Dubai Watch Week, for the uninitiated, is a bit like sticking every great watchmaker on a rocket, firing it into the desert, and letting them loose among enough glass, gold and ego to make Las Vegas look like a budget motel. It’s hot, it’s loud, it’s shiny, and everyone is trying to out-dazzle everyone else with gears, screws and complications so clever they might as well be witchcraft. And just when you think the spectacle couldn’t get any more theatrical, along comes Frederique Constant—calm, confident, very Geneva—rolling out not one, not two, but five new timepieces that politely tap the shoulder of the competition and whisper, “Move aside.” From the poetic sweep of the Classic Moonphase Date Manufacture to the globe-trotting swagger of the Classic Worldtimer Manufacture, the cerebral elegance of the Classic Perpetual Calendar Manufacture, the mechanical bravado of the Classic Tourbillon Manufacture, and the all-guns-blazing Highlife Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar Manufacture, the brand has effectively shown up to the desert with a full orchestra while everyone else brought Bluetooth speakers.
Classic Moonphase Date Manufacture
This model has a stainless steel 40mm case, lugs, polished bezel, and an onion crown at 3 o’clock. For the first time in the manufacture’s history, this model features a turquoise dial. The stone is unique in its black mineral fibres, which run through it to create marmoreal accents. This minimalist dial has only hour markers, and dauphine hour, minute, and second hands. There is a date indication at 6 o’clock with a moonphase nestled inside its circumference. Powering the watch is FC-716 in-house calibre offering a power reserve of 72-hours (three full days). This model is limited to only be 716 pieces.
Classic Worldtimer Manufacture: Travel Through Time
This 42mm stainless steel watch has a polished bezel, an onion crown at 3 o’clock. This timepiece is offered with lapis lazuli on both the main part of the dial and the offset date display at 6 o’clock. The 24 major cities encircle the dial, its day-night indicator is calibrated over 24 hours, with day and night separated naturally into two sections: one blue and one white. The FC-718 manufacture calibre is adjusted using only its single crown with neither pushers nor correctors offering a 42-hour power reserve. The Classic Worldtimer Manufacture, on a matching blue alligator bracelet and will be limited to 718 pieces in total.
Classic Perpetual Calendar Manufacture
This 40mm stainless steel watch has a polished bezel, and an onion crown at 3 o’clock. The heliotrope dial has a tricompax day display at 9 o’clock, date at 3 o’clock, month-leap year indication at 12 o’clock, and a moonphase at 6 o’clock. A sapphire caseback offers an intimate look at its FC-776 calibre, decorated with perlage and côtes de Genève stripes offering a three-day (72 hours) power reserve
Classic Tourbillon Manufacture
This 39mm stainless steel watch has a polished bezel, a hexagonal shaped case, and a crown at 3 o’clock. The black dial has a tourbillion at 6 o’clock which is held by a bridge with hand-polished chamfering with an in-built second hand.
Highlife Tourbillon Perpetual Calendar Manufacture
The only non-mineral dial has a 41mm stainless steel case. The dial has a tricompax day display at 9 o’clock, date at 3 o’clock, month-leap year indication at 12 o’clock, and a tourbillon at 6 o’clock. The openwork dial magnifies its technical nature and reveals the minerality of its self-winding FC-975 calibre, a jewel in the manufacture’s crown.
The central hour and minute markers are polished by hand and finished with a luminescent material; the seconds marker sits on the tourbillon bridge. Tucked inside the movement itself, the perpetual calendar features typically Genevan techniques: a satin finish, perlage, blued screws and black polishing.
