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Frederique Constant this week brings back its Highlife collection, one of the Geneva watchmaker’s earliest lines,  updated with an integrated steel bracelet and a contemporary dial design. The watchmaker debuts the newly returned collection with three new models: The Highlife Perpetual Calendar Manufacture, Highlife Heart Beat and Highlife Automatic COSC.

One model from Frederique Constant’s new Highlife Perpetual Calendar Manufacture collection.

All three new Highlife models display the same 41mm case as the original collection from 1999, but the new dials feature a globe design that the Geneva brand says is “intended to unify the collection and symbolize the Earth, harmony, and perfection of the circle.”

While not Frederique Constant’s first integrated bracelet, these Highlife debuts mark a premiere of a newer, interchangeable bracelet that allows the wearer to swap the bracelet without additional tools by pressing on the two pushpins at the end of the bracelet or strap to disconnect it from the case and click a new one into place.

Versatility is a focus here. Each watch will come with an additional leather strap and a rubber strap, and Frederique Constant is also offering a set of three additional crocodile calf suede straps in brown, blue, and black (purchased separately).

Perpetual Calendar

When it made its first perpetual calendar four years ago, Frederique Constant stuck to its mission of offering a high value-to-price ratio across all its collections. That premier Slimline Perpetual Calendar model wowed collectors and critics alike with its thin Caliber FC-775 movement, attractive dial layout and a double-take price (less than $9,000 for the steel-cased model).

With this latest example, the Highlife Perpetual Calendar Manufacture, Frederique Constant’s continues that mission. The watchmaker’s starts with that in-house FC-775 perpetual calendar caliber and places in the newly integrated steel case/bracelet, fronted by the globe design on the dial.

As with previous examples, the new Highlife Perpetual Calendar Manufacture features three counters: day at 9 o’clock, month and leap year at 12 o’clock, date at 3 o’clock and moon phase at 6 o’clock. The watch’s polished hands and all the index hour markers are topped with a luminescent material.

Frederique Constant is making three different variations of the watch. One (pictured above) offers a very cool two-tone style that combines steel and rose gold plating on the bezel, bracelet, and crown. For added luxury you’ll also get a textured black rubber strap with a rose gold-plated buckle.

The second version features a blue dial with silver hands and index hour markers and comes with a blue rubber strap and a steel pin buckle. The third version comes with a white dial, silver index hour markers, a black leather strap and a black rubber strap. Prices start at $9,095.

Open Heart

The new Highlife Heart Beat collection revisits this brand’s initial ‘iconic’ design.

When it debuted in 1994, the Heart Beat was only serially produced non-skeleton Swiss-made collection that boasted an open dial, displaying the automatic caliber’s escape wheel at the 12 o’clock position. Frederique Constant kicked off a design trend with that original Heartbeat collection, and today regrets the fact that it never protected the initial design, an error the brand says was “rooted in the brand’s youthful inexperience.”

From the new Frederique Constant Highlife Heart Beat collection.

The new versions retain that open window into the movement at the top of the dial, which here appears at the pole position on the globe dial design. Portions of the automatic Sellita-based FC-310 caliber are visible from both front and back through the sapphire crystal.

This Highlife Heart Beat model offers a variation with a rose gold-plated case and a white dial, set with a brown leather strap and shipped with a rubber strap in the same shade.

The new Highlife Heart Beat is now available in three different steel versions. The first offers a white dial and rose gold-plated case with only a brown leather strap and a brown rubber strap. The second features a blue dial with a steel bracelet, complemented by a blue rubber strap and the third features a black dial with a steel case and bracelet and arrives with a black rubber strap. Prices start at $1,995.

New and Certified

As the first COSC-certified watch from Frederique Constant, the new Highlife Automatic COSC (Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute) echoes the original Highlife collection from 1999.

A two-tone model from Frederique Constant’s new Highlife Automatic COSC collection.

The simplest design of the new globe-dial Highlife collection, this time-only series combines the hands seen on the Heart Beat and the date from the Perpetual Calendar Manufacture, but powers them both with its automatic Sellita-based Caliber FC-310.

Look for four models: one with a two-tone steel bracelet and a white dial, one with a steel bracelet and a blue dial, and a model with a black leather strap and a white dial. The fourth design offers a variation with a rose gold-plated case and a black dial, all set with a brown leather strap and shipped with a rubber strap in the same shade. Prices start at $1,895.

 

 

    Ball Watch earlier this year announced that it released its Engineer Hydrocarbon Original ($3,199) in a special fifteenth Anniversary edition that sports larger H3 gas microcapsules – for the first time under the dial – and three of Ball’s patented anti-shock systems, namely the Amortiser, SpringLOCK and SpringSEAL.

For the 15th Anniversary Ball Engineer
Hydrocarbon Original Ball for the first time
places extra-wide tritium self-powered
luminescent tubes underneath the dial,
flooding the ‘hour holes’ with light.

      For this anniversary model, Ball places its micro-gas tubes on hands and utilizes those larger tubes under – not on top of – the dial on the hour apertures. This changes the look of the Hydrocarbon dial considerably.

Nighttime view of the new Ball Engineer Hydrocarbon Original dial.

    The 40mm steel watch is fitted with a graduated and notched unidirectional bezel and is water-resistant to 200 meters (660 feet). Powered by a COSC-certified BALL RR1102-CSL automatic caliber, the watch also displays the day and date functions on its black dial.

The solid caseback, showing diver engraving.

Like all watches in the Hydrocarbon Collection, Ball protects its crown with a protection valve to insure that it’s securely bolted down and inaccessible while diving. And, true to its name, the Engineer Hydrocarbon Original is made to be shock resistant to 7,500 Gs and anti-magnetic to 80,000 A/m, thanks to mu-metal magnetic shielding.

Ball secures the crown with its own patented protector.

 

SPECIFICATIONS: Ball Watch 15th Anniversary Engineer Hydrocarbon Original

Movement: Automatic caliber BALL RR1102-CSL, COSC-chronometer certified with SpringLOCK

patented anti-shock system and SpringSEAL, patented regulator anti-shock system

Dial: Black with thirty micro gas tubes on hour, minute, and second hands, as well as under the dial (for the first time) and bezel; hours, minutes, sweep seconds, day and date

Case: 40mm x 14.55mm stainless steel, Mu-metal shield, unidirectional rotating curved sapphire bezel with micro gas tubes, Amortiser patented anti-shock system, anti-reflective sapphire crystal,

patented crown protection system, anti-magnetic to 80,000A/m, water resistant to 200 meters, shock resistant to 7,500Gs.

Bracelet: Tapered stainless steel with patented folding buckle and extension system

Price: $3,199