In WatchPro’s trend report in the current edition of the magazine we identify both salmon dials and brown as rising fashions in the watch world, and that was before we saw H. Moser & Cie.’s new Streamliner Centre Seconds, which appears to embrace both colours for the sportiest of timekeepers in its range.
Moser says the model has a smoked salmon dial, but concedes that it passes through a broad spectrum of colours as the wrist moves, shifting from chocolate through to gold.
The 40mm cushion-shaped steel-on-steel piece joins a family of watches with fume dials in black, green and blue; and featuring tourbillons, small seconds, a perpetual calendar and a flyback chronograph.
It is the ultimate platform watch with freedom to go in any direction Moser chooses.
The watchmaker is also ensuring each model appeals to collectors of rare pieces by limiting production, in the case of the Streamliner Centre Seconds Smoked Salmon, by promising to make it for one year only.
Interestingly, Edouard Meylan, CEO of H. Moser & Cie., is heading off comments that the constantly shifting colours of the dial do not adhere to the classical look of salmon dials.
The keen fly fisherman insists: “There is salmon and there is salmon. Our inspiration does not come from the traditional Atlantic salmon, or “Salmo salar” to give it its Latin name, but from its very rare cousin, the Oncorhynchus kisutch.”
Good luck arguing with that expertise.
“Allowed to mature in total freedom and massaged each day by specialists using an oil infused with aromatic herbs picked from the slopes of the Himalayas, this species only eats crustaceans that have been pre-digested by pink flamingos,” he continues. “Each individual fish is smoked using a secret recipe made using Scottish whisky. This is what gives the flesh this exceptional colour, and is the inspiration behind our new dial.”
There endeth the salmon lesson.
The watch houses an in house HMC 200 automatic movement, with its sold gold oscillating weight and fine decoration presented via an exhibition case back.
It is on sale now for CHF 19,900.
