One of the young (but actually historic) French brands that’s stormed back into relevancy in recent years is none other than Nivada Grenchen. With the reissue of the delightfully funky “Chronograph Aviator Sea Diver” (CASD for short) back in 2020, the brand had an immediately familiar face upon which to build. And build is exactly what they’ve done, fully fleshing out their Chronomaster and Depthmaster collections, but also bringing back the Antarctic field watch in a variety of configurations. This week, the Antarctic welcomes a new kind of watch in the Aquamar, a diver with a few surprises up its sleeve.
The Antarctic Aquamar is a reimagining of one of the brand’s skin divers of the ‘60s, a straightforward design bearing the same Aquamar name. The new Aquamar is referential to this design, but this isn’t a reissue by any stretch. That said, they do each have a suitably throwback vibe to their design. On that note, one detail that generally gets pulled into somewhat controversial territory on that front is the color of the hour markers. Here, Nivada Grenchen has come up with a rather novel idea to have the best of both worlds.
Rather than use a date display, they’ve repurposed the date disc to serve as the hour marker under apertures at each hour. Where the crown would normally adjust the date, here it swaps between pure white, and ‘aged’ yellow, offering two distinct looks that can be accessed on the fly. Is it a bit of a gimmick? Yes. But is it fun? Also, yes. This will work with a trio of dial options in black, grey, and blue. Setting that aside, the design of the hour markers is quite unique, and defines the overall look and feel of the otherwise standard looking diver.
The new Aquamar (side note, how fun is that to say?) uses a 38mm steel case that measures 45mm from lug to lug, and 12.9mm in total thickness. The case is brushed with no real chamfer line to speak of, so it feels true to its simple skin diver roots. Inside, Nivada is using a Soprod P024 (ETA 2824 close) automatic movement with 30 hours of reserve. The watch gets a handy 200 meter depth rating to boot. The movement is, in my view, not an ideal choice given the issues they’ve experienced (not to mention the less than optimal reversing gears) especially with a starting price just north of $1,000.
Since relaunching the brand in 2020, there have been a shocking number of references brought to market. While there are certainly some good looking designs in the bunch, including this, I worry that there’s been too much, too quickly to ensure the level of quality I’d like to see from a brand like this. That’s not even taking into consideration the many other watch-brands-as-projects that Guillaume Laidet is currently juggling, which includes Vulcain, Excelsior Park, and others.
Laidet is full of creative ideas to get these brands back to their former glory, and I hope he’s able to devote the requisite attention needed to see these visions to fruition. That said, the volume of releases here is staggering, and in my experience with some of them, the fit and finish leaves something to be desired.
The Nivada Grenchen Antarctic Aquamar will launch June 19th at the starting price of $1,050. Nivada Grenchen
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