Ulysse Nardin’s Freak S shines in enamel

Ulysse Nardin has always been the outlier among Switzerland’s old guard, and the Freak is still the best argument for that reputation. When it appeared in 2001, it broke every rule: no dial, no crown, no hands, and yet it told time. Instead of hands, the movement itself rotated to mark the hours, driven by Dr. Ludwig Oechslin’s radical mechanics and the…