ReviewAn Ideal Time Zone Watch For India—Oris’ New Calibre 114

We live in an age when it’s become increasingly important to know the time in more zones than the one you’re in. Be it for business or pleasure, travel has become an integral part of the lives of most. You may or may not have access to WiFi at all times when travelling, so the world clock on your phone won’t always be updated. However, the one instrument that won’t let you down is a mechanical timepiece that can show you the time in a secondary or reference time zone. When it comes to India, though, we’ve always had to account for the extra half-hour—the inconvenient 30 minutes that we still have to count mentally even when using a watch with a GMT feature. But not anymore. This year, Oris has unveiled a time zone watch that is meant exactly for us, and people from other time zones, who have the additional 30 minutes to consider. Oris gives us the Big Crown ProPilot Calibre 114.

A Watch ‘Custom-Made’ For India

“Two years ago, someone from India asked us: why don’t you do something for us, since we have the half-hour time difference?” reveals Ulrich Herzog, chairman of Oris. “And we began to develop this movement. It represents the values of the company. It shows our history of movement making and innovations that have practical applications.” Herzog refers to the brand’s philosophy of only ever creating watches with features that make sense to a user. Functionality has always been one of the brand’s biggest priorities, and they’ve maintained that consistently with their in-house manufactured movements over several years.

The Advancements In Oris’ Watchmaking

Following a history of developing mechanisms in the initial years after the brand’s foundation in 1904, Oris decided to go back to creating manufacture calibres in 2014, as they celebrated their 110th anniversary. That was when the Oris Calibre 110 was born. Calibre 110 marked a return to a certain league of mechanical watchmaking and the brand had no intention of stopping there. “That first movement had a power reserve of 10 days, with no date. And then there was Calibre 111, with a date. And it continued with 112, 113,” explains Herzog with pride, as he talks about the brand’s annual in-house calibres, each with a distinctive development.

While most of the in-house calibres have been introduced in the Oris Artelier collection, the Calibre 114 movement became the first to be launched in the Big Crown series. It was an apt choice by the brand to showcase this calibre in a Big Crown watch since its key feature is the GMT function, which was originally meant for pilots. As the name suggests, the watches from this series come with big crowns, which allow users to easily make adjustments even while wearing aviation gloves. This functionality is particularly handy for the Calibre 114 edition since the movement is manual winding. The knurled edges of the big crown complement the coin-edged ring of the bezel, accompanying a smooth top ring with a brushed or polished finish.

It’s All On The Face Of The Watch

The Oris in-house calibre, which offers a significant 10-day power reserve, is housed within a stainless steel case that is water resistant to 100m. At 44mm in diameter, the case size is justified owing to the features packed into the movement. On the face of the dial in anthracite grey or black, with applied Arabic numerals, you can see a small seconds sub-dial and the date aperture at nine o’clock and Oris’ patented non-linear power reserve indicator at three. Besides the central hour and minute hands, there is a central GMT hand, with its unique red arrow-head pointing to the 24-hour timescale, which also has dots to indicate the half-hour points between each hour. The SuperLuminova on the central timekeeping hands and the hour numerals ensures optimal readability even in low-light conditions. This timepiece is available with a brown crocodile leather strap, but also comes with a steel bracelet or a fabric strap in black, grey or olive.

This power-packed timepiece that puts an end to any Indian’s search for the ideal GMT watch is certainly one that offers visual value to various aesthetic sensibilities. The real value is key in more ways than one with this watch, as it always is for Oris. This is just the perfect timepiece for all the high-flyers and jetsetters out there.

The new Oris Big Crown ProPilot Calibre 114 is available in India, exclusively through Ethos

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