If you’ve been paying attention to the world of the Hype Watch over the last few years, you’ve no doubt stumbled upon the hypiest Hype Watch of them all: the Cartier Crash. OK, maybe it’s not the hypiest Hype Watch, but it’s close. In terms of genuine rarity and the Crash’s ability to show up on the wrists of movie stars, recording artists, and top tier influencers with regularity, it’s certainly a big part of the conversation. There are a lot of reasons why the Crash has become so sought after in recent years, but one of them is certainly a movement among the larger watch market to pieces that are, at least on the surface, more unusual, and lead with design. The Crash, then, is really part of the rising tide that is lifting the ship of shaped cases more generally. And that brings us to the Exaequo Melting Watch, an unusual avant-garde design with a shaped case that is, at least in some ways, Crash adjacent, but a small fraction of the cost and quite a bit more approachable.
Longtime enthusiasts might remember the Exaequo Softwatch from the 1990s, which has carried on cult favorite status even to this day. The Melting Watch is effectively the modern rendition of the Softwatch, and has been brought back this year in a well timed bid to take advantage of a movement toward uncommon shapes and designs.
While the possibly apocryphal story of the Crash involves a Tank being accidentally melted in a fire after a car wreck, Exaequo has always proudly touted their watch as being inspired by the famous Salvador Dali image of melting clocks. The Melting Watch is straight surrealism brought to the wrist, with a case that could be directly pulled from a Dali painting and a dial that is similarly squished and pulled apart, simultaneously.
The Melting Watch launched earlier this year with steel and yellow gold PVD treated cases, and this latest updated sees additional references in rose gold PVD, as well as yellow gold and steel variants with new burgundy dials. Each dial has Roman numeral hour markers, but they’re so contorted as to be nearly inconsequential for actual time telling. The hands, too, are so small (a result of the unusual proportions of the case) one would suspect that they pose real legibility challenges for anyone with less than perfect vision. But that’s not the point of this watch, obviously. It’s a true statement piece and conversation starter, and if you’re drawn to the case shape and how it looks on the wrist, it’s likely that the most basic utilitarian functionality will be of secondary concern.
The case is listed at 28mm in diameter, which we assume is a measurement taken from the widest point. The more critical measurement is the lug to lug figure, which is 47mm. The watch runs on a Quartz Ronda 751 movement, has 30 metes of water resistance, and is equipped with a domed plastic crystal. We imagine the choice to go with a plastic crystal was critical in keeping the costs of this watch under control. Custom sapphire in this unusual shape would likely be quite an expensive proposition.
The Exaequo Melting Watch has a starting retail price of CHF 520. Exaequo
