It seems like just last week we were celebrating Hautlence’s 10th anniversary in their hometown of Neuchatel. Prior to that during the month of August, Hautlence were kind enough of to lend me a piece from their entry-level collection, the Destination.
And because the Hautlence Destination is first and foremost a travel watch, I decided to take my Destination 02 loaner to a locale I don’t think any other watch blogger has been to, and that’s my hometown Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
First announced almost two years ago and as confirmed by Georges-Henri Meylan, chairman of MELB Holding (the company that acquired Hautlence 3 years ago), the Destination is something of a milestone for Hautlence. It not only represents a departure from the brand’s signature jumping hours and retrograde minutes complication, but also a turning point in the brand’s strategy of broadening its market by proposing watches that are less complicated yet stylistically very much within Hautlence’s avant-garde aesthetic codes.
As the name would imply, the Hautlence Destination is a watch for the modern traveler, fitted with a dual-time complication as well as a day & night indication. Though it couldn’t be further from your typical GMT, dual-time or world-time watch.
The case takes on the instantly recognizable Hautlence rectangular silhouette with rounded corners and edges. Composed of a black DLC-coated titanium case and a red gold bezel, the case measures 43.5mm by 37mm, with a height of 13mm. All things considered, this is an easily wearable watch even on daintier wrists.
One of the most distinguishable parts of the Hautlence Destination is one yod tend to overlook in other watches, the sapphire crystal. Raised, faceted and angled, it’s rather impressive to behold and is certainly. Just below it sits a second sapphire crystal, where polished golden Arabic numerals give the impression of floating above the dial. It almost looks like the numerals are stuck to the underside of the outer sapphire crystal.
Unlike most other Hautlence pieces that feature alternative ways of reading the hours and minutes, the Destination is fairly traditional in that the dial has central hour and minute hands. The dial itself is made of multiple parts or layers. At the center is a black guilloché pattern surrounded by a radial brushed square track in a rose gold tone. Around that is vertically satin-brushed black metal, set with brushed gold appliqués for the dual-time disk at 6 o’clock and the Hautlence logo and big date window opposite. Overall the dial is very three-dimensional and gives the piece the kind of intricacy and depth Hautlence is known for while remaining easily legible.
Now let’s talk about the main feature of the watch, the dual-time function. Instead of a second dial or GMT hand, the second timezone (or home time) is implemented as a semi-transparent disk, with a day & night indicator depicting a circle for the sun and crescent for the moon. It’s fairly intuitive to read and get used to for reading a second timezone, and the way the day & night indicator is incorporated is quite clever. Unfortunately however, setting the time on the disk is not as straightforward Because the disk is directly linked to the main hours hand and cannot be set independently, the user is required to first create the time “gap” between the local time and home time disk (or the other way around if you prefer) by moving the hour hand backwards (since the disk only moves forward), then setting the actual time. I would have much preferred an independent setting of the disk via an additional crown position or even external pushers for quick adjustments, but that’s just me.
On the titanium case models such as the Destination 02 and Destination 03, the guilloche part of the dial is done in a bolder modern honeycomb grid pattern that allows a view onto the movement, a design trait that goes back to the very first Hautlence pieces from 10 years ago.
The caseback features a small window where the escapement of the Soprod movement can be seen, as well as the oscillating rotor and its gold mass bearing the Hautlence logo. The rest of the case back is engraved with a sort of UTC index showing the time difference across 12 major time zones (I’m showing the titanium version’s back just because the engraved cities in my photos Destonation 02’s back were barely visible).
While the Hautlence Destination pieces are positioned as the brand’s most accessible line, there’s nothing entry-level about them. If one is willing to look beyond the outsourced Soprod base movement, the overall quality and finish of the case and dial of the Hautlence Destination leaves little to be desired in an such an avant-garde watch. Besides the quirk in the setting method mentioned above, this is definitely one of more original GMT/dual-time watches out there.
The red gold Hautlence Destination 01 retails at the price of $33’600 USD, while the black titanium Destination 03 can be had for $24,700 USD and slightly less for the titanium Destination 02.
A special thank you to Caroline Büchler at Hautlence for making this review possible.
More information on www.hautlence.com
