Watch showcase ~ Zenith 曬曬手錶 ~ 真力時

In each of my previous Watch Showcase  posts, I’ve always shared a story on how I acquired my timepiece.   If you remember one of my earlier posts about my Concord watch, I bought that during the good times just before I took a voluntary redundancy package from work.
曬曬手錶系列今次要介紹我最愛的真力時手錶。大家可能對這個品牌有點陌生。它始創於1865年已有超過150年歷史，在2000年被國際知名品牌LVMH集團收購旗下，而今年7月份香港著名歌手陳奕迅更做了品牌的代言人。 真力士手錶的機芯是行內最著名，它的準確度達1/10秒，至今還沒有其他品牌的機芯可以做到。 我很喜歡這隻手錶，覺得她充滿動力，以前幾乎每天都帶。手帶是用絹做所以較容易破損。現在我已不敢經常帶，希望能夠買到新的更換。

I ended up taking a year off from work, and during that time I did absolutely nothing everyday which was great. I hadn’t started blogging then otherwise I might have been quite productive, and I didn’t go away on holiday as my husband was working. The only thing I did quite religiously was being a good wife and cooking most evenings, as we couldn’t be so extravagant and eat out every evening on a single income. A year later I started to get a bit bored with cooking every night nothing to do all day.  By chance my previous manager was looking to recruit again, so the timing was perfect.  A few months after I returned to work, I bought another watch to celebrate.  Today I’m going to share with you my favourite watch out of my collection, the Zenith Star Open.

I love this watch as it’s bold, loud and girly, everything that I’m not.  From the sharp cerise satin watch strap, the dancing numerals,  the open heart on the dial which is famous for Zenith’s Open range of wathces, to the small red heart at the end of the second hand, this watches screams “Girl Power” is every sense.  But the most important thing of all, behind all this lies over 150 years of watch making craftmanship.  The movement, the soul of the watch, is one the best, if not the best in the industry.  So good that it is shown through the open heart in the front of the watch, as well as the see through case in the back.

THE BRAND – ZENITH

Zenith is a Swiss luxury watch maker established in 1865.  In 2000 it was acquired by LVMH the global luxury conglomerate that owns many other well known luxury brands.  It is one of the few watchmakers that still make their movements in house, and such is their precision and quality that it was used by Rolex for their famous Daytona watches in 1988 to 2000. The core of Zenith watches lies with its El Pimero calibre, created in 1965.  To date it is the only movement capable of measuring up so 1/10th of a second (remember we’re talking about mechanical not digital here).  Other brand’s movements can only measure up to 1/8 of a second at best.  Each Zenith watch takes 9 months to make and involves a few thousands  processes, all hand made of course by the expert watch makers.

THE WATCH

My watch is part of the Chronomaster Open series.   The ‘open’ refers to the opening on the dial to showcase the hallmark  El Pimero movement, the soul of the watch.  In this particurlar range, the Queen of Love range, the opening is shaped like a heart at the 10 o’clock position.  There are three buttons on the side of the watch, the centre one to adjust the time and the top and bottom one for the chronograph (timing) function.

Above 6 o’clock is a love dash, this is the reserve meter which shows the running reserve function.  In my photos you will see that the pointer points to the left which means the watch has no reserve power as I haven’t been wearing it.    And finally to complement the Queen of Love theme, the second hand at the bottom of the open heart is a red heart which turns around itself.

THE SPECIFICATION

• Brand : Zenith
• Model: Queen of Love range, Star Open
• Movement : Automatic, El Primero caliber
• Case : Stainless steel with see through case back
  
• Diameter : 37mm
• Glass : Sapphire Crystal Scratch Resistant
• Dial : Red dial with open heart showing the movement, power reserve with indicator
• Numerals : Silver numerics
• Strap : Satin
• Clasp : Stainless steel double folding clasp

THE PACKAGING

Apart from my Divan Cartier, this is the only other watch where I have kept the packaging.  The outer cardboard box has a gold (not real of course) rim 1/3 across to seperate the body and the opening of the box.  When you pull them apart there is a wooden case which contains the watch, and a glossy instruction booklet.

The watch sits safely inside the padded wooden case  and in the front is a little compartment with a covering to house other accesories such as the spare watch strap with comes with some of the other models. The small black card is the watch certificate, something that you must keep to prove its authenticity.  And the glossy booklet is in multi language detailing operational information for the various models in this range.

As I mentioned already, this is my favourite watch despite it not being very me.  Maybe that’s just what I need as a balance in life.  I used to wear this watch most of the time, particularly when I was still working as it adds a dash of colour to my rather boring attire.  Sadly, since the watch strap is made of satin, it wears out very easily.  You can see the difference between the watch when I first bought it, and the photo I took this week.

The wear and tear is quite apparent and the stitches have even started to come apart.   I’m a bit worried that it will fall apart if I continue to wear it.  So for the time being, my Star Open is going back into its box.  Hopefully I can get a replacement watch strap for it soon.