One material that’s gained popularity in the watch industry over the last number of years is ceramic, with the material frequently being used to craft bezels, cases and occasionally bracelets.
The main draw for ceramic is its high scratch resistance and strong resistance to fading and corrosion. Because of these properties, a ceramic watch will show wear less than nearly any other material, meaning your ceramic watch will still look brand-new — unfaded and scratch-free — basically forever.
But ceramic, like other materials, isn’t perfect. Its biggest drawback is that it’s brittle. It won’t scratch, but it can crack or shatter, making it more susceptible to breakage than metal materials when dropped.
If someone could craft a form of ceramic that wouldn’t shatter, it just might be the perfect watchmaking material. And that’s exactly what avant-garde Swiss luxury brand Urwerk has created for its new UR-230 Polaris watch.
Ceramic, but better
To craft its proprietary new material, Urwerk encased sheets of woven ceramic interwined with layers of fiberglass in a polymer base, with the fiberglass providing the ceramic with the necessary shatter resistance without interrupting the other properties that make ceramic so great.
“The usual ceramics are hard, but it’s also what makes them a liability,” says Urwerk cofounder Felix Baumgartner said in a press release. “So we decided to develop a ceramic, by and for ourselves. Thanks to the glass fibers it contains, it doesn’t break.”
