There are a great many superlatives in watchmaking – watchmakers by nature being both inquisitive and somewhat bloody-minded, to say nothing of extremely patient – but among them, nothing is so respected as the title of “Most Complicated”. It’s a rare industry in which complexity is the ultimate accolade – it is less desirable in, say, filmmaking or brain surgery – but to a watchmaker, the challenge of just how much computational power you can wring out of a few cubic centimetres of steel and brass is irresistible.

The title of ‘most complicated wristwatch’ is fought over between two types of watch brand: the independent genius, who has the capacity to envisage the most quixotically ambitious timepieces and the appetite to devote his entire life to making them real, and the real titans of mainstream high-end watchmaking, which have the budgets to recruit whole teams of great minds and the facilities to bring record-breaking watches to life in slightly shorter timespans. Plus, and this is not to be underestimated, the heartfelt desire to outdo each other, even by the smallest margin. 

Currently, the momentum is with the titans. In 2023 Audemars Piguet released the Code 11.59 Universelle RD#4, claiming the title thanks to its spec-sheet of 40 complications (which, in an act of pedantry entirely consistent with life in the field of highly complicated watchmaking, are actually 23 “true” complications and 17 “technical devices”). It was superseded this April by Vacheron Constantin’s Solaria, a one-off, double-sided 45mm masterpiece in white gold. With a grand total of 41 complications – which, however you define things, is clearly more – 13 patent applications and eight years’ development time, it represents the current apotheosis of what can be devised and still be considered wearable. For good measure, Vacheron Constantin also holds first and second place in the realm of “most complicated watch” of any kind, crowned by 2024’s Berkley Grand Complication, a “pocket watch” the size of a hockey puck – presumably for structurally-reinforced pockets – housing 63 complications and weighing nearly a kilogram. 

But back to the Solaria. The name may be the only simple thing about it, although Vacheron Constantin also deserves credit for designing two dials that can display so much information without the whole thing coming to resemble a Gothic fever-dream, as previous record holders have. It has been standard practice among such watches for a while now to have two full dials packed with subsidiary scales and counters, and the Solaria is no exception: on the front are functions that, put as simply as possible, pertain to daytime, and on the back those that are useful by night.

Among the former are probably the most comprehensive set of measurements relating to the movement of the sun across our sky that have ever been assembled; you can track sunrise and sunset, the angle of the sun above the horizon at its highest point, the exact time at which the sun will reach this point, the progress of the sun relative to earth’s orbital angle, in other words its journey between solstices and equinoxes, and that’s just the beginning. The moon does not escape scrutiny either, with indicators for both its waxing and waning and the rise and fall of the tides. 

The back of the watch is dominated by a map of the heavens and, again, reveals an astonishing amount of astronomical detail. A shaded ellipse indicates the constellations visible, while a world-first complication adapts a split-seconds chronograph (something that even in isolation most watch companies are rightly proud of creating) to introduce a mechanism whereby a particular star in the night sky can be timed, in terms of how long it will take to appear in the wearer’s field of vision. 

There are many more impressive elements. The Solaria contains a perpetual calendar and a tourbillon, because what kind of world-class superwatch would be without them; it also houses a phenomenally complicated chiming mechanism, which will sound the hours, quarter-hours and minutes on demand, with four tiny golden hammers striking miniature gongs in precise harmony. In total, the Solaria comprises 1,521 components; imagine the hardest jigsaw you’ve ever had for Christmas but shrink every piece down to a matter of millimetres – actually, fractions of a millimetre – and you are on the way to visualising what’s inside. It goes without saying that every single one will also have received some degree of hand-finishing; Vacheron Constantin says that nine separate techniques are represented within the watch. As a demonstration of excellence, it will take some beating, although it is entirely possible that a rival team is even now beavering away on a 42-complication monster, somewhere within Patek Philippe or A. Lange & Söhne. But for now, Vacheron Constantin enjoys the glory, and does so while marking 270 years of continuous watchmaking – which is one record that no other brand can ever surpass. 

vacheron-constantin.com