BY JOVAN KRSTEVSKI
With each passing year, the effects of climate change are becoming more obvious. The threat of devastating wildfires has increased recently in California, Australia, and South America, but they have wrought devastation all across the globe. Oris takes the cause of ecological conservation at heart and they have recently partnered with aerial firefighting organization Coulson Aviation to produce a striking new iteration of their Big Crown ProPilot with blazing dial in the red color-spectrum, the Oris Coulson Limited Edition.
What’s also striking about the watch is that the case is made of 3D-printed carbon fiber composite, a patented 3D printing process of Oris, and is made in conjunction with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. The process involves concurrently printing carbon fiber with high-grade polymer (PEKK), originally designed for aerospace, creating an incredibly light and rigid carbon fiber composite case. Although the overall design is similar to the Big Crown ProPilot series with the knurled outer bezel and the oversized crown at 3 o’clock, it keeps the familiar look in spite of being made in gray PVD titanium this time around. The case is sized at 41mm in diameter, offering 100 meters of water resistance and has the PVD titanium caseback with a sapphire display window.
As alluded to before, the dial takes inspiration from the punchy, bold colors of a brush fire, and it’s in a fiery orange/red hue that really pops. This new eye-catching color palette with matte gradient dial surface, and it’s accompanied by the matte-white modernist alpha handset and large applied Arabic numerals that encircle the hands to present the time in the most beautiful way possible. The date window at 6 o’clock has a polarizing black background with the seconds hand in contrasting black, matching the date.
The Caliber 400 automatic movement is the in-house driving engine for the watch, with technical features of 28,800 bph beat rate, -3/+5 seconds per day accuracy and an astounding 120-hour power reserve (5 days). This 24-jewel movement has a silicon escapement, allowing it to withstand magnetic resistance that exceeds the ISO 764 anti-magnetic standard.
The already extremely lightweight Oris Coulson Limited Edition comes paired with a textile strap that has orange leather lining and an infinitely adjustable titanium “LIFT” clasp. The timepiece is limited to 1,000 examples and is available now through authorized dealers with an MSRP of $4,500 USD.
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