Horage Supersede Date Watch Review

I’ll be the first to admit that Horage weren’t really on my radar prior to the launch of the Tourbillon 1, which made a huge splash – keep an eye out for a story on that particular watch coming soon in the magazine. Then there’s also the Lensman 2 is a really fun photography themed timepiece that manages to tread the line between novelty and serious timepiece well. Now, I have in front of me the brand new Horage Supersede Date, a more conventional watch in that it’s a relatively straight and narrow dive watch.

It’s 39.5mm in diameter with a thickness of just 10.28mm, which means this is a dive watch that actually looks well sized on my slim wrists. Speaking of diving, it has 200m water resistance, which is solid for a watch of this size and certainly enough for a snorkel at the surface even if I wouldn’t strap on a scuba tank. It’s really comfortable to wear, the size makes it practical and relatively lightweight, although on steel bracelet it’s not so light as to feel like a toy.

However, the design of the case is not what’s new, having been previously used for the Supersede GMT. The Supersede Date is mostly a visual update to the dial, since it has foregone the GMT function and power reserve indicator in favour of a clean time and date display. It’s a lot more legible than its predecessor and I’m kind of glad the power reserve indicator is gone because it no longer interrupts the hour marker at 12 o’clock, which is now as long as its brethren at 11 and 1.

There are two dial colours available. One is a sunray brushed blue called Cenote Blue and the other, which I have here, is Coral Black. The Coral Black has more of a matte finish that barely reflects any light, if it were any darker I’d almost put it in the same category as Musou paint. I also like that they’ve made the date disc black with white numerals to better match the dial.

Turning the Supersede Date over reveals the K2 in house movement through the sapphire crystal exhibition window. It looks fantastic with its gold tungsten micro-rotor (which you can upgrade to platinum for approximately £1,000 extra) and combination of finishes that include Geneva stripes and what Horage call quadratic black squares. Take into consideration the gorgeous finishing and 72-hour power reserve and the watch lives up to the price tag of CHF 4,900 (approx. £4,400).

Having spent a couple of days with the watch, I can’t say that everything about it is perfect. The bracelet is a little too thin, both in terms of the link thickness of about 2.75mm and the taper which goes down to 16mm. I’m also not a huge of the polished centre links, although you can get it with brushed links instead, which would be my preference. I think I’d also prefer the bezel to be broader with straighter sides. At the moment it has quite a steep angle to its edges, making it very easy to use don’t get me wrong, but I think a broader surface and a larger scale would make it visually read as a dive watch a tad more.

Ultimately those are small gripes and if you don’t like the bracelet then it’s also available on rubber strap to completely mitigate that problem. The bezel is a more concrete concern but honestly, it’s a case of learning to love it with time, a couple of days is too short to accurately judge it. But let’s not finish by dwelling on the few issues when really this is a great little dive watch. It manages to do all the dive watch things while being slim and understated and for that, it gets my approval. Especially when tastes at the moment and trending towards smaller watches.