It’s part and parcel of being a watch brand that collectors and enthusiasts will come to know your brand by its most popular watches. Even titans of the game like Audemars Piguet suffer with wristwatch name recognition past the Royal Oak, or Patek Philippe and the Nautilus. For a brand like Serica then, who are niche to begin with, even if you know the brand relatively well you might not know about some of their more obscure references. For example, hidden among all the tool watches and military inspired divers is one of the coolest sport-dress hybrid wristwatches I’ve ever seen. And it’s this model that is being expanded today with the launch of the Serica Parade Ref. 1174 ‘Linen’.
While this new model essentially amounts to a new dial on an existing collection, as it is such an obscure collection let’s take a detailed look at the entire piece. Starting with the case, it’s made from steel in an elliptical shape with dimensions of 35mm x 41mm x 8.2mm. The most famous elliptical cased watch is the Patek Phillipe Golden Ellipse, which oozes pure dress watch charm thanks to its slim rounded bezel and cabochon crown. With the Parade though, the oval design is bold and macho with a wide flat bezel finished with vertical brushing that sits atop and equally broad case. It is very much as if the Golden Ellipse and Nautilus had an illicit love child.
That hybrid dress-sports watch aesthetic feels like it shouldn’t work. You can have sports watches that you wear at formal occasions yes, but for the fusion of styles to be built into the DNA of the watch to this level of extremity is very unusual. Shaped watches are typically petite and unassuming but this is a piece of wrist architecture that can’t be ignored. Architecture being an apt descriptor because the shape is based on Roman chariot stadiums.
Yet, for all the reasons it shouldn’t work, it simply does. And I think the reason it works is because of the minimalist shape language of it all, both across the case and the dial. There are no sharp angles anywhere. It’s all smooth curves and plumb straight lines. Even the central hour and minute hands are slightly rounded while the hour markers and polished dots. Carefully riding the line of being bold without becoming brash. The same shape is even used for the buckle on the leather strap.
Focussing on the dial, what makes the Serica Parade Ref. 1174 ‘Linen’ different from previous models is the introduction of the linen texture to the display – a pattern of crosshatches lines that replicate the textures of the light fabric. There are two versions available slate blue and tobacco brown. Most linen dials are quite flat but here there’s a real sense of three-dimensionality that makes it feel like you can follow the weave of individual threads over and under each other to an almost exaggerated sense, almost as if it’s a tweed or denim (depending on the colour) rather than a linen. But I like it all the same.
Below the linen dial is the Soprod M100 automatic movement with 42-hour power reserve. Its 25.6mm diameter makes it the perfect choice for sitting in the unusual proportions of an ellipse case. The case also keeps it safe with 100m water resistance, another spec that makes the watch feel sporty as opposed to the 30m typically seen on dress watches.
At a price of €1,490 (approx. £1,300) it feels like a hidden gem of a watch that hasn’t had its time in the sun yet, probably because of the success of Serica’s other projects. I don’t currently have my eye on a next watch for my personal collection but this could be a contender.
Price and Specs:
More details at Serica.
Pitched at exactly the right time (no pun intended), as we are now at the start of the resurrection of the dress watch, – call it what you will, it’s a dress watch, and about time, surely we should have moved well away from the dive watches that have taken up too much time and page space, for too long.
Lovely looking watch, nice shape and pared back aesthetics, but with a touch of class, nice linen effect dial and the minimal chaptering is just right, and all at a great cost, just goes to show that great things can be achieved at realistic price points.