The Laurent Ferrier Classic Moon Is My Favorite Watch of the 21st Century—Here’s Why
Earlier this year, Robb Report’s digital watch editor, Allen Farmelo, published a piece arguing that the Patek Philippe Calatrava 5226g was, thus far, the greatest watch of the 21st century. Farmelo waxed poetic about postmodernism and quiet luxury, and put his argument to bed. Realizing that one person’s opinion only goes so far, Farmelo invited me to build my own case for whatever watch I chose. A day later, I’d come back with the Laurent Ferrier Classic Moon Blue in stainless steel, which happened to make Robb Report’s editors best-of list from Watches & Wonders. And Ferrier easily made our recent list of the 25 greatest independent watchmakers in the world. There are good reasons for these inclusions, and Farmelo replied, “Bravo!”
Several years prior to this, while attending Watches & Wonders for the very first time, I fell in love with a brand that I wasn’t previously familiar with and a watch that completely captured my imagination.
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The brand was Laurent Ferrier, the eponymous marque of a famed watchmaker who had worked his way up to technical director at none other than Patek Philippe, maker of some of the world’s most beautiful complicated wristwatches. The watch, the Galet Annual Calendar Montre École—based upon the shape of a pocket watch Ferrier had completed at watchmaking school—was quite simply a masterwork: Measuring 40mm in steel or red gold, it was a fairly straightforward take on the annual calendar complication, but its sumptuous case, beautiful blue dial—a rarity in classically-inspired calendar watches—superbly finished movement, and excellent proportions blew my mind. (The watch was made in other dial colors, but it was the blue that stole my heart.)
At this year’s edition of the big Genevan trade show, LF managed to outdo itself: The new Classic Moon builds upon the idea of the Annual Calendar and updates it with a moonphase display at 6 o’clock—the area previously occupied by a radial date display, here moved to the dial periphery and indicated by a hand emanating from the dial’s center post. Available in stainless steel and red gold, the piece is simply exquisite, capturing everything I love about calendar watches from the mid-20th century—(they’re functionally little mechanical computers)—while offering enough modern visual interest to capture the attention of a jaded writer who pens 10,000 words per week about watches.
The Methodology
Deciding upon a “greatest watch of the 21st century” is a difficult proposition—there’s an embarrassment of possible choices in everything spanning tasteful reissues of classic models to brand-new creations and avant-garde masterpieces. The reissues can more or less easily be ruled out—these are, after all, the 20th century’s best watches, merely repackaged for modern consumption. The totally groundbreaking, avant-garde pieces are more attractive targets for our aforementioned superlative — but many of these, while technically and aesthetically fascinating, are unattractive to me due to lack of wearability, or over-specificity of application. (I.e. I’m not going to wear a watch shaped like a Star Trek-kian phaser to a dinner party. Or maybe even out on the street, going for a latté. I wouldn’t want to be accosted by a Klingon, after all.)
The Laurent Ferrier Classic Moon, however, exists somewhere in the middle of these two camps: While not a reissue of any particular mid-20th century calendar watch, it is designed in that mold, with a similar dial layout and a pocket watch-inspired ball crown. At the same time, the classical inspiration is tempered with modern influence, with the overall case profile informed by the eye-pleasing symmetry of a pebble, and a moon phase whose design incorporates aventurine to spectacular effect. And this is to say nothing of the movement, which — visible via a sapphire caseback — makes use of a modern bridge design that sets it apart from vintage hand-wound calibers. All in all, the Classic Moon is a masterwork of contemporary watchmaking executed by a master craftsman, and a welcome addition to the brand’s permanent collection.
The Classic Moon’s Case is One of the Most Refined in the ‘Biz
Take a look at the Galet Annual Calendar Montre École from 2018, and you’ll notice that, while its case is largely the rounded Galet profile found of the Tourbillon Double Spiral from 2010, there are certain hard edges present in the straight lugs and the protrusion of the day-of-the-week corrector at 10 o’clock. This has all been (metaphorically) sanded away on the Classic Moon, however, with nary a hard edge in sight. The lugs are now rounded and smoothed, and the 10 o’clock corrector has been replaced by two small correctors at 8 and 10 o’clock that run flush with the case flank, much like on vintage complete calendars (such as the venerable Patek Philippe 1518 and 2499). With its polished surfaces and ball-shaped crown, the Galet case makes clear its pocket watch inspiration, following a line from 19th-century horology through to the present day. (At 40mm, it’s a tad large for a dressier piece, but its smooth contours more than make up for the paper dimensions.)
The Dial Is a Perfect Compromise Between Vintage and Modern Inspiration
While cues from mid-20th century full-calendar watches clearly inform the Classic Moon’s dial, certain contemporary flourishes have made their way into the design. Zooming out for a moment, we see a grey-blue opaline dial with an outer date scale in pastel and azure blue; a closed railroad minute track in pastel blue; and a set of elongated, white Roman numeral and baton-shaped indices in white. The more playful typography of the date scale interacts with the Roman-numeral hour indices in a sort of push-pull between formality and elegance, already indicating that this is a timepiece distinct from the majority of more classically-influenced haute horlogerie pieces.
Within the dial center are dual apertures for the date and month below the 12 o’clock index, but unlike those on the earlier Galet Annual Calendar Montre École, these feature a beveled edge that surrounds both and separates them from the dial—a subtle touch that nevertheless makes for a thoughtful, modern addition to the overall design and adds a sense of depth. The small seconds register above 6 o’clock, meanwhile, has been enlarged to house the watch’s moon phase complication—a first within the Laurent Ferrier oeuvre.
The production process for this indication is labor-intensive yet rewarding: First, a piece of Murano-made aventurine glass is engraved with the outline of the moon and stars and then hand-painted with fine detail. The glass is then filled with Super-LumiNova for nighttime illumination and fired in a kiln, after which it is engraved to represent lunar features such as craters, seas, etc. Lastly, the glass disc is covered with a transparent appliqué of petrol blue enamel. Dual depictions of the Moon provide for phase indications of both the northern and southern hemispheres simultaneously, as indicated by “N” and “S” indices within the periphery of the seconds track. Meanwhile the handset—white for the time indications, and pastel blue for the centrally emanating date indicator hand—is Laurent Ferrier’s signature Assegai shape in 18K white gold, which blends beautifully with the Roman numerals on the dial to form a harmonious design.
Laurent Ferrier spent much of his career at Patek Philippe, and thus it’s of little surprise that he chose to make the Classic Moon an annual calendar rather than a simpler complete calendar. In this design, which Patek first included in a wristwatch in the mid-1990s, the movement accounts for the differences between months of 30 and 31 days’ duration, meaning that manual adjustment is necessary but once in a 365-day cycle, at the end of February. So while the Classic Moon may look like a much simpler complete calendar with aesthetic roots in mid-20th century horology, its mechanical underpinnings are actually much more contemporary — and much more sophisticated. Which brings us to the movement of this magnificent piece…
The Classic Moon’s Movement Is Both Beautiful and Utilitarian
Flip the Classic Moon over and you’re greeted by the sight of a startlingly cool, hand-wound engine that—much like the watch’s dial—bridges classical watchmaking tropes with modern inspiration. The Caliber LF126.02 is largely an update to the LF126.01 that powered the Galet Annual Calendar Montre École: Hand-wound via the ball-shaped crown, it makes use of an additional 30-plus components to power the moon phase display that differentiates the newer model from the old.
The reworked corrector system is also partially responsible for the updated movement. While the crown controls both time setting as well as the date position, the two small correctors on the case-flanks control the day and moon phase. (The months are controlled by scrolling through the date in the crown’s intermediate position—because you can scroll both forwards and backwards, setting the month is thus a relatively quick process.) A small corrector, included with the watch, is used to activate these pushers.
The caliber itself is beautiful to behold: Measuring 31.6mm by 6.3mm tall and comprising 266 components, it features a Swiss lever escapement and a screw balance beating at 3 Hz. A full wind will yield an impressive 80 hours of power reserve, which is trackable via a large power reserve indicator at the 10 o’clock position on the caseback. Finishing is of course superb, with circular graining, rhodium-treated Côtes de Genève, beveling, polishing, and other techniques visible throughout the construction. Adjusted to six positions, the 14-ligne movement is mesmerizing in its marriage of time-tested finishing techniques and modern utility: If kept wound, it need only be manually adjusted once per year, at the end of February, and each winding will keep the movement ticking away for over three days.
The Classic Moon Is a One-and-Done Sort of Watch
Paired to a dark grey nubuck leather strap with a hand-sewn, Alcantara lining, the stainless steel version of the Classic Moon is a the type of elegant everyday watch that’s perfect for the suited-and-booted businessman, but admittedly less applicable to someone for whom work involves a bit more physicality. (Indeed, 30m of water resistance, a leather strap, and a 70,000-CHF (around $80,000) price tag would mean a reluctance on my part to wear such a watch outside the confines of my apartment if there was even a chance of inclement weather, let alone if I were traveling someplace any less safe than, say, Geneva.) But on the other hand, the Classic Moon is so well done, so handsome, and so well proportioned that I’d venture to call it, if not a “single-watch collection,” than something very near to it. (If I had, for example, a dive or field watch to wear more regularly and then a Classic Moon to wear with a suit, I’m not sure I would be tempted to scour Chrono24 quite as much as I already do.)
This is a timepiece with competition, of course. Patek Philippe itself offers annual calendars with moon phase displays for similar money (as do other high-end marques), and many of these are quite fetching. But the rounded curves of the Classic Moon case, coupled with the vintage-inspired dial and the beautifully decorated movement offer something distinct: Namely, a watch that transcends the zeitgeist and occupies its own rarefied space within the horological water column. For me, it’s a timepiece that encapsulates multiple loves: History, design, horology, mechanics. I couldn’t say that owning one would necessarily make me feel like a new man—but I can say that few modern watches have proven so captivating on so many different planes.
It might not be rocket science, after all, but there’s something about it that captures the imagination—and that’s a tough quality to argue with.
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