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Oris Goes Deep With New AquisPro 4000m

Oris expands its dive watch collection with the AquisPro 4000m, a particularly deep-dive model that also offers an extra-long five-day power reserve.

The new Oris AquisPro 4000m.

Not only is the AquisPro 4000m the most water-resistant diver’s watch we’ve seen from this independent Swiss manufacturer, but its also the sportiest Oris watch to include Oris Calibre 400, a superior automatic mechanical movement that boasts the aforementioned five-day power reserve, plus strong anti-magnetism and chronometric accuracy.

At 49.5mm in diameter, the watch is a wristful, but given its 4,000-meter water resistance rating, thin is out of the question. Check out any of the other Oris dive models for your day-to-day nautical watch needs.

With this new watch, you’ll get professional level features such as the Oris Rotation Safety System bezel, which will lock the unidirectional bezel in place. Also note the serious security folding clasp extension system, which allows the wearer to easily adjusted for length to better fit over a wetsuit.

The watch’s titanium case frames an easy-to-read blue gradient dial with a seaworthy wave pattern.

Oris fits a blue ceramic insert with the requisite minutes scale into the unidirectional bezel and caps off the case with a blue rubber strap.

Very nice.  Price: $6,200.

Recycled net dials

In addition to the new AquisPro 4000m, Oris is also partnering with Bracenet to create new watch dials from recycled fishing nets. The first watch made using the technology is the Oris X Bracenet, an Oris Aquis model outfitted with the swirled, pearlescent blue, green and white dial.

The two new Oris X Bracenet models feature dials made using recycled fishing line material.

Oris explains that to create these dials Bracenet warms small green, blue and white fishing net ‘offcuts’until they melt into a sheet of colorful material. Bracenet then sands the sheet until it’s 0.3mm thick, which Oris then cuts and places into each watch.  The material contains no additives, fillers or glues and no two dials are the same.

Oris will offer two stainless steel versions of the watch, one with a 43.50 mm case and a second with a 36.50 mm case. Each is outfitted with Sellita-based Oris automatic mechanical movements and each features the full set of Aquis dive watch specifications (see below for details.). Price: $2,600.

 

 

Specifications: Oris AquisPro 4000m
(Ref. no. 01 400 7777 7155-Set) 

Case: Multi-piece 49.50mm titanium case, lockable Rotation Safety System bezel, ceramic bezel insert, sapphire crystal domed on both sides, anti-reflective coating inside. Case back in titanium, screwed with special engravings. Stainless steel screw-in security crown. Water resistance to 4,000 meters.

Movement: Automatic Oris Caliber 400 with 120 hours of power reserve. High-level anti-magnetic protection. 

Dial: Blue gradient with printed wave structure, Super-LumiNova indices. Center hands for hours, minutes and seconds, date, fine timing device and stop-second.

Strap: Blue rubber with titanium security folding clasp with extension. 

Price: $6,200. 

 

Specifications: Oris X Bracenet

Case: Multi-piece 43.5mm and 36.5mm stainless steel with sapphire crystal and screwed, see-through mineral caseback glass, special engravings on case. Stainless steel screw-in security crown with crown protection. Water resistance to 300 meters. 

Movement: Automatic Sellita-based Oris 733 with 38-hours of power reserve.

Dial: End-of-life fishing net material melted and sanded to create unique pattern.  Hands and indices filled with Super-LumiNova. Center hands for hours, minutes and seconds, date window at 6 o’clock, instantaneous date, date corrector, fine timing device and stop-second.

Bracelet Multi-piece stainless steel metal bracelet, security folding clasp (43.50 mm version comes with clasp extension). 

Price: $2,600.

 

 

 

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Featured Events

Frederique Constant Celebrates 35 Years and 31 Calibers

To celebrate a manufacturing milestone and its own 35th anniversary, Frederique Constant during Geneva Watch Days is launching the Classic Power Reserve Big Date Manufacture, a 40mm watch powered by Caliber FC-735, the watchmaker’s thirty-first manufacture caliber.

The new Frederique Constant Classic Power Reserve Big Date Manufacture, here pictured in a steel case.

And to spread the self-love, Frederique Constant is making the watch available in four versions, all of which feature displays indicating power reserve, date and moon phase.

One model features a rose gold case and a grey anthracite dial and will be a limited edition of 350. It will be offered on a brown alligator strap.

Two additional models, cased in steel with either a blue or silver dial, will join the watchmaker’s ongoing Manufacture collection.

These non-limited versions share the same polished steel case and blue alligator leather strap. (At $4,995 the steel edition with an in-house movement is a particularly strong example of this watchmaker’s goal to remain a manufacturer of ‘affordable’ luxury watches.)

A version in a platinum case and a meteorite dial (above) on a navy blue alligator strap will be issued as a limited edition of thirty-five and will be available later this fall.

Frederique Constant notes that the FC-735 is the watchmaker’s first caliber to offer a big date, a moon phase and a power reserve indicator together in one watch. 

Also notable is the fairly long fifty-hour power reserve built in to the watch and indicated at 9 o’clock. The dial is balanced out with the big date display between the 2 o’clock position and the 3 o’clock position and the bright moon phase display at the 6 o’clock position.

Frederique Constant again makes it a simple task to adjust and set all three of these displays. The time-set function and winding mechanism are all adjusted via the crown.

And as is typical of Frederique Constant Manufacture pieces, the caseback is fitted with clear sapphire, here allowing a view into the new FC-735 Manufacture caliber. 

Prices: $27,995 (platinum case–to debut later this year), $19,995 (rose gold case) and $4,995 (steel case). 

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The Watches

Girard-Perregaux Launches Laureato Absolute 8Tech

Girard-Perregaux updates its Laureato Absolute collection with the Laureato Absolute 8Tech, a watch built with an unusual, lightweight 44mm carbon-titanium case. 

The new Girard-Perregaux Laureato Absolute 8Tech.

The watch, presented during Geneva Watch Days, is the newest in the collection that emphasizes high-tech materials to create contemporary models within the original Laureato line. Laureato is the watchmaker’s pioneering luxury collection that in 1975 was among the first to combine an eight-sided steel case with an integrated steel bracelet.

Since Girard-Perregaux debuted its Laureato Absolute collection (in 2019) we’ve seen models built with materials such as metallized sapphire crystal, carbon glass and a rubber alloy. 

To case the new Absolute 8Tech, the watchmaker starts with carbon fibers and combines them with lightweight titanium powder to form extremely thin (0.05mm) layers.

These layers are then superimposed on one another to form ‘stacks’ that are cut into octagons, a process Girard-Perregaux says is an industry first.

After a period of hand-applied finishing, the case takes on a wavy appearance, which looks a bit like those made from Damascus steel.

As a lightweight yet extremely strong watch, the Laureato Absolute 8Tech is a sporty model with a sandwich-type grey dial built atop a layer of Grade 5 titanium, a metal partially visible through several apertures in the upper portion. Each opening serves as an index, and each lies adjacent to a luminescent marking.

Inside Girard-Perregaux fits its own superb automatic Caliber GP03300-1058, which is visible through a smoky sapphire crystal back. Not surprisingly, the movement is very nicely finished with Côtes de Genève, chamfering and straight graining. 

Price: $27,300. 

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Featured Events

Ulysse Nardin Celebrates Silicon in New Blast Free Wheel Marquetry 

Ulysse Nardin places its silicon Ulysse Anchor Constant Escapement at the center of a new watch, the Blast Free Wheel Marquetry, which dramatically utilizes silicon as an artistic material. The watchmaker pioneered the use of silicon components for watchmaking, debuting them in the first Ulysse Nardin Freak in 2001.

The new Ulysse Nardin Blast Free Wheel Marquetry.

The 45mm white gold watch, which debuts during Geneva Watch Week, joins the watchmaker’s collection of impressive Blast Free Wheel models characterized by raised, free-floating components.

The components are part of the innovative UN-176 movement, are here set amid an eye-catching blue pattern made from a multi-colored silicon marquetry disc, a debut for the Blast collection. 

The dial includes 103 radiant blue marquetry slivers made of a variety of thin matte and mirror-polished silicon surfaces. The surfaces vary in thickness from 0.30mm and 0.35mm, with their changing reflections and contrasts creating the dial’s visual splendor.

Ulysse Nardin also decorates the back plate with blue silicon, here in a single-plate form with a series of well-placed apertures that frame a few of the movement’s gears and pivots.

To review, the Free Wheel concept is Ulysse Nardin’s ode to historic mystery clocks, with a few visible components floating above a dial operating in harmony thanks to cleverly placed gearing below.

A dual barrel at the top of the dial is wound manually, delivering seven-days of power through the Ulysse Nardin flying tourbillon set with Ulysse Nardin’s unusual in-house, silicon Anchor Escapement. 

Also seen on the dial: The flying barrel (at 12 o’clock, without any visible attachment on the surface), flanked by an intermediate wheel on its left, a power reserve differential, and a reduction gear on its right.

The one-piece gold case is also unusual, featuring a cutout exposing the sapphire crystal box that offers a stunning, wide-open view of the movement through the sides.

The focus of the movement, the Ulysse Anchor Constant Escapement, is circular with a pallet fork fixed in the center supported on two ultra-thin blade springs. These spring are mounted perpendicular to each other and bend to provide a perfectly even impulse on the balance wheel regardless of power reserve.

The Ulysse Anchor Constant Escapement with escapement wheel, anchor & balance spring in silicon.

The Ulysse Anchor Constant Escapement is a major departure from the traditional Swiss anchor escapement. Its inclusion in the Ulysse Nardin Anchor Tourbillon is the likely reason it won the Tourbillon Prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève in 2015. 

Price: $137,200

 

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Geneva Watch Days: A Corum Flying Tourbillon 

Corum presents a concept watch made from recycled titanium that frames a flying tourbillon and an aventurine stone dial set, quite unusually, beneath the movement.

The new Corum Concept Watch, a flying tourbillon set with sapphire bridges and an aventurine dial.

The technical showcase, which Corum will produce in ‘extremely limited quantities,’ abounds in organic shapes with its rounded openings and gently curved case edges. Its movement appears to float amid sapphire bridges, which expose the aventurine dial below as well as all the movement’s gearing.

Corum powers the watch with a finely wrought flying tourbillon movement beating at 3 Hz (21,600 vph) offering a superior ninety-hour power reserve. The rare vertical gear alignment for the manually wound flying tourbillon here somewhat echoes the layout of the Corum Golden Bridge collection, one of the watchmaker’s best-known designs.

Corum also provides an eye-catch caseback design that again highlights the unusual gear layout. Corum designers have etched pop-art descriptions of the movement’s components adjacent to the caseback opening. 

The window whimsically highlights the tourbillon, mainspring and gear train with brief descriptions of the primary functions of each component.

The new watch only measures 39.5mm in diameter, which is unusually small for a complicated Swiss-made concept watch. Corum notes that the moderate size opens up the field of customers for the piece, which will fit on any size wrist. 

The bracelet here echoes the case and is crafted from recycled textiles and can be additionally adjusted using Corum’s own specialized bracelet adjustment system.

Price: $465,000.

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