The Silk Road is one of the most historically significant trade routes in the world, connecting Europe and east Asia. The road’s terminus in the West is not well defined as it diffuses throughout what is modern day Turkey, Syria and ports throughout the Mediterranean such as Venice. In the East though the Silk Road is widely considered to end in Xi’an, a prominent city in central China. Venice-based watch brand Venezianico are paying tribute to this historic connection between their city and Xi’an with the launch of the Venezianico Nereide GMT Xi’an (just in time for Chinese New Year next month).
Aesthetically, the watch plays strongly on traditional oriental motifs. The dial is presented in red, a lucky colour in Chinese mythos and is made from a mosaic of mother-of-pearl (assembled by hand) creating a popular cloud pattern. That’s paired with gold hands and bar indexes, which are another sign of good fortune in China. While the dial is relatively intricate thanks to its mosaic pattern, it remains legible due to the core features of the Nereide’s dive watch influence. Namely oversize hour markers and plenty of lume.
Moving out from the Venezianico Nereide GMT Xi’an’s dial is the rotating bezel with 24-hour scale in Chinese numerals and day-night indicator. It’s used in conjunction with the central 24-hour GMT hand to allow the watch to display multiple time zones simultaneously. Typically we associate this complication with air travel where a jet-setting lifestyle requires you to adjust time zones frequently but I actually love its use here in the context of the Silk Road.
The route is so massively long that it crosses about 8 time zones. I say ‘about’ because there’s no official number of time zones the road crosses given that where it ends in the west is contested along with the fact that the route has changed often during its millennia of existence and not all countries track time zones the same (particularly China). In travelling the Silk Road, you would actually make practical use of a GMT complication to track the time at home or where you are heading.
Beneath the mosaic dial is the Miyota 9075 automatic movement with 42-hour power reserve. So what we have here is an Italian-designed watch with Chinese aesthetic and a Japanese heartbeat, the ultimate meeting between east and west. The only thing it’s missing is a horse engraving on the caseback to tie it into the Lunar New Year (don’t worry, there are plenty of those that we’ll cover closer to the New Year). Instead, it has an engraving of the Chinese Terracotta army, which is located in Xi’an. The Venezianico Nereide GMT Xi’an is limited to 500 pieces at a price of $1,095 (approx. £815).
Price and Specs:
More details at Venezianico.
