Style -- 11 hours ago
Words: Gentleman's Journal
There was a time, not at all long ago, when victory in the battle for domination of the sports watch market appeared destined to go to whoever dared make the biggest timepiece possible. This was a dark era, when titanic, tawdry trinkets ruled. But the bubble was pricked, thank goodness, leaving modesty and restraint to rise above the wages of bling. Luxury pieces have since become smaller, thinner and, frankly, nicer.
The latest evidence that this slim-lined new wave is here to stay came at January’s annual Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie in Geneva, where Vacheron Constantin (never one to entertain the obscene, even during the indulgent mid-Noughties) announced a rakish new sports watch with a perpetual calendar complication that’s just 8.1mm thick. Which isn’t very thick at all. The timepiece in question is the Overseas Ultra-Thin Perpetual Calendar, the frontrunner in a league of five new models introduced into the Swiss brand’s restyled sports watch collection. The Overseas is 20 years old this year, and gets its first facelift since 2004. At first glance the updates aren’t obvious, but every element has been redesigned so that the case is less angular and more tapered, and the famous ‘claw’ bezel now has just six facets gripping the case where previously it had eight.
The perpetual calendar model is governed by Vacheron’s own Caliber 1120 QP, a slender piece of micro-engineering that packs in a rotor (it’s self-winding), 40 hours power reserve, and day, date, month, leap-year and moon-phase functions, despite being just 4.05mm thick. On top of that, it won’t need adjusting for month-lengths until 2100 (assuming it’s kept wound, of course).
Of course, this isn’t strictly a sports watch. No one in their right mind is ever going to encourage you to run, jump or dive in a white gold watch with a price tag of £71,000, not least one advertising water resistance of just 50 metres – equivalent to little more than a dip in the bath. No, with its more fluid profile and softened lines, the new Overseas has airs and graces beyond the workaday requirements of physical activity. And being less jutting, it’s sartorially rather more versatile than its predecessor, too.
If anything, this a modern man’s watch: modern man is more demanding of his accessories, and he’ll be glad to know that Vacheron has built in a quick strap-change system, which means the watch can be switched from a metal bracelet to a leather strap to a rubber band in the blink of an eye – with no tools required. Switzerland has been slow to evolve such amenities. Vacheron, take a bow for beating so much of the competition to the punch.
