BY DHANANJAY PATHAK
Continuing with its philosophy of making luxury timepieces more accessible, the brand recently introduced the re-vitalized Highlife collection. Featuring a distinctive case with integrated lugs, multiple strap options, clean and legible dials, and powered by COSC certified and manufacture movements, these new watches offer a great blend of style, substance, and value. Today we take a quick look at the more complex and charming of the bunch, the Frederique Constant Highlife Perpetual Calendar Manufacture.
Frederique Constant first introduced the Highlife collection in 1999, and these new watches are an evolution of the original watches. While the two generations look strikingly different when compared to each other, they do showcase a familiarity in design. The integrated case design was a big highlight of the 1999 Highline watches, and the same can be said about the new collection as well. Featuring a barrel-style shape with no lugs, the 41mm case on the new Highlife Perpetual Calendar Manufacture has been designed to offer presence and great wrist comfort. Crafted from stainless steel, the case has been nicely finished with fine brushing on the front and polishing on the sides. Water-resistance is limited to 50 meters and there are sapphire crystals on both and the rear.
While the case exudes a sporty flair, the dials on the new Highlife watches are a bit conservative. Presented in blue and silver, the dials feature applied lume filled batons for hours, a printed minute track, and baton-shaped hands to read the time. To add visual interest, a globe motif has been etched at the center of the dial. The motif is more prominent on the three-hand variants but is less visible on the Perpetual calendar pictured here as it gets covered by the three registers at 9, 12, 3, and a romantic Moonphase display above 6.
Visible through the exhibition case back is the in-house FC-775 caliber. An automatic movement, the FC-775 operates at a frequency of 4Hz and offers an autonomy of around 38 hours. It can track the hours, minutes, leap year, the month of the year, day of the week, the date, and the Moonphase. The movement has been beautifully decorated using perlage, circular Côtes de Genève on the bridges, blued screws, and a real gold skeletonized rotor.
The new Frederique Constant Highlife Perpetual Calendar Manufacture would be available in three variations: FC-775V4NH2B: Silver dial with golden highlights, and a matching two-tone bracelet priced at USD 9,495.
FC-775N4NH6B: Blue dial with stainless steel bracelet priced at USD 9,295
FC-775S4NH6: Silver dial with an alligator strap priced at USD 9,095
All watches would come packaged with an extra rubber strap to change the look of the watch.
Visit Frederique Constant here.
