By Harleen Johal
Ceramic is inorganic and solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling. It is said the earliest ceramics made were by humans in the form of pottery objects. As times have moved on the material has been used for making other products including luxury timepieces.
The recent trend towards black watches has made ceramic very stylish. This is fabulous material to use in terms of watches because of it tough qualities, that make watches last as if new for a longer period of time.
A number of iconic watches offer ceramic watches including Officine Panerai, Audemars Piguet and Hublot.
Hublot Big Bang
Hublot is a fabulous brand and highly popular in the USA. It is probably one of the few brands which rappers seem to add within their lyrics of their hits. This particular piece features a 44mm stainless steel case which is protected by a polished black ceramic bezel. You can clearly see that the bezel has been secured together with 6 titanium screws giving the piece quite an industrial sort of appearance. This Swiss made timepiece has a self winding chronograph movement made up of 252 components and 27 jewels. This piece to me just shouts MANLY.
U-Boat Flightdeck
U-Boat is the modern sort of men’s with a selection of modern designed timepieces. The brand tends to follow a chunky design route creating watches with large crowns. The above piece is from the Flightdeck range boasting a high gloss black ceramic bezel with a textured multi-layered carbon fibre dial. This automatic watch is secured by a fine alligator strap with protective rubber edging and is water resistant to 100 metres.
Officine Panerai Luminor
Officine Panerai known commonly as Panerai is one of the few watch brands which produces its own watch movements in Switzerland. The third member to the ceramic club is the above fabulous Officine Panerai which comes from the Luminor collection. A Swiss made timepiece with a 47mm black ceramic case and automatic movement. The brand renews a tradition of enriching its new technical content to offer underwater fanatics a professional instrument of great performance. This piece is water resistant to 300m and features a graduate scale enabling the length of dive to be read.
Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore
Audemars Piguet is definitely what you would call the crème de la crème of watch brands. The brand is one of the four ‘Old Ladies’ of Haute Horlogorie and is the oldest watch manufacture still in the direction of its founding families. This above automatic watch comes from the Royal Oak Offshore collection. It features a self winding automatic calibre 3120 movement, made up of 280 parts and 40 jewels. This piece also has a 60 hour power reserve with a very chunky ceramic case.
Harleen Johal – Contributing Writer
Harleen Johal is an online contributor to The Watch Hut and The Watch Gallery. She quotes ‘The great thing about blogging for a watch retailer is that I get to write about my love for watches as well as brands.’ Her favourite watch brand is 88 Rue Du Rhone.
