STARS AND PURITY
The Le Locle-based manufacture has adopted white technical ceramics to dress the geometric silhouette of one of its iconic watches, a light, resistant material that highlights the intense blue of its openwork face.
As a modern reinterpretation of a charismatic model from the late 1969s, the Defy watch was revived in 2017 before being reworked into an urban yet sporty version in 2022. Since then, Zenith‘s emblematic collection has continued to expand, and now includes the Defy Skyline White Ceramic Skeleton, a new model that is water-resistant to a depth of 100m, introduced at the beginning of the summer, but versatile enough to be worn all year round.
To design this reference, the Le Locle-based manufacture turned to a material appreciated for its lightness and resistance to scratches, corrosion, oxidation and discoloration, and which it had already used, in a jet-black hue, for another piece: technical ceramics. This immaculate adornment dresses the silhouette with its 41mm octagonal case, dodecagonal bezel and link bracelet, which can easily be replaced by a white rubber variant.
To play with contrasts, in addition to the different finishes, Zenith has opted for an intense blue that electrifies the face of its Defy. Openworked to form the skeleton of a large, stylized star and curved with faceted hour-markers, it houses two large, rhodium-plated, luminescent central hands to display the hours and minutes, while the 1/10th of a second scrolls in an azure counter at 6 o’clock. This time data is delivered by the El Primero 3620 SK caliber, a self-winding mechanical movement with a silicon escape wheel and anchor, providing an energy reserve of around 55 hours.