H. Moser is buying time with its Swiss Alp Watch, a very serious piece of mechanical watchmaking that started as the highlight of an internal industry joke.
After Tim Cook launched the Apple Watch in 2015, the brazen young CEO and independent Swiss brand owner, Edouard Meylan, seized the opportunity by calling the Endeavor Perpetual Calendar from his original smart watch company in a perfect and ironic video launch full of jabs targeted at Apple’s foray into ‘watchmaking’.
Then, the following year, Moser went further, launching the Swiss Alp Watch, with its tablet-shaped case directly reflecting the very shape of the Apple Watch, which ended up making headlines around the world.
Meylan’s plan was liable to bring ridicule to him and his brand, after all the Swiss watch industry and luxury in general were not historically known for having the broadest sense of humor. Fortunately for Meylan (and arguably the industry as a whole), his customers and a much wider global audience got the joke.
The final update of the Swiss Alp Watch takes the imitation of smartwatch design to its obvious conclusion with a Vantablack-coated dial, the darkest artificial substance ever created, and black hour and minute hands that give the impression of a smartwatch in a state of health. wait.
At six o’clock there is a small second that, instead of using the traditional sub-dial and the pointer, is composed of a series of rectangular openings with a seconds disc painted in white gradient rotating underneath, which perfectly recreates the wheel loading graph rotating device. The entire design was suggested to the brand by a customer.
The hand-wound HMC 324 Caliber from H. Moser sits inside the watch’s black DLC-treated stainless steel case, beating at 2.5 Hz and offering 96 hours of power reserve. The reference marks the abandonment of the model and movement.
Only 50 pieces of the final update of the H. Moser & Cie Swiss Alp watch will be produced, priced at $ 30,800 USD. If you want to place an order for a watch that has probably stopped the Swiss watch industry from taking itself so seriously, go to H. Moser & Cie.
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