Chopard's Zagato Lab One Concept and the Mechanics of Manufactured Desire

A tubular chassis, a tourbillon, and nineteen pieces for collectors who need their watches to feel like concepts. Chopard and Zagato engineer lightness—and significance—from ceramicised titanium.

There is a particular species of luxury object that exists less to be worn than to be understood. The Chopard Zagato Lab One Concept belongs to this category—a 42mm exercise in structured restraint that weighs 43.2 grams with the strap and arrives freighted with enough conceptual apparatus to supply a design biennale. It is, we are told, the lightest ti…