Zenith Rings In Its 160th Anniversary With 21st Century Revival Of its Historic Caliber 135

The year 2025 marks 160 years since the founding of Zenith in Le Locle, Switzerland, back in 1865. As watchmaking brands are wont to do, Zenith is commemorating this milestone by putting forward a watch for the occasion that’s representative of its storied history, as well as its own contemporary identity. Now, as Watches & Wonders 2025 kicks off, we are clear on how the brand aims to celebrate the occasion, and its chosen vehicle is a new collection inspired by Zenith’s own founder, complete with an update on its storied Caliber 135, which breathes fresh life into an old favorite movement. These are the conditions in which the rising star of the G.F.J. collection joins Zenith’s constellation.

At the tail end of the 19th century, the mounting competition within the watch industry brought about a new standard of gauging the accuracy of movements, and watchmakers began employing observatory trials to signal to customers that their products were as accurate as possible. This was also at a time in which highly accurate timepieces were necessary for successful marine navigation. Before the COSC certification standards that are so rigidly defined today were coded, individual movements would be sent to observatories, where they would undergo testing procedures, as well as competitions for chronometry prices. Zenith details that it had been routinely entering chronometry trials as early as 1897. And, because a bit of healthy bragging is appropriate with brag-worthy achievements to back it up, Zenith, in subsequent years, achieved a record-winning 2,333 prizes for its movements in these trials. 

Now that our first history lesson is over, it's high time to move on to why the Caliber 135 is such a big deal within this context and beyond. Though the Caliber 135 was available in a more pedestrian, commercial variation, the Caliber 135-O was specifically designed to be a staunch competitor in these chronometry certifications (specifically at the trials held at the Neuchâtel, Geneva, Kew Teddington, or Besançon observatories). During its production from 1949 to 1962, the 135-O caliber received 235 chronometry prizes, including a record run of five first-place prizes from 1950 to 1954 at the Neuchâtel Observatory alone. But Zenith already did a revival of the 135-O back in 2022, so what makes this new take special? Well, while the previous take focused its energy on accurately depicting the historic caliber in rigid detail, the movement unveiled today reinterprets the movement with modern engineering. The upgrades in question have upped the power reserve in the newly released caliber to 72 hours (from 40 hours), and include an offset center wheel that accompanies the heritage movement’s signature oversized balance wheel for added precision. It also has a new gear train, and has been officially chronometer-certified by the COSC.

Moving onto how the watch itself actually looks, the style codes are intended to harken to the 1950s, along with some touches here and there that make it feel at home today. The G.F.J. — which takes its name from Zenith’s founder, Georges Favre-Jacot’s initials — opts for a slightly dressy sense of style as compared with the brand’s more typical sporty, chronograph-focused makes. The rounded case is made of platinum with varied brushed and finishing techniques and measures 39mm in diameter. What immediately jumps out to me in this new model is the varying shades and textures on the dial, which essentially break up the simplistic time-only functionality into three distinct zones of intrigue. The blue hues are the darkest around the dial’s perimeter, which is where the most dramatic play with texture comes into focus. Underneath the applied indices (which are white gold, by the way), the outer ring has been given a brick guilloché pattern, on top of which 40 tiny, white-gold beads have been applied by hand to mark the minutes. 

The central part of the dial carries on the stone-dial trend that’s been making a brazen comeback in the larger watchmaking world; in this case, its lapis lazuli. The seconds subdial is the lightest and brightest part of the dial, and what I initially took to be some sort of enamel work is actually mother-of-pearl in a blue hue. Admittedly, there’s kind of a lot going on here, but given that the functionality of this piece is so simple, I would argue that, to my eye, all of these bold details don’t feel claustrophobic or cluttered. The other notable dial details include Zenith’s applied star and logo, accompanied by the G.F.J. initials, at 12 o’clock. The G.F.J. is paired with a dark blue alligator leather strap and will also include another two leather calfskin straps, all of which feature a platinum buckle with the brick pattern that matches the dial and the G.F.J. initials. As of now, this model is a 160-piece limited edition, so it will be interesting to see if the G.F.J. remains a special anniversary edition one-off or if the brand will move to make this a full-blown collection and usher a new era of dress watches into its contemporary offerings. 

This watch is available now and priced at $49,900. For more information, visit the Zenith website here.