Latest news with #Oris
Forbes
08-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Ben Bridge And Oris Partner To Create A Limited-Edition Dive Watch
Oris Aquis Date 'Ben Bridge Limited Edition' in 43.5mm 36.5mm stainless steel Ben Bridge Jeweler and Oris have partnered to produce the Oris Aquis Date 'Ben Bridge Limited Edition' timepiece. The collaboration merges refined design with dive-ready performance and symbolizes a shared commitment to sustainable practices, the two companies said in a joint statement. 'It brings together two heritage brands with a shared vision for the future of sustainable luxury,' the two companies said in the statement. Signature details of the watch include a radiant purple mother-of-pearl dial, 300 meters of water resistance, and the Oris Red Rotor all-mechanical movement. The purple dial is Ben Bridge's signature color. The Aquis Date 'Ben Bridge Limited Edition' is offered in two sizes both in stainless steel: a 43.5mm version limited to just 125 pieces and a smaller 36.5mm version limited to 40 pieces. The watch is available worldwide. The caseback of the Oris Aquis Date 'Ben Bridge Limited Edition' with engraved Ben Bridge logo and ... More individual limited-edition number Oris, the watch brand its manufacturing facility in Hölstein, Switzerland, says it is the world's first climate and carbon-neutral certified watch brand. The mother-of-pearl dial reflects Oris' alliances with sustainability-minded partners like the Billion Oyster Project and the Coral Restoration Foundation. Ben Bridge also touts its record when it comes to sustainability. Each year, the retail chain, which operates more than 30 stores in nine western states contributes more than $600,000 to non-profit ventures in and around the communities where it does business, the company said. In addition, the company said it is in total support of Ukraine in the Russian invasion of that country and has refused to source diamonds from Russia. It is a member of the Kimberly Process, a certification system to control the export and import of rough diamonds, designed to ensure they are not being used to support conflict. It also works to have a transparent and ethical supply chain, requiring all its suppliers to sign a 'Supplier Code of Conduct' to help ensure the materials and products comply with laws and industry regulations regarding sustainability and conflict and other important international issues such as human trafficking and slavery. The transparent sapphire crystal caseback symbolizes this commitment, the two companies said. The Oris Aquis Date 'Ben Bridge Limited Edition' The caseback also has an engraved Ben Bridge logo and individual limited-edition numbering on the caseback. Buyers can select their preferred number (subject to availability), adding a personal connection to the watch. 'With our shared belief in ethical sourcing, we can't wait to share these unique designs, combining the energy of Oris and the spirit of Ben Bridge,' Lisa Bridge, president and CEO of Ben Bridge Jeweler, said in a statement. Both watches are powered by the Oris 773 automatic movement with a 41-hour power reserve. They are engineered as a modern diver watch, with both models are water-resistant up to 300 meters while retaining a sports-chic appearance. The unisex timepieces are both priced at $2,500. 'Our two companies share similar values, and it is always most rewarding to partner with a company who has the highest sense of ethics. We are excited to bring this uniquely designed Limited Edition Aquis collaboration to market.' V.J. Geronimo, Oris' CEO – The Americas, said in the same statement. The Oris Aquis Date 'Ben Bridge Limited Edition officially debuted Thursday at a launch event held at the Ben Bridge University Village Timeworks store in Seattle, Washington.
WIRED
05-04-2025
- Business
- WIRED
The 11 Most WIRED Watches That Dropped at Watches & Wonders
A completely new Rolex, the most complicated wristwatch ever made, pieces that survive impacts of 10,000 g's, and 'magic ceramic'—the annual gathering of the watch world delivered big-time in 2025. Images Courtesy of Rolex, Vacheron, and Oris If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. Learn more. President Donald Trump's tariffs bombshell this week (complete with a levy seemingly aimed at a few thousand penguins on remote Antarctic islands) landed right in the middle of Watches & Wonders, the sprawling Geneva trade show that brings together Rolex, Patek Philippe, TAG Heuer, Cartier and a panoply of other major players in the Swiss luxury watch industry—an industry that has suddenly found itself facing a 31 percent import tax in its biggest and most important market. In 2024, America accounted for one-sixth of the global Swiss watch market, which is bad news considering the watch industry has already been fighting a significant downturn. Whether the dollar prices on this page remain intact for long is currently anyone's guess. The senior watch executives WIRED questioned at the show were unwilling to offer any comment on the record, and one big-brand CEO had no idea the tariff announcement was imminent. Still, while some factories have reportedly been running on half time in recent months, the new watches on display this year offered plenty of new ideas and groundbreaking designs. Here's our pick of the week's new releases. Rolex Land-Dweller For an industry which still relies on centuries-old mechanical principles, the luxury watch world's innovation obsession can seem anachronistic. But the Land-Dweller from Rolex is a genuine flag-in-the-ground moment, dressed up in a funky, integrated-bracelet design that harks back to the 1970s and the brand's one classic quartz watch of the era, the OysterQuartz. Calibre 7135, the engine that powers it, replaces the lever escapement—the 270-year-old device that converts mechanical energy into equal pulses that drive the hands—with a new construction Rolex has named 'Dynapulse.' All the escapement parts are made from silicon, pivoting at high frequency around a balance staff (the central stem of the hairspring/balance wheel oscillator) laser-etched from a new kind of ceramic. The advantages in accuracy, shock absorption, and stability will be barely noticeable to most; but the expectation of a long-term roll-out across the production lines of the world's biggest watchmaker—and the replacement of the most crucial and finicky parts with endlessly replicable silicon components—may well be game-changing, and come stacked with patent applications. Plus, the Land-Dweller, available in steel with a white gold bezel, in rose gold, or in platinum, with sizing options at both 36 mm and 40 mm, means there's an entirely new family of Rollies for the flippers to fight over and the A-listers to flex. Expect plenty of both. From $13,900 Vacheron Constantin Les Cabinotiers Solaria Vacheron Constantin's 'Solaria' ultra-grand complication is, in no small feat, the most complicated wristwatch ever made. It packs in 41 complications—including chiming features, calendar displays, a split-second chronograph, and an array of astronomical indications—that are displayed on both sides of the watch. Overlaid by a star-chart dial, the split-seconds chronograph can even be used to calculate the time it takes for a particular star or constellation to come into view. It took one watchmaker eight years to design the watch, for which Vacheron is taking orders—no price details, but expect it to be to the tune of millions. We're all in the gutter, after all, but some of us are looking at the stars. TAG Heuer Formula 1 Solargraph Just as TAG Heuer returns as Formula 1's timing sponsor, its legendary plastic-cased, battery-powered watch from the 1980s is back back back—now solar-powered, enlarged and upgraded. Now cased in castor-based bioplastic, and with a movement incorporating Citizen's solar tech (via a Swiss subsidiary), it's a fun, poppy and thoroughly modern take on the watch that kicked off TAG Heuer's modern-era success. Find out exactly how they revived this iconic piece here. Steel-cased models with plastic bezels are available to all, while various full-plastic multi-colored editions will appear as limited runs coinciding with different Grand Prix races. From $1,800 IWC Big Pilot's Shock Absorber Tourbillon Skeleton XPL Developed from a concept watch announced a few years ago, the Shock Absorber is designed to resist high impacts and g-forces—in a Cambridge University lab, it survived impacts of 10,000 g's. Cased in IWC's ceratanium (a ceramic/titanium mixture), it houses the movement—which in this case means a skeletonized tourbillon, a watch complication that increases accuracy by countering the effect of Earth's gravity on the balance wheel and spring—in a cantilevered spring mounting made of bulk metallic glass (BMG), which absorbs shocks without disturbing the mechanism. $210,600 Tudor Pelagos Ultra While the Black Bay is Tudor's dapper (if dive-watch-inspired) generalist wristwatch, the Pelagos is its hardcore sibling, and it just got hardier still. Rated to 1,000 meters in depth, the Ultra is a purist deep-sea diving watch, with an upsized 43-mm case in titanium, enlarged, high-contrast dial markings, and intense luminescence, including minute and hour hands in blue and green lume, respectively, for extra visibility in the depths. But its coolest feature may be its bracelet, which has a spring-loaded rapid adjustment system for changing lengths, and a luminous indication of its setting on the clasp. $5,950 Patek Philippe 6159G Perpetual Calendar The perpetual calendar with a 'retrograde' date hand (indicating the date along an arc over the dial) is one of Patek Philippe's most classic looks, dating back to 1937. But it gets a modish makeover now with a semi-transparent dial in dark gray revealing the workings of the movement beneath. The dial is created by applying a metallized coating to a sapphire crystal surface, and then removing material with a laser, creating a shadowy effect with a gradient that intensifies towards the edges. $117,000 Grand Seiko Evolution 9 Spring Drive UFA Grand Seiko's Spring Drive technology, which fuses mechanical watchmaking with a quartz-driven oscillator is a modern watchmaking marvel. Using a tiny charge driven by the mainspring, it produces a neat, fluid glide in the seconds hand, and results in accuracy of around +/-15 seconds a month (which works out as almost four times better than Rolex's Superlative Chronometer rating of +/-2 a day). On a yearly basis, then, normal Spring Drive is accurate to around three minutes a year. But its newly announced upgrade on the tech, which Grand Seiko is calling Ultra Fine Accuracy (UFA), is accurate to +/- 20 seconds a year. That's comparable with high-accuracy electronic watches. It's achievement is due to a three-month process Seiko has developed for aging the quartz crystals, along with a thermo-compensation system and vacuum-sealed oscillator and sensor to protect against environmental factors. It's found in a handsome addition to the brand's Evolution 9 collection, available in either titanium or platinum, with a dial inspired by snow-covered trees. From $10,900 Hublot Big Bang Unico Magic Ceramic While ceramic-cased watches in various shades of zirconium oxide have become a popular feature of high-end watches in the past decade—and particularly so at Hublot, which has its own in-house materials laboratory—combining different shades of ceramic is a much bigger challenge. That's because different shades perform differently in the high-heat sintering process involved. So far, the two-tone bezels of Rolex's GMT Master watches have been the chief examples of this being achieved successfully, but Hublot's 'Magic Ceramic' Big Bang takes things further. The gray bezel and blue cylinder dots are made separately and then fused in the furnace, which is much trickier than it sounds. Limited to 20 pieces, it's a pointer to more creative uses of ceramic in years to come. $33,000 Ulysse Nardin Diver AIR This is the world's lightest mechanical dive watch, so Ulysse Nardin claims, as the brand has supposedly managed to remove as much as possible from its new diver to make it clock in at a featherweight 52 grams on the wrist (46 if you remove the elastic fabric strap). The Diver [AIR]—yes, the brackets are intentional—has a construction of titanium and carbon fiber offering up 200 meters of water resistance. The sides of the case, including the lugs, are made from recycled fishing nets and upcycled carbon fiber called Nylo-Foil. The new caliber, UN-374, further reduces heft with, among other trimmings, titanium bridges that have been cut in width and hollowed out in the center. The end result is that, inside the case, the Diver [AIR] is apparently 80 percent air and just 20 percent movement. Despite this, it's still able to withstand a 5,000-g impact. $38,000 Bovet Récital 30 Furthering the technical achievements of Bovet's superb world-first world-timer, the Récital 28, one of our picks from last year's show, the Récital 30 again tackles one of the biggest challenges of traditional world-timers: daylight saving time. The 28 was powered by a movement delivering an impressive 10-day power reserve, and was housed in a 46.3-mm case to go with its near $757,000 price tag. Here, Bovet's Récital 30 features the same clever world-timer system with its 24 city rollers, but with a more streamlined approach thanks to a titanium case that is 42 mm and 12.9-mm thick (the power reserve is now down to 60 hours). The 2 o'clock pusher rotates each roller by 90 degrees, automatically adjusting all 24 time zones. The 4 o'clock pusher advances the central 24-hour world dial by one hour. This roller system allows adjustment to any of the four annual UTC periods: UTC Coordinated Universal Time; AST, American Summer Time; EAS, European and American Summer Time; and EWT, European Winter Time. Even New Delhi, with its 30-minute offset, is accounted for. Pricing is yet to be set, but it will be 'more accessible' than the Récital 28—though still very much aimed at the luxury consumer. Oris Big Crown Diamonds Oris's Big Crown is a classic of its range, and has been one of the brand's most popular pilot's watches since its release in 1938. Having evolved with the times, the models in the new collection continue this ethos, and many are lauding the new Big Crown Pointer Dates with their colorful dials, but here at WIRED we were taken with the decidedly chic and wearable 34-mm Big Crown Diamonds with 12 lab-grown diamond hour markers. £2,500/$3,220
New York Times
05-03-2025
- Business
- New York Times
A Rocky Patch for Lab-Grown Diamonds
The luster of lab-grown diamonds has continued to spread slowly in the midrange luxury watch market, with brands such as Breitling and Oris doubling down on their initial embrace of the synthetic gems. But as a capital venture investment, the synthetic gems have been a lot less successful, with millions of euros lost — and plunging prices for lab-grown diamonds, which the industry refers to as L.G.D. 'We're seeing a small handful of very large producers in China and India ramping up production with faster, better processes, and every time they do that, the per unit cost becomes lower and lower,' said Paul Zimnisky, a New York diamond analyst. 'From January 2015 through January 2025, L.G.D. prices have dropped by 85 percent,' he said. 'Today, you can get a nice one-carat ideal round lab-grown diamond for $900. The natural equivalent would be about $5,000. A three-carat synthetic would cost about $4,000, and for the natural, you're looking at $50,000 to $60,000. So they're now running about 90 percent less than natural.' To protect both their brand integrity and their core business, retailers and brands that sell high-end natural diamond jewelry or high jewelry watches have a vested interest in defending natural diamonds — so observers agree it is unlikely that houses such as Bulgari, Cartier and Chopard would ever use synthetic gems in their watches. As Stéphanie Sivrière, the creative director of jewelry and watches at Piaget, said in a recent interview, 'It wouldn't be authentic to the DNA of our maison.' But when it comes to midrange or entry-level luxury timepieces, lab-grown diamonds, used in small quantities for dial markers or accents on bezels, seem to make sense. 'The products we have that feature lab-grown diamonds are performing excellently in the market,' said Aurelia Figueroa, Breitling's head of sustainability, 'and even above our expectations.' And Oris' chief executive of the Americas, VJ Geronimo, echoed the comment for his brand's synthetic-set lines in the region. Lingering View The watch sector was far behind jewelry makers in embracing lab-grown diamonds, with Citizen first adding them to its L Ambiluna collection in 2020. As Marc-André Deschoux, founder of the online channel WatchesTV, said in a 2021 interview with The New York Times: 'This is still a taboo subject in Switzerland because of a lingering negative view of man-made diamonds.' But in 2022, Breitling introduced them in its Chronomat line, announcing that lab-grown stones eventually would replace natural diamonds in all its collections (the brand says it is now 43 percent of the way to that goal). That year TAG Heuer came out with a limited-edition Carrera Date Plasma Diamant D'Avant-Garde watch set with lab-grown diamonds and Oris incorporated them into its Aquis line; both brands have used them in more recent introductions, too. And last year, Raymond Weil dipped into the sector, setting synthetic diamonds into the lugs of its Millesime model. Oris and Breitling said these watches had been well received by consumers, noting that lab-grown diamonds can have a much smaller environmental footprint than mined ones, depending on production methods, and that the synthetic gems have the same optical, physical and chemical properties and emit the same sparkle as mined ones. Not in Nature As a capital investment, however, lab-grown diamonds have not fared well, something experts say is the result of oversupply and consolidation. In 2022, for example, LVMH Luxury Ventures, the private equity division of the luxury giant Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, and its partners invested $90 million in Lusix, a lab-grown diamond manufacturer in Israel. But the business struggled financially, and it was sold for $4 million in November to two other producers, Fenix Diamonds and Dholakia Lab-Grown Diamond. The failure of LVMH's investment 'has absolutely nothing to do with the strategy of individual brands' when it comes to using lab-grown diamonds, said Antoine Pin, TAG Heuer's chief executive. 'I see them as an opportunity to use diamonds in new ways,' he said, 'with one full diamond carved out to serve as the crown, for example, or a large solid piece carved as a bezel. 'We are thinking, what can we provide that is unique, different. We want to use them in a way that does not exist in nature. That's what we're looking at, rather than just duplicating the way natural diamonds are already used in watches. So although we don't have any new pieces at the moment, one interesting direction would be colored diamonds or special cuts, shapes and large sizes. So we're working on this.' Among other failures, Mirabaud Lifestyle Impact and Innovation, an investment fund run by David Wertheimer, a Chanel heir, was one of several firms that invested millions of euros in Diam Concept, a French synthetic diamond maker. It was the main supplier to Courbet, a synthetic-only jeweler also funded by Mirabaud that was founded in 2017 and had a showroom on Place Vendôme in Paris, the heart of the high jewelry industry. Diam Concept dissolved in June 2024; Courbet entered court-ordered receivership in December. Even Lightbox, the lab-grown gem subsidiary of the diamond giant De Beers, has faltered. After announcing in May 2024 that it would reduce prices by more than a third, it announced in June that it would transition to synthetic diamonds exclusively for industrial applications. In Retail The bankruptcies exposed the strange disconnect between the vaunted popularity of lab-grown diamonds with some consumers and their failure as a capital venture vehicle. In 2024, according to the diamond industry analyst Edahn Golan, 45.3 percent of the diamond engagement rings sold in the United States had lab-grown diamonds, and overall the gems were present in 14.3 percent of all diamond jewelry sold in the country. 'The average age of people getting married in the United States is 28 — broadly speaking it's 25 to 35 — so that tells us that young people are embracing lab-growns,' said Mr. Golan, who is the managing partner of Tenoris, a jewelry and diamond retail trend company that collects data each month from 2,500 retail jewelers in the United States. Despite the consumer interest in lab-grown diamonds, some retailers are wary of selling synthetics, mainly because of the overall impact on their traditional watch and jewelry business. Mr. Geronimo of Oris acknowledged that some retailers had been resistant: 'Their store policy is that they don't deal with lab-growns, period, and that's it. But we have others that totally embrace it. They don't care, even though they have a good customer base in natural diamonds.' Raymond Weil declined to answer questions for this article, with its public relations agency sending a message: 'I regret to inform you that Raymond Weil has decided not to participate in this matter. The C.E.O. mentioned that it is a sensitive topic in the U.S., and they are concerned about potential negative feedback.' Mr. Zimnisky, the diamond analyst, noted that the steep decline in synthetic diamond prices might hurt the credibility of some retailers. 'If I had a jewelry store and I sold a consumer a three-carat lab diamond for $20,000 in 2018, and now I'm selling it for $1,500, I'd be nervous that consumers are going to come back and say, 'You ripped me off.'' The consolidation occurring among lab-grown diamond manufacturers could stabilize the market eventually, experts say, and if the surviving producers adopt the right practices, it could strengthen the sector's sustainability credentials. Breitling is one of a growing number of companies tracing its supply chain, something that the European Union's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive will require many larger businesses to do, starting this year. 'The origin of our decision to use lab-growns is based completely in traceability and sustainability,' Ms. Figueroa said. 'We surveyed the market, and we understood that for us to go forward with true traceability, we weren't going to be able to achieve that with mined diamonds. We made the decision to switch to lab-grown. 'Then, we very carefully selected only a handful of suppliers: ABD Diamonds and Fenix Diamonds, both based in western India. Fenix is using already 100 percent renewable energy, and ABC is, so far, using 25 percent — we actually cofinanced the solar PV panels that they have on site, and they're working on finalizing their plan to source 100 percent renewable energy right now.' All of that effort notwithstanding, Mr. Zimnisky is among those who say that price trumps sustainability when it comes to watch and jewelry purchases. Ultimately, 'environment doesn't matter,' he said. 'Consumers don't care about that as much as the media talks about it. Consumers are buying lab diamonds because they're so cheap. It's all about the price.'
WIRED
30-01-2025
- Entertainment
- WIRED
There's Now a Barbie-Themed G-Shock Watch, and We Want In
Is Barbiecore still a thing? Casio is betting it is. If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED The Barbie movie might feel like a distant memory at this point, but the collaborations somehow keep coming. The latest? There's an official Barbie-branded G-Shock on the way. Casio has announced the watch as part of its 2025 lineup, and it's every bit as bright, bold, and pink as you might imagine it to be … even if it isn't quite as hardcore as the Impala x Barbie Lightspeed inline skates. It's based on the popular GMA-S110 watch, a smaller version of the industrial-styled GA-110 that launched in 2010, and features a watch face that layers a number of small components to create a three-dimensional design. In the GMA-S110BE, as the Barbie edition will be known, each of these components has a slightly different pink hue, along with some subtle themed variations. This includes a Barbie logo at 3 o'clock and a heart motif indicator on the inset dial at 9 o'clock. The logo features again on the matching pink strap, while the case back is engraved with Barbie's trademark side profile silhouette. Away from the Barbie theme, you can expect all of the features of a regular GMA-S110, which means it is a mixed digital and analog watch, with 29 time zones across 48 cities. It features a shock-resistant structure, with 200-meter water resistance, and the option for five daily alarms, a 1/1,000-second stopwatch and countdown timer, plus an auto LED light. It joins a trio of other pink-hued G-Shock watches launching this year —the GMA-P2100PP, GMD-S5610PP, and the GMA-S140PP—and Casio isn't alone in betting big on pink once again in 2025. Oris has just announced the ProPilot X Miss Piggy Edition, for example, with its bright pink watch face taking its inspiration from everyone's favorite Muppets diva (as well as a spyhole on the caseback revealing the character's glamorous portrait), while Bremont has also launched the Terra Nova 38 in an eye-catching bubblegum pink—limited to 250 pieces. Whether this continuing penchant for pink is due to the Barbie effect, 18 months on from the movie's release, it's hard to be sure—but it feels unlikely. However Casio is clearly hoping that the Barbie branding still has some stiletto-wearing legs in it yet. Danielle Thom, the curator of the Design Museum's Barbie exhibition thinks its cross-generational pull is timeless. 'A key reason for Barbie's appeal as a collaborator is the longevity of the brand, having been a dominant cultural presence since 1959,' she tells WIRED. 'Rightly or wrongly, Barbie is also associated with a well-defined set of assumptions and values—femininity, accessible glamour, empowerment, and friendship. Any brand collaborating with Barbie can expect some of that magic to transfer over.'
