Glashütte Original Premieres The Spezialist SeaQ Chronograph "Silver Screen"

Glashütte Original is probably not the first watch brand that comes to mind when thinking about Hollywood and the movies. But the Swatch Group-owned Saxon luxury watchmaker has undeniable ties to the art and industry of moviemaking, as the longtime sponsor of the Berlinale, Berlin’s world-famous film festival, and the company even established its own award for documentary filmmakers. It is in that cinematic spirit, the brand tells us, that it conceived the black-and-white “Silver Screen” dial of the newest edition of the SeaQ Chronograph, the recently launched line extension of its 1970s-inspired luxury divers’ watch, the Spezialist SeaQ. After a sneak preview for the international media guests at last week’s Geneva Watch Days, that watch makes its official debut today.

Like the first SeaQ Chronographs from 2022, and its three-handed and Panorama Date-equipped predecessors in the Spezialist line, the new model traces its aesthetic ancestry to a specific sport-oriented dive watch released in 1969 by Glashütte Original’s state-owned predecessor, the conglomerate called Glashütter Uhrenbetriebe, or GUB. That watch, the Spezimatic Type RP TS 200, was the first German-made watch that met the international ISO 6425 standard for dive watches; its modern descendants in the Spezialist family achieve both that standard and Germany's own DIN 8306 dive watch criteria. The SeaQ Chronograph “Silver Screen” — not sure if that will be the official model name or a nickname for the enthusiasts — is no exception. Its 43.2mm stainless steel case is water-resistant to a punishing 300 meters, and its unidirectional rotating bezel uses a black ceramic inlay for its engraved dive scale.

The new dial, of course, is the main event. Following up the sublimely maritime blue colorway of the first SeaQ Chronograph, it is the first in the young series to feature the high-contrast black-and-white (aka “Silver Screen”) dial, in a galvanic silver coloring with black-bordered hands and applied indexes, black-framed subdials at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock, and a Panorama date display at 6 o’clock with large white numerals on black backgrounds. The overall effect is meant to evoke the nostalgia of old black-and-white films, which used a thin layer of silver paint to minimize light dispersion and achieve contrast. The subdials (30-minute chronograph counter at 3, running seconds at 9) are worthy of a call-out, their galvanic black frames carefully cut with a lathe and given a circular-grooved “vinyl” finish in the watchmaking workshop.

Despite its impressive water resistance, the SeaQ Chronograph features a sapphire window in its caseback to show off the movement, Glashütte Original’s in-house automatic Caliber 37-23, which was developed specifically for this watch and builds upon the base 37-01 movement that powers chronograph models in the German maker’s Senator family of dress watches. The movement boasts a lengthy 70-hour power reserve, a magnetic-resistant silicon hairspring, and a flyback capability for the integrated chronograph function, meaning that the stopwatch can be stopped, reset, and restarted with a single pusher to record multiple timed events in succession. It also features the high-level decorations that fans of this brand have come to expect, with Glashütte stripes on the mainplate, polished and beveled edges, blued screws, and a skeletonized rotor.

While it’s definitely a “black tie” type of watch — even if you’re not going to be wearing it on the red carpet of the Oscars or Golden Globes anytime soon — the new SeaQ Chronograph offers multiple looks, pairing with a black rubber strap, a stainless steel bracelet, or an orange textile strap that adds an eye-catching splash of color to this seaworthy chronograph. The MSRP starts at $14,700.