RJ Romain Jerome have been full of surprises lately, and 2014 is shaping up to be quite the year for the brand. Mind you, the brand was founded in 2004, so this year marks its 10th anniversary. I guess it’s only natural that we should expect as much!
Romain Jerome first whetted our appetites at the end of last year with the Skylab skeleton collection (which I got the first excusive hands-on look at here), a watch that resembled nothing else Romain Jerome had ever presented thus far. Was it a sign that the brand had turned a new page? That it was finally offering something oriented towards the more conventional watch buyer? While I have no doubt that Romain Jerome will still continue with their more outlandish pieces (which for the most past I actually really enjoy), this could very well be an additional direction the brand is pursuing.
If you thought the Skylab was a pleasant surprise, that you might be even more astonished when you the 1969 collection. It’s so… clean! This could very well be the Romain Jerome that people who, to put it mildly, don’t particularly like Romain Jerome might actually fall for.
You have to put things into context. Romain Jerome isn’t your average watch brand. You don’t buy a Romain Jerome for its horological merits (unless you’re talking about the Spacecraft or more recent Moon Orbiter). You buy one because you love the bold and avant-garde design and perhaps more importantly, the story that comes with the watch. It’s all about emotions and nostalgia. I guess you could call Romain Jerome a storyteller first and foremost.
Up until now, the brand used tangible pieces of human history like the Titatnic, Apollo 11, an actual DeLorean car (who doesn’t love Back to the Future?) and Moon Dust to tell the story. But with the 1969, an obvious homage to the year man first landed on the moon, the story is left to the imagination. With the 1969 Romain Jerome present their most restrained design to date, but that’s not to say it’s mundane in the least. It’s more about producing a watch that is toned-down in proportion and design, while still retaining the originality and audacity the brand has built its reputation upon.
The stainless steel case (black PVD-treated for the brown dial version) is Romain Jerome’s most wearable to date, in a very reasonable 43mm-wide diameter and a relatively slender profile. It’s still the same core RJ round case design with the signature 4 “claws”, but rendered more discrete. The entire case is satin-brushed, giving it a sportier and more modern look. The polished claws that hold the bezel in place are attached to the case by star-shaped screws, which I guess are meant to evoke a sense of “Americana”, and in this particular case I would say the “Space Cowboy” seen on Romain Jerome’s website. The crystal is slightly domed and resembles the more retro mineral crystals when viewed from the side. The crown bears the footmarks left behind on the moon by the landing pads of the lunar module.
The dial is what really takes the cake and sets the collection apart in my opinion. Made of Silicium (just a fancy French word for the element metalloid silicon), an increasingly popular material in the watch industry when it comes to movement components like escape wheels, balances and pallet forks, the use of the material as a dial has never been though of before, which I find quite surprising when you see just how cool this material is in person. Thanks to a color PVD treatment, the natural pattern of the silicium plays with light unlike any other dial material I’ve come across. It’s metallic and mineral at the same time, with different parts reflecting light in different angles resulting in a monochrome fireworks spectacle of sorts. There’s a blue version which happens to be my personal favorite, a grey version and a brown version which is exceptionally housed in a blacked-out case.
On the clean dial with only a sub-seconds indication that imitates the pattern on an astronaut’s visor sit three slim and faceted arrow hands, polished on one side and satin-brushed on the other for easier reading under different lighting conditions. The rehaut flange ring is set with baton hour-markers filled with SuperLuminova that also enhance legibility.
The use of such a dial definitely adds an outerspace ambiance to the watch, but at the same time I can’t help but feel Manuel Emch’s influence from his days at Jaquet Droz coming through, where mineral dials of all sorts were used extensively (I’m still kicking myself for not picking up a Spectrolite Grand Heure Minute, but I’ll keep my woes to myself).
I’ve always believed that if you don’t have a movement worth showing, then keep the caseback solid. This is something Romain Jerome understand all too well. The 7750 workhorse movement is housed behind a pretty cool case back with a stellar pattern and a central 3D sculptured silver moon made of “Moon SilverRJ”, an alloy which incorporates moon dust with a lox oxidation rate that develops a unique patina over time.
The fourth and final member of the 1969 family is the Meteorite version, where the natural traits of the space-rock appear be further highlighted by etching. The result is a far more pronounced pattern than say the meteorite dial of the Rolex Daytona.
The 43mm case wears slightly smaller than stated thanks to the wide bezel. By Romain Jerome’s standards, this is the equivalent of a classical time-only three-hand watch with an enamel or guilloché dial. No, it’s not a dress watch per se, but I do believe that this is the least garish Romain Jerome to date, a watch that can easily become a daily wearer for all occasions.
The Romain Jerome 1969 is limited to 99 pieces in each of the four version with a price tag of 8’900 CHF for the Silicium dials and 9’900 CHF for the meteorite dials.
More information on www.romainjerome.ch
