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HYT SKULL POCKET

Unencumbered by the limitations of what can feasibly be worn on the wrist, HYT have recreated their convention-defying technology within a case of gargantuan scale, with a presence to match, and if the huge titanium case with flip-up, leather bound cover is imposing in itself, nothing prepares for the incredible spectacle of a faceted steel skull, and its eerie green glow which lies within.


Measuring 59mm across and over 20mm tall, the HYT Skull Pocket is the most dramatic of all the pioneering watch maker’s collections, which is saying something. Externally, the only clue that this might indeed be a watch of some kind are the two rubber sheathed crowns, and even when the cover is released by pressing on the big titanium dome at the 6 it still takes a moment to come to terms with its strange and alien configuration inside. 


The defining HYT signature is, of course, its unique solution for displaying the time. Using a pair of large steel bellows which give all of its watches an otherworldly appearance, while one contracts, the other expands, and from a reservoir beneath the dome at the 6, two immiscible fluids, one a vivid luminescent green, the other entirely invisible, are forced around a thin glass tube which follows around the profile of the skull centrepiece. In this way, the hours are displayed, as the green fluid marks the passing of time in a twelve-hour cycle, before reaching its buffer and retreating back to its starting point and beginning again, telling the time in a cryptic, but a very clever way.


While the uppermost crown is used to set the time, the lower one is a push button which turns on the blue backlight, instantly bathing the movement and skull in an icy blue light, adding even more to this extraordinary timepiece’s already spectacular personality.


From each of the silver numerals in the black titanium bezel, a corresponding applied marker on the dial extends towards the liquid-filled glass capillary so that even though there is no minutes function, the time can still be read with a reasonable degree of accuracy, although expecting exact precision is missing the point of this highly individual timepiece. As well as the hours, a rotating disc inside the left eye socket displays the seconds, while adjacent to the right, the power reserve is shown.


Throughout, the HYT Skull Pocket is finished to the exacting standards of Haute Horlogerie, and behind the sapphire case back the hand winding movement and its stripped back plates, the balance and escapement, along with the barrel and gear train are compacted into the upper half, to accommodate the pair of rhodium-plated bellows. Fully wound, it is good for 65 hours of power reserve.


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