H. Moser & Cie launches the Swiss Alp Watch Final Upgrade, the concluding timepiece in a series that started in 2016 to explore the marriage of tradition and technology.
When smartwatch technology became a thing, in part because of the global phenomenon that is the Apple Watch, some of the traditional watch manufacturers were slow to embrace the new technology. How could they exist in a digital world when their very DNA was steeped in timeless analog technology? There have been plenty of examples of watch brands trying to bridge the two worlds, from Tag Heuer’s Connected to Montblanc’s smart strap and even some mighty handsome hybrids, but few brands have been willing or able to make the evolution, for fear of losing all that defines them.
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Swiss watch brand H. Moser & Cie launched the Swiss Alp series in response to the emergence of connected watches and in order to express the need for the nearly two-hundred-year-old brand to remain faithful to its values of tradition and mechanical Haute Horlogerie while exploring modern movements.
Now, the conclusion of the series, the one-of-a-kind conceptual Swiss Alp Watch Final Upgrade, pays tribute to the codes of connected watches, incorporating refined Vantablack technology with traditional, fine mechanical watchmaking.
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Bolstered by the belief that electronic devices will never replace people, and that technology must remain a means and not an end, the watchmaker’s finale, while similar to previous models from the series, is inspired by the modern design of smartwatches, yet it is entirely mechanical. With its 100 percent Swiss manufacture movement and a minimum power reserve of 96 hours, this is a watch that remains an expression of emotion in a world increasingly digitised and ambivalent.
For this model, H. Moser & Cie. wanted to combine different elements that have contributed to its success over the past few years. With an aesthetic inspired by smartwatches, the final chapter of the series features a Vantablack dial in its Concept version, with no logo or indices. Known to be the blackest material produced artificially, Vantablack and the blackened hour and minute hands perfectly evoke the standby appearance of the watch, a notion that’s further reinforced by the offset small second at 6 o’clock, redesigned for the occasion as a shaded disc made up of openings.
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Acting as an ode to minimalism and understatement, in an ultra-contemporary, pared-down and timeless manner, the new concept creates a striking contrast between aesthetic simplicity and the complexity of its materials, which include a steel case with a strikingly contemporary black DLC coating.
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