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Zenith, ready for adventure
New Models

Zenith, ready for adventure

Sunday, 24 March 2013
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Christophe Roulet
Editor-in-chief, HH Journal

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3 min read

Strapped to the wrist of the first person to freefall through the sound barrier, taking to the skies with the fathers of aviation, or en route for the poles with the first explorers, Zenith keeps the thrills coming.

Zenith watches almost invariably echo the rich history of a company that was established in the Swiss town of Le Locle in 1865. The new Captain Winsor Annual Calendar is a case in point. Developed in partnership with Ludwig Oechslin, curator at the Musée International d’Horlogerie du Locle and this year presented as a new iteration, it carries on a line that was introduced in 1952. Its seafaring name reminds us that Zenith was once a manufacturer of marine chronometers whose reliability contributed to the company’s renown.

These same chronometers resurface in the Gravity Control that equips Zenith’s Christophe Colomb line. This system maintains the regulating organ and escapement in a horizontal position. This year Zenith has gone a step further with its Academy Christophe Colomb Hurricane, which includes a fusee and chain transmission and its legendary El Primero beating at 36,000 vibrations/hour. This one timepiece tackles three thorns in watchmaking’s side, namely maintaining precision, the job of the high-frequency calibre, the negative effects of gravity, countered by the Gravity Control, and variations in isochronism which the constant force transmission resolves. “This is a demonstration of what we at Zenith can do,” explains Chief Executive Jean-Frédéric Dufour. “More importantly it embodies our philosophy to go on raising the bar and invent new solutions that will bring greater reliability and precision.”

Ladies first

Zenith shares this head for heights with Felix Baumgartner, the first person to have skydived through the sound barrier. As Mr Dufour reminds us, “this record-breaking jump is the latest in a long line of adventures that we have been part of, such as the first flight across the English Channel in 1909 or the discoveries of the North and South Poles.” Aeronautical timepieces were indeed prominent in the brand’s collections last year, and none more so than the Pilot Montre d’Aéronef Type 20. This impressively sized watch is driven by a 5011 calibre from 1956, a small stock of which turned up in the Manufacture’s inventory. Building on the success of the Type 20, Zenith will be in Baselworld with an extended range that includes several complications in more “wearable” sizes than the original 57mm diameter. All these watches are driven by the El Primero, “with the unmistakable stylistic identity of Zenith’s flight instruments,” Jean-Frédéric Dufour adds.

As well as unveiling its new visual identity this year, the last brick in rebuilding the brand, Zenith is especially attentive to its women customers in the firm belief that not only men appreciate a fine mechanical movement. Classic models for women join the Pilot collection, in addition to a Star Chronograph which Zenith has imagined specifically for feminine wrists. Since the appointment of Jean-Frédéric Dufour at the head of the firm in 2009, sales have grown by some 30% a year. The brand continues its carefully managed expansion in 2013 with the opening of its fourteenth and fifteenth stores, and the final stage in renovation of the manufacturing site in Le Locle. The year will come to a climax in September with an all-new and revolutionary El Primero Chronograph. The adventure goes on…

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