BRONZE NUANCES

The watch which has been the watchmaking brand’s signature design, loyal ambassador for several decades now, adorns its case in bronze and invites its russet glints to illuminate the creamy-coffee-colored lacquered dial.

Every watchmaking firm has its ambassador, the one which has been conveying a brand’s aesthetic values and technical prowess for more than one generation and is perfectly capable of renewing, evolving over time, without ever losing its identity. For Oris, the watchmaker based in Hölstein, in the north of Switzerland, this icon is the Big Crown Pointer Date, a timepiece created back in 1938 and designed for aviators’ wrists. After the quartz crisis, the firm which wished to focus on producing mechanical timepieces ennobled this model intended for the skies to embrace it as its flagship piece. Today it adorns bronze, an ancestral alloy consisting of copper, an exquisite, ultra-resistant material, which forms a natural patina over time and becomes an incredibly one-of-a-kind object.

On the dial, which is also in bronze and coated with creamy-coffee-colored lacquer, the hour chapter adorned with large Arabic numerals and markers is covered with white Super-LumiNova® and delicately brushed over by a pair of golden, phosphorescent cathedral-style hands. The date scale running along the flange is pointed out by a red cross-tipped hand.

The watch wraps round the wrist with a distressed-brown-colored chamois leather strap and a clasp made of… bronze, of course!

Price: CHF1,900

By Sharmila Bertin