Citizen Shoots for New Heights of Luxury with Launch of "Citizen Premier" Series

Japan’s Citizen Watch Company, founded in 1918, is known today by most aficionados for its affordable and technically forward-thinking timepieces, and for good reason: the firm introduced the revolutionary Eco-Drive technology to watchmaking and has been building upon it ever since, with pioneering innovations like Satellite Wave GPS functionality. Now, as it enters the third decade of the 21st Century, Citizen has embarked on a mission to establish itself in another sector of the watchmaking world, as a purveyor of luxury timepieces that hold their own not only with Japanese competitors like Seiko and Grand Seiko but with Swiss and German contemporaries as well. To that end, the brand has launched Citizen Premier, a new category that it says will focus on “redefin[ing] luxury timepieces by fusing over 100 years of innovation, style, and craftsmanship.” Initially, Citizen Premier will be the umbrella category that links two of its existing product families: the all-titanium Attesa models and the recently inaugurated, all-mechanical Series 8.

For the launch of Citizen Premier, Citizen is showcasing two of the first timepieces to fall under the new, luxury-focused banner: one, a limited edition from the Series 8 collection with a striking ice-blue textured dial; the other, the first Attesa model to combine a “Super Titanium” case with a ceramic bezel. 

The Citizen Series 8 831 Mechanical Limited Edition is the latest piece to emerge from the Series 8 collection’s sportier 831 branch, recognizable for its angular, octagonal case design, and launched alongside its round-cased siblings, the 870 models, in 2021. The case measures 40mm in diameter and 11.6mm thick and features an impressive array of polished surfaces and clean, geometrical lines. The dial of this 1,800-piece edition is colored in an attention-grabbing ice blue, with an intricate geometrical textured pattern, which Citizen says is inspired by sunlight reflecting off of calm, crystal clear ocean waters. The dauphine hour and minute hands tell the time on applied indexes, and the motion of the seconds hand aligns precisely with the markers on the outer minute track.

The case flows into a stainless steel link bracelet that carries on the case’s meticulous finishing. Inside the watch, behind a sapphire caseback — a rarity for Citizen — the automatic mechanical Caliber 9051 beats at 28,800 vph, achieving an accuracy of +/- 10 seconds daily and a power reserve of 42 hours. Citizen has also designed the movement to be exceedingly resistant to magnetic fields, and touts that the watch will suffer no loss of timekeeping accuracy even when placed within a centimeter of the everyday sources of strong magnetic fields, which include electronic devices like smartphones and tablets. The Series 8 831 Mechanical is available as of March 2025, priced at $1,095.

In Citizen Premier parlance, “luxury” doesn’t necessarily mean “mechanical,” so the other new timepiece that joins the Series 8 limited edition in the first wave of Premier-branded models is equipped with an Eco-Drive movement, but not a standard one. The Caliber F950 that powers the new Attesa Eco-Drive Satellite Wave GPS editions — both in Citizen’s proprietary “Super Titanium,” one with a black DLC coating — is capable of receiving time signals from GPS satellites in as little as three seconds, which according to Citizen is the fastest such reception in the world for a GPS-equipped watch movement. The watch also features Citizen’s “Double Direct Flight” technology, which enables the user to quickly adjust to the local time in 26 world time zones in two simple steps. As an Eco-Drive movement, of course, its battery can be constantly recharged by exposure to any light source.

Aesthetically, the 44mm “Super Titanium” case has a sleek brushed finish and is fronted by an octagonal bezel made of ceramic, bearing a similarly striking brushed surface. As noted above, it’s the first use of ceramic in the Attesa series — which traces its origins all the way back to 1987, when Citizen was one of the first brands in the world to dabble in titanium as a watchmaking material — and it elevates these models to a level of elegance that exceeds their high-tech utility. Other noteworthy elements include the unusually shaped push-buttons in the side of the case; the streamlined design of the integrated bracelet, made of the same material as the case (“Super Titanium” is essentially titanium enhanced for extra hardness in Citizen’s specially developed Duratect process); and the black color of the dial, which echoes the shade of unprocessed titanium, highlighted by contrasting details like the shiny metal subdial rings and the dial ring, with its rough metallic texture.

Like the Series 8 model, the Citizen Attesa Satellite Wave GPS F950, aka the “Spaceship” (??) will be available as of March 2025. Both the metallic-toned Duratect Titanium Carbide model and the “stealth” black-hued Duratect DLC version are priced at $1,995.