BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
If you cast your mind back five months (five months?! It feels like forever!), you may remember this little watchmaking event called Watches & Wonders Geneva. There we showed you the new Defy Skyline Chronograph watches from Zenith. They were dashing pieces, to say the least, and they upped the ante for the Defy Skyline subcollection, which seemed a little out of place. I liked them very much, and now Zenith has revealed a new boutique edition.
It’s not uncommon to see brands which have their own boutiques make watches you can only buy from said boutiques, it’s quite a nice way of honouring those who made the journey directly to the brand rather than go through an authorised dealer. Of course, those branded boutiques are often owned and run by third-party franchises, but that’s life, right? Anyway, the new watch is very similar to the other models we saw in April featuring a 42mm diameter stainless steel case which is water resistant to 100m.
The 12-sided dodecagon-shaped bezel is eye-catching with its brushed and polished look, a finish that crosses over to the rest of the case and the stainless steel bracelet if present (a strap is also available). The main difference here is the slate grey dial which has contrasting rose gold detailing. The hands, the applied markers, the offset date window and the stars engraved into the dial all have a unique rose gold tone to them, which makes for an appealing look. Two-tone dial-only watches are a rarity, although I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw something similar with a two-tone case in a couple of years time.
Behind the attractive dial sits the same El Primero calibre 3600 movement as in the watches from April, which, incidentally, is also the same movement as seen in the Chronomaster Sport we reviewed a few years ago. That means you get a modern movement with a 5Hz beat rate and 60-hour power reserve, but you also get that weird seconds hand which does one rotation every ten seconds instead of once a minute. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense on the Chronomaster Sport as it wasn’t tied with a bezel that had a particular function in mind, and it’s the same story here. Cool, but odd.
If you’re interested in one of these cool-but-odd watches Zenith will sell you one (but only from their boutiques) for a price of CHF 12,900.
