BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
Chopard has teamed up with iconic design house Zagato for one of its first releases of 2026. They’ve worked with Zagato on watches before, but not to this level. The new Chopard Zagato Lab One Concept watch emulates the car industry’s love of making concept pieces that showcase what the future could look like, only, this is a concept watch you can actually buy. That is, if you’ve got the cash lying around for it, and you’re one of the 19 people who could buy this limited edition watch.
Perhaps what’s most intriguing about this watch’s appearance is the seamless blending from the case through to the dial. That’s thanks to the tubular construction of the case, inspired by racing-car roll cages; in case you hadn’t guessed, Chopard’s biggest tie-in with its watches is motoring and motor racing. The case measures 42mm x 11.15mm and is made from ceramicised titanium, which contributes to the watch’s low mass of just 43.2g, including the strap – for reference, the lightest watch I can remember seeing recently is Ulysse Nardin’s Diver [AIR], which weighed 52g. Adjusting lugs also means this watch will be extremely comfortable to wear as it will conform more naturally to the shape of the wrist.
If the dial is looking familiar to you, then that means you’re a fan of Chopard’s high-end watches and you have been for some time, as the calibre L.U.C 04.04-L builds on Chopard’s Engine One watches, which were launched all the way back in 2010. We don’t have an article covering the launching of those as they were around before WristReview was, so here’s a link to a 2013 article we did on the Engine One H watch – notice that the time, power reserve and tourbillon are arranged in a line, just like on the Zagato Lab One Concept watch. The new watch also uses ceramicised titanium for the bridges and mainplate, and the tourbillon cage is aluminium, so it’s also lighter. The manually wound movement has a power reserve of 60 hours, and the beat rate for the escapement is 4Hz. The movement is also integrated with the dial, rather than being separated by plates as is tradition.
The watch is quite classy, considering the amount of work that’s gone into making it look like a concept. It retains authority and elegance, and it has the horological chops to back up its claims. Hopefully, we’ll see more Zagato influences in the Chopard range soon. Although I’m not so fussed by the ‘Z’ logos on the front of this piece, I do like what Zagato has done overall. The price for one of these limited-edition watches is CHF130,000.
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