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The Watches

Maurice Lacroix Shines Up Aikon with PVD 

Maurice Lacroix adds a distinctive metallic sheen to its best-selling Aikon collection with two new models, each dressed with a glossy PVD hue.

The new Aikon PVD entries add a 39mm dark blue model and a 42mm gunmetal grey edition to the wide-ranging collection. Maurice Lacroix will make each new model as a limited edition series of 888 watches.

One of two new Maurice Lacroix Aikon PVD models.

Since the Swiss watchmaker debuted Aikon in 2016 we’ve seen it expand to include quartz-powered and automatic models, with a many boasting eye-catching skeletonized designs.

Each of the new watches displays the time from an impressive fumé dial finished using a Clous de Paris motif. As a fumé design, the color (which matches the case) is lighter at the center and darker toward the edges.

From the back of the watch wearers can see the automatic Sellita-based ML115 movement, which Maurice Lacroix finishes with perlage and colimaçon.

As with all Aikon watches, these debuts are equipped with the Maurice Lacroix Easy Strap Exchange system, which means the wearer can quickly change the included rubber strap as desired without the need for tools.

Price: $2,450. 

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Chronoswiss Adds Two Models to Night & Day Series

Chronoswiss adds two new dial hues to its Flying Regulator Night & Day collection.  Each steel-case limited edition offers its own artistic interpretation of the ongoing 41mm Chronoswiss regulator-dial collection, which emphasizes a large central minute hand set atop smaller hour and seconds indicators. The Night & Day editions add a specialized, artisanal day/night subdial at the 9 o’clock position. 

The new Chronoswiss Flying Regulator Night & Day Midnight.

One of the debuts, the Flying Regulator Night & Day Midnight, features a blue guilloché dial, a darkened version of the Chronoswiss specialty.

 

This dark blue version is meant to echo a dark night sky and is accented with a three-dimensional day/night display adorned with laser-cut stars.

 

These stars, created with a generous dollop of SuperLumiNova, shine with notable intensity in the evening.

The new Chronoswiss Flying Regulator Night & Day Whiteout.

On the other hand, or wrist in this case, the new Flying Regulator Night & Day Whiteout echoes a daytime scene, specifically a meteorological ‘whiteout’ where the horizon blends with the sky.

Chronoswiss has also crafted an artisanal guilloché dial for this watch, here meant to recall this natural whiteout phenomenon.

As noted, both new watches retain the quite distinctive Chronoswiss regulator dial layout with notably separate hour and seconds rings. The three-dimensional dials within this series show off the ETA-based  Chronoswiss caliber C.296 automatic movement via an opening in the small seconds subdial.

Of course, the movement is also visible through the sapphire caseback, a wristwatch feature Chronoswiss pioneered in the 1980s. 

Chronoswiss is offering each debut as a limited edition of fifty watches. 

Price: $11,200.

 
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The Watches

Carl F. Bucherer Adds a Perpetual Calendar 

Carl F. Bucherer harnesses its peripheral winding system to power the new Manero Peripheral Perpetual Calendar, one of this Swiss brand’s more complicated designs.

The new Carl F. Bucherer Manero Peripheral Perpetual Calendar.

The watchmaker nicely melds a perpetual calendar and a moon-phase display on the dial of the new watch, which is offered within a luxurious 41.6mm by 11.73mm rose gold case.

In a more traditional style than we typically see from Carl F. Bucherer, the new watch allows easy-to-read displays showing the leap year, date, day, month and moon phase. The latter display is particularly appealing, with hand-engraved rose gold moons on a disc of glittering aventurine.

And thank to this brand’s unusual in-house movement design, the back of the watch offers its own visual pleasures, notably a rotor that spins around the edge of the movement.

On this CFB A2055 caliber, a bidirectional oscillating weight turns on three frictionless ceramic ball-bearings housed in shock-absorbing mountings. 

Such  peripheral oscillating weights are still rare, even among Carl F. Bucherer’s peers in high-end watchmaking, and they always catch my eye when employed as they offer a truly unobstructed view of the finely finished manufacture automatic movement.

Carl F. Bucherer is offering the Manero Peripheral Perpetual Calendar with a choice of black, green and taupe dial hues, each displaying a handsome sunray brushed center and opaline index track.

All feature matching calfskin straps with a ‘Milky Way’ texture, quick release system and an 18-karat rose gold pin-lock folding clasp.

The limited edition model features a rose-hued dial.

A limited edition model (of eight pieces) with a rose-hued dial is also available only at Bucherer 1888 retail locations.

Price: $45,000. 

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DOXA Launches Sleeker SUB 300 

Doxa slims its SUB 300 dive watch to create the new SUB 300 Beta, a contemporary edition of the technical series, but with sleeker, colorful ceramic bezels and sunburst-finished dials.  

One of the new models in the Doxa SUB 300 Beta collection.

While thinner at 11.95mm (compared to the SUB 300T’s 13.65mm thickness) and with a slimmer bezel height, the new series still retains the collection’s 42.5mm diameter size as well as its range of deep diver specs.

The look is decidedly less retro than existing models in the 300SUB series, with a contemporary black ceramic bezel, wave-motif dial and slightly longer hour markers.

Doxa maintains a screw-down crown, helium release valve, a flat sapphire crystal and a screw-in steel caseback on this high-value 300-meter dive watch.

Doxa livens up the series with colorful accents and matching rubber strap options with a white, silver, black or blue dial.

Also available on request is Doxa’s historic stainless-steel “rice grain” bracelet.

Both options come with a deployant clasp featuring a wetsuit extension and Doxa’s own fish logo.

 

Specifications: Doxa SUB 300 Beta 

Case: 316L Stainless steel, diameter: 42.50mm x 44.50mm, height: 11.95mm, helium release valve. Crystal: ‘Flat’ sapphire with anti-reflective coating, Screw-in steel caseback, black ceramic screw-down crown. Water-resistance: 300 meters.

Dial: Sunburst finish with wave pattern, colored hands, orange or tone-on-tone, highlighted with SuperLumiNova, outer minute track, painted, glossy black.

Bezel: Black ceramic, unidirectional rotation, outer ring: depth in feet (black tone-on-tone indications), SuperLumiNova dot at 12 o’clock. Inner ring: Duration in minutes (black tone-on-tone indications).

Movement: Swiss mechanical, self-winding, 3 hands, power reserve of 38 hours,Frequency: 28,800 vph (4 Hz), Doxa decorations.

Strap/Bracelet: FKM rubber strap, tone-on-tone matching the dial (or white for ‘Caribbean’ and ‘Searambler’); black PVD-coated folding clasp with ratcheting wetsuit extension, Doxa fish symbol.

or

316L stainless steel ‘beads of rice’ bracelet; stainless steel folding clasp with ratcheting wetsuit extension, Doxa fish symbol.

Price: With stainless steel bracelet: $2,290. With rubber strap: $2,250.

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Greubel Forsey Launches Thinner Balancier 

 

Greubel Forsey launches Balancier 3, a thinner and less pricey model within its double-curve-case Convexe collection.

The new Greubel Forsey Balancier 3.

The new 41.5mm x 13.55mm titanium watch retains the watchmaker’s emblematic arched bridge and multi-level architecture, but here the case lugs no longer have screws—a first for Greubel Forsey.

The watch’s three prominent bridges and its namesake balance wheel dominate the dial. One bridge houses the barrel, the second holds the large (12.6mm) balance wheel, and the third is attached to the seconds counter, supporting the hour and minute hands.

All the bridges feature Greubel Forsey’s signature hand finishes: a curved polished surface, polished bevels and hand-polished screws.

Both of the watch’s two series-coupled fast-rotating barrels (one turn in 3.2 hours) are also quite prominent at the top of the dial. The barrels provide a chronometric power reserve of three full days.

In another first for the Convexe collection, Greubel Forsey has placed the Balancier 3’s power reserve indicator on the caseback.

The watchmaker will make the new Balancier 3 with either a black or blue dial, each limited to eighty-eight pieces with a rubber strap or a Greubel Forsey titanium bracelet upon request.

Price: $182,000. 

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