Oris Artelier Complication 01 782 7811 4055-07 8 20 20
The Oris Artelier Complication 01 782 7811 4055-07 8 20 20 is a 39.5mm Swiss automatic dress watch that makes its case through restraint. Unveiled at Watches and Wonders in Geneva, it's a ground-up redrawing of one of Oris's most classical designs by Lena Huwiler, a 24-year-old product design engineer at the company, and the result is cleaner and more architectural than anything the Artelier has worn before. The textured blue is built in layers — a curved outer ring carrying stepped applied hour markers, and a textured central disc holding two sub-dials, with the moon phase disc patterned in stars so its cover almost disappears into the design. A domed sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating sits above it. The multi-piece stainless steel case alternates brushed and polished surfaces, measures 11.8mm thick and 45.5mm from lug to lug, and comes on a matching multi-piece steel bracelet with a butterfly clasp. Water resistance is 30 metres, which covers rain and hand-washing but tells you plainly what this watch is for: a shirt cuff, not a swimming pool. Inside is the Oris Calibre 782, an automatic movement developed from the brand's earlier Calibre 781 on a Sellita SW200-1 base, running at 4Hz with hacking seconds and roughly 41 hours of power reserve. Oris has pared the display back to two complications — a moon phase at twelve o'clock and a 24-hour second time zone at six — both set through the crown and a single corrector recessed discreetly into the case flank between four and five o'clock, so the profile stays clean. Turn it over and the screwed display caseback reveals Oris's signature red rotor. Oris has built mechanical watches at Hölstein since 1904 and remains independently owned, which is rarer in Swiss watchmaking than it sounds. As a men's automatic dress watch with moonphase it's an unusually well-judged size: substantial enough to read as a serious mechanical piece, compact enough to vanish under a cuff at a wedding, a board meeting, or a long-haul flight where the second time zone finally earns its keep. What we love about this watch: The Artelier Complication (01 782 7811 4055-07 8 20 20) does the thing most complicated watches never dare to — it takes something away. Oris deleted the day and date sub-dials that crowded the previous generation and left only the moon phase and the second time zone, and the classic blue dial breathes because of it. At 39.5mm on a steel bracelet, it's the rare Swiss moonphase you can genuinely wear on a Tuesday rather than save for occasions.