Chanel Monsieur Watch With First In-House Movement Hands-On Hands-On

Grade 1 Replica Watches Chanel Monsieur Watch With First In-House Movement Hands-On


Chanel Monsieur Watch With First In-House Movement Hands-On Hands-On

For Baselworld 2016, luxury fashion house Chanel returned some of their wristwatch-making focus to men with the debut of the “Monsieur de Chanel.” With a novel design and movement produced in-house (in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland), using some parts made by very good local Swiss component suppliers, this surprise move by the Parisian brand should cause even the most staunchly conservative watch fans to raise their eyebrows.

Chanel has an interesting history with men’s watches that began in roughly the year 2000 with the release of the famed J12 collection. Housed in a black or white ceramic case, the Chanel Watches Discount Replica J12 was originally a model for both men and women, but the collection quickly adopted a mostly female wearer base, even though it solidified black ceramic as a modern material for many men’s watches that would come after it.

The most recent attempt by Chanel Watches.Com Replica to cater to the men’s watch market was in 2010 when the brand released the J12 Marine (hands-on here) – a diving watch variant of the Chanel J12 which was an aesthetic success (in my opinion) but unfortunately a reported sales disappointment. Since the J12 Marine, Chanel hasn’t released any new men’s watch collections, with perhaps the exception of an occasional J12 collection line extension here and there. Instead, Chanel focused heavily on expanding the world of Chanel J12 watches for women, as well as its historic and very attractive Premiere range. Chanel also debuted its mostly very high-end Mademoiselle Prive women’s watch collection, as well as the more youth-oriented Boy.Friend watch range which, in my opinion, exists as an evolutionary arm of the Premiere.

Chanel Monsieur Watch With First In-House Movement Hands-On Hands-On

Chanel Monsieur Watch With First In-House Movement Hands-On Hands-On

For 2016, Chanel returns to men’s watches in a very serious way with a haute horology timepiece that attempts to combine the brand’s refined Parisian sense of style with a modern technical prowess horological aficionados demand. In my opinion, the debate over whether fashion houses can “legitimately” come out with a high-end timepiece is over. There are just too many brands which people can think of as fashion houses that have too many nice watches. If there is a timepiece you otherwise like but feel hesitant about fully liking because of the name on the dial, then you are being close-minded in an seriously ironic way. Any company be it a small independent or a major fashion icon should be able to come out with a good timepiece that is purely judged on its merits.

Chanel Monsieur Watch With First In-House Movement Hands-On Hands-On

Chanel Monsieur Watch With First In-House Movement Hands-On Hands-On

With that said, it is true that for the most part male consumers in the East are those who are drawn to high-end timepieces from high-end fashion brands. Western men are statistically a bit more conservative with their choice of watch brand – so let’s see if Chanel’s new Monsieur can attract any converts. I’ve personally been waiting six years for Chanel to come out with a serious new timepiece, and the time has finally come.

The Chanel Monsieur is quite pricey, costing in the vicinity of $35,000 for an 18k gold watch with a moderate level of complexity. With that said, there isn’t too much quite like it on the market, and the movement is rather impressive. Let’s just consider the Chanel Monsieur a watch for serious collectors who aren’t too concerned about spending a premium for a new product from a brand with a built-in “prestige cost.”

Chanel Monsieur Watch With First In-House Movement Hands-On Hands-On

Chanel Monsieur Watch With First In-House Movement Hands-On Hands-On

With that said, I think traditional watch lovers will be keen to learn that one of the major part suppliers for the Chanel Watches Z.G 58096 Replica Monsieur’s Calibre 1 movement is the extremely talented Romain Gauthier. In addition to his eponymous Romain Gauthier timepiece brand, Mr. Gauthier (who is an micro-engineer and self-taught watchmaker) has been and continues to be a supplier of very high-quality specialized mechanical watch movement components. You can see our hands-on coverage of his rather fantastic Logical One watch here. Watch lovers with a keen eye can see some of his signature talents in the parts of the Chanel Calibre 1 movement. Everything is almost totally custom, from the style of the gears to the “circles within circles” aesthetic design of how the gears, wheels, and bridges are engineered to work together. The collectors’ value in a watch like the Chanel Monsieur is not a mere sum of the parts, but in the unique design and difficulty in producing the parts that go into the movement’s construction.

Chanel Monsieur Watch With First In-House Movement Hands-On Hands-On

On the plus side, fashion manufacturer watches are usually quite well designed and of a high-quality. The component that some people dislike about these watches having famous names is a plus factor to others. Additionally, and while this is not a universal rule, these brands frequently have access to quite great suppliers or materials that only the biggest brands have use of. I’d say that in the end, it actually depends upon the individual. Some individuals are entirely OK (or even eager) with the idea of wearing a watch from a significant fashion label, along with others for equally legitimate motives simply will not go near them. Because of this luxury style watches are among the most contentious items on the planet of watches.So presuming you are the sort of person who is excited about wearing a Chanel, or at least considering giving it a chance, there’s a lot to appreciate about the J12 mainly due to the black ceramic material and the layout. Though if you would like to wear a white one that is OK also. Having said that, Chanel Watches Birmingham Replica has never published a matte version of the white J12. The black versions include a few matte models, which is one of them. Matte-finished ceramic is actually more simple to produce than the polished ceramic but was not thought to be especially stylish in comparison with the polished ceramic that’s highly scratch resistant and never loses its colour. Matte can also be very difficult, but the concluding leaves it just somewhat less scratch resistant than polished ceramic – though it is still quite hard.As I talked in the video portion of this inspection, I feel that Chanel started to release matte variations of the J12 for two reasons. First was because they wanted to see how they might appeal more to a male demographic. Engineered ceramic is surely a bit more decorative than polished ceramic. Second, and I have no method of verifying this, I believe that the prevalence of people giving their automobiles matte-finished paint projects was a variable Chanel may have considered. Regardless of why Chanel began to concentrate on matte versus strictly polished ceramic, how does this look?

Chanel Monsieur Watch With First In-House Movement Hands-On Hands-On

Modernism is a major theme in the movement which uses a range of silver-colored to deep gray-colored components of various finishes. While the movement benefits from a host of hand-finishing, its design is meant to evoke our modern times rather than elicit the sense of looking at a purely traditional “old school” timepiece movement.

Manually-would, the Chanel Calibre 1 has a power reserve of 72 hours operating at 4Hz (28,800bph). Note the star-style spokes in the balance wheel as well as the tapering spokes in each of the gears – as these are good examples of the type of expensive custom parts made especially for the Chanel Monsieur’s mechanical movement. Those with a prejudice against the movement simply because it says Chanel would have absolutely no problems if it said Audemars Piguet, Bulgari, Piaget, Roger Dubuis, or for that matter, Romain Gauthier. I say this because I know many watch lovers tend to shy away from “fashion label watches” no matter how nice they are – and I feel that such sentiments are naive, preventing timepiece fans from enjoying many true combinations of art and technique.