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You drive me crazy – Franck Muller Crazy Hours Ladies When we see something repeatedly, over time our brains quickly develop habits that allow us to infer what we're seeing, eliminating the need to analyze every piece of information. This is why we can perfectly understand passages consisting of words with missing vowels, and why we can read the time on an analog watch display without hour or minute markers.

This also makes Franck Muller’s Crazy Hours watch one of the most delightful creations in contemporary watchmaking. For the first moment, the dial looks completely normal, with a series of numbers arranged around its circumference. After half a second, we realize that this is completely abnormal: the usual position of the numbers is completely confused. It's a visual puzzle - one that makes sense and one that doesn't - and a brainteaser that plays with how we're conditioned to read time in a natural clockwise order.

Since Franck Muller invented the Crazy Hours complication in 2003, it has (unsurprisingly) become as emblematic of the brand that bears his name as the Cintrée Curvex case that houses these colorful limited edition watches significance. Rarely does any object so perfectly combine adult charm and childlike whimsy. If you're dreading the end of summer, choosing tropical lagoon blues and greens or daffodils and sunflower yellows will maintain a sunny feel year-round.

Even before you get to the truly mesmerizing chronograph section, the dial is a visual feast. The oversized Arabic numerals (a vivid combination of XL and XXL) are hand-painted - the paint is richly layered and looks almost three-dimensional against the luminous silver background. The undulating sunburst pattern is stamped and then coated with several layers of translucent varnish, creating a very similar effect to guilloche that changes with the light when you turn your wrist.

Then there's the chiming: as the time changes, the hands instantly jump to the correct number, while the minute hand follows its normal cycle. (This is where the "inferred" reading I mentioned at the beginning comes into play: you read/infer the minutes from the hand's customary position, not from the number it points to.)

The way it works is both clever and simple: it's nothing more than a classic jumping hour complication, but with a clever twist. Look closely and you'll notice that four of the numbers are in "normal" positions: 1, 4, 7, and 10. The "Jump" complication is set to jump 5 places per hour, thus ending at the correct time. Watching it happen is great entertainment. It's even better entertainment to watch the reactions of people who don't know watches: what they'll think is that the watch showing the wrong time (at 5 o'clock, with the hour hand at the traditional 9 position instead of where it "should" be) is - Until the time changes and the hands jump, they think the watch has gone completely crazy).

There is another trick - this one will amuse the owner even if you are used to unusual time positions. The leaf-shaped hands are filled with luminous material that glow in the dark, so you can (theoretically) tell the time in the middle of the night. Unless you really can't. For example, you would know that it is 20 o'clock (the minute hand is in the normal "20 o'clock" position), but 11:20 PM? 3:20 am? Unless you memorize exactly where the numbers are for each hour, you have no way of knowing.

The Curvex Cintrée case has an elongated tonneau shape with a curved back that hugs the wrist, making it one of the most elegant and comfortable watch cases. It’s all about the curves: the convex sapphire crystal echoes the shape of the case back, and the case sides are also slightly convex – the high polish of the steel adding to the visual effect. Even though the case is a relatively modest 35mm x 25mm, it has a much larger presence on the wrist than any traditional 35mm round case I've seen.

The true appeal of this watch lies in its contradictions: a childlike sense of humor in charming packaging; the elegance and aesthetic details of classical watchmaking presented in a very modern style; and a completely unconventional method of telling time (through a A very cool complication that will please watch aficionados) that messes with our minds in the best way possible.