Kalysta, the Hysek manufacture’s first collection of jeweled watches, is now available. The launch comes just a few months after its premiere at Baselworld.
The collection marks a key milestone for Hysek: with Kalysta, the manufacture now has equal numbers of ladies’ and men’s collections made in-house. The new collection also firmly establishes the company in the highly exclusive segment of manufacture fine watchmaking for women.
Kalysta is the fruit of a pure aesthetic vision: set jewels. Bearing in mind that women are more sensitive to creative touches than to mechanical sophistication, the manufacture has thought first and foremost in terms of shape, diamonds, brilliance – and emotion.
Kalysyta does away with traditional hands. Instead, the collection offers a whole new way of reading the time, with Hysek developing a 100% exclusive in-house complication especially for it. At noon, a window reveals jumping hours. A marquise sapphire travels round the rose gold bezel, its pink colour denoting the passing minutes, contrasting beautifully with the snow-set bezel along which it runs – thus providing perfect readability. Its white powder-coated dial is protected by a 39mm rose gold case, above which a graceful butterfly hovers, spreading its wings over a finely-etched floral motif. Neither engraved nor painted, the butterfly is an appliqué. Hysek opted for this technique as being the only one that really gives the impression of flight – as well as adding an unbelievable sense of depth to the dial.
Kalysta is both a unique piece and a whole collection. Within the Kalysta range, the “Exotic Tale” model offers a whole new level of uniqueness. Its snow-white setting is composed of diamonds of different sizes, scattered across the Kalysta’s convex bezel. This apparently random setting is infinitely more complex than regularly-spaced diamonds of equal size, calling for outstanding care when selecting stones – and taking much longer than traditional jewel-setting methods.
“Heaven’s Tale” and “Night’s Tale” offer further variations on the same theme. The first features a mother-of-pearl back in purple or blue hues, with the same concentric rhodium-plated minute track highlighting the 1, 5, 7 and 11 hour markers that are the manufacture’s favourite figures. The minutes are displayed by a diamond on the purple model and by a sapphire on the blue model. Sporting a black dial and strap, the “Night’s Tale” variation features a diamond butterfly encircled by a bezel set in snow white atop a titanium case, making the piece especially light to wear.
