours, lunar months, lunar days, the presence or not of an intercalary month, the five different elements of the zodiac animal and a yin/yang symbol.
The watch is powered by Blancpain’s exceptionally complex calibre 3638. Comprised of 464 components and capable of delivering a mighty 7-day power reserve thanks to three series-coupled barrels, the automatic movement beats at 4 Hz and is equipped with a silicon balance spring. Traditional finishings decorate the movement, and the platinum features a beautifully engraved figure of the Wooden Snake flanked by a red ruby.
The Blancpain Villeret Traditional Chinese Calendar 2025 is a limited edition of 50 pieces and retails for CHF 81,000. For more details, please visit Blancpain.com.
