With a final title similar to Pantone, sure, the founders of the Color Matching System®, you’ll think about the quantity of confusion, or worse, mistaken identification, Argentinian-Spanish artist Felipe Pantone has skilled. The truth that the artist dabbles in colors — right here, we quote his profile: “He [Pantone] explores how the displacement of the sunshine spectrum impacts color and repetition” compounds the conundrum manifold. For the file, any point out of Pantone from hereon refers back to the artist.
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Zenith and Pantone just lately unveiled the newest chapter of their collaboration — the DEFY Skyline Tourbillon Felipe Pantone. It marks the fifth undertaking the 2 disruptive minds have conceptualised collectively and produced, the primary being a customized color gradient tarpaulin for Zenith’s Le Locle manufacture façade in 2020. Subsequent collaborations — together with the newest launch — manifested via Zenith’s DEFY vary of watches. The primary DEFY 21 Felipe Pantone was adopted up by the extremely profitable and piece distinctive Zenith x Felipe Pantone DEFY 21 Double Tourbillon Solely Watch version (each in 2021) earlier than 2022’s DEFY Excessive Felipe Pantone paved the best way for this yr’s 100-piece restricted version launch.
Not like its two different business predecessors, this yr’s version swaps out Zenith’s famed high-frequency chronograph in favour of a tourbillon, with its tourbillon bridge long-established in Pantone’s emblematic lightning bolt form. Different nods towards the artist’s works embody the sapphire dial with concentric circle micro-engravings on the entrance and a mirrored metallic end on the rear to evoke the colors of a CD. The same gradient color execution occurs on the distorted watch arms and hour indices.
Whereas the DEFY Skyline Tourbillon Felipe Pantone will solely arrive in chosen Zenith boutiques on 12 September, we had the chance to talk to Felipe Pantone about his newest collaboration with Zenith.
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Hola Felipe, congratulations in your newest undertaking with Zenith! This launch marks your fifth undertaking with Zenith, the primary on the manufacture facade and 4 others targeted on the watches. How would you describe your relationship with Zenith?
Gracias! My relationship with Zenith has been one in all mutual respect and shared imaginative and prescient. From the very starting, there was a pure synergy between us. Zenith’s dedication to craftsmanship and innovation aligns completely with my method to artwork. Through the years, our collaborations have advanced from large-scale murals to intricate timepieces, every undertaking deepening our artistic partnership. It’s been a journey of exploration, pushing the boundaries of what will be achieved when watchmaking meets up to date artwork.
Staying on the subject of relationships, have you ever usually been mistakenly affiliated with the Pantone firm, given your names and each your relationships with color?
The similarity within the title is coincidental, although I admire the humour within the mix-up. It’s at all times attention-grabbing to see how folks make these connections. I used to graffiti and selected the title PANT1 as a child. Rising up, I learnt in regards to the Pantone firm, and just lately, I came upon that they adopted me on Instagram. I assume they’re not mad at me, so I adopted again.
Is there a selected color that greatest represents your character?
I might select to be a gradient quite than a single hue. My character, very similar to my work, is consistently shifting and evolving. I’m drawn to the spectrum of colors as a result of it represents motion, transition, and mixing completely different components into one thing cohesive but fluid. If I had been to select one, it will most likely be a vibrant blue — a color that symbolises each tranquillity and depth, very similar to the stability I attempt to keep in my life and artwork.
After months of engaged on the DEFY Skyline Tourbillon Felipe Pantone, how thrilled are you to see the watch in individual?
Seeing the DEFY Skyline Tourbillon in individual was exhilarating. After months of conceptualising, designing, and fine-tuning, holding the completed piece in my arms was extremely satisfying. The transition from thought to tangible object is at all times fascinating, and this watch, specifically, exceeded my expectations. The best way it interacts with gentle, the precision of the mechanics, and the general presence of the watch — all of it got here collectively in a approach that really captures the essence of the collaboration.
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That is a kind of creations for which footage don’t do justice. It needs to be seen in individual, the place gentle brings the intricacies of the watch to life. Do you agree with this assertion?
Completely. The DEFY Skyline Tourbillon is a watch that reveals its true magnificence when skilled in individual. Pictures can seize the design however can’t convey the play of sunshine on the prismatic dial or how the colors shift as you progress your wrist. The depth, textures and delicate particulars — all of those components come to life if you see the watch in individual. It’s a chunk that engages with its atmosphere, which you’ll solely totally admire when holding it.
The watch design touchpoints just like the Deliberate Iridescence dial, the gradient colors, and the bolt-shaped tourbillon bridge mirror your work and prolong your character. What message do you wish to share with folks, or what emotion do you wish to evoke once they see the watch?
I would like folks to really feel a way of vitality and curiosity once they see the watch. The design components, just like the iridescent dial and the gradient colors, are supposed to evoke a sense of dynamism and alter. The bolt-shaped tourbillon bridge is a nod to the concept of velocity and energy, components central to each my artwork and the idea of time itself. Finally, I would like the watch to encourage a way of motion — each visually and emotionally — reminding the wearer that point is consistently in flux and that there’s magnificence in that perpetual movement.
Roger Gastman is quoted as saying, “Felipe Pantone evokes a spirit in his work that seems like a collision between an analogue previous and a digitised future the place human beings and machines will inevitably glitch alongside each other in a prism of neon gradients, geometric shapes, optical patterns, and jagged grids.” Have you ever thought-about the profound impression that point has on you and your artworks after working with Zenith?
Working with Zenith has actually deepened my appreciation for the idea of time and its affect on my work. Time is a central theme in watchmaking and artwork — one measures it, the opposite captures it. The concept of a collision between the analogue previous and a digitised future is one thing I discover consistently, and watchmaking sits on the intersection of these two worlds. The extra I’ve engaged with the mechanics of timepieces, the extra I’ve mirrored on the function of time in my artistic course of. It’s made me much more conscious of how fleeting moments are and the way necessary it’s to seize that vitality in my work. Each piece I create is a snapshot of a selected second in time, but it surely’s additionally half of a bigger continuum, very similar to the ticking of a watch.
This story was first seen on MensFolio.com
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