So I've had about five days to get acquainted with the Lemania chronograph, and so far it has been a very pleasant experience. Of course, when the name on the dial and the case is Lemania, our thoughts go first to the movement.
And this is where I am going to openly disagree with some of the membership of a certain watch forum who commented when this watch was first released. "The rotor is too plain", "the movement should be decorated", and on and on.
But I would take pains to remind some of these folks that first and foremost this movement is in a watch that is retailing for about $890 US. It is not one of their $15,000 (and up) wrist confections. And there is nothing wrong with that by the way! But it's a bit like complaining that the GAP doesn't offer a couture collection!
The concept is fairly straight forward, just a movement. It is utilitarian to be sure, but it is actually not bad to look at.
The power reserve over five days has been quite good, and the timekeeping though clearly not COSC specs, has still been respectable at around + 10 seconds per day so far.
More to come - stay tuned!
Does a decorated movement work better than an undecorated one? No less an authority than J-C Babin, CEO of TAG Heuer, was once quoted by Watch Time magazine as saying that Seiko makes the best mechanical movements (slightly self serving I know in light of Cal. 1887)yet Seiko never decorates its movements and even in their luxury GS and Ananta lines the level of decoration is spare. You can put earrings on a pig, but...
ReplyDeleteYou know, the only thing that's really wrong with this watch is sadly, everything. Swatch Group is unabashedly prostituting Lemania. They are using the same low grade escapement movement that they have been using in the cheaper Tissots. Did anybody ask themselves why it only has 15 jewels instead of 17? It's because the pallet fork doesn't have pallet jewels. It's plastic! How lame is that? Typical of a company that only is concerned with making a buck. They take a mark like Lemania that has such a rich history and treats it like this. On a different level it's the same thing they did with Breguet. Very, very sad. But why would we expect anything else?
ReplyDeleteJames was right to hope for something better. We need some good idealists out there like him. It's a shame Swatch Group couldn't come up with a better initial offering from the rebirth of Lemania. But all Lemania is to Swatch is a way to keep the Moon Watches going forever. Otherwise I think they could care less.