French Tool Watch Brand Serica Just Made Their First Dress Watch: the Parade
Watch enthusiasts familiar with Serica have an idea of what to expect from the French microbrand: tool watches with a certain, very distinctive look. But they didn’t likely see this coming. The new Serica Parade is a shaped dress watch in proper retro style and, at first glance, it might seem a complete departure from everything that’s defined Serica DNA until now. We see it as reflecting the underlying brand personality, and as just a damn cool retro dress watch that taps into modern tastes.
Serica debuted in 2019 with its interpretation of a field watch. Despite the familiar format, clever design helped make the Serica W.W.W. and subsequent iterations fresh and surprising. And this is what the brand has been exceedingly good at: making watches that are classically styled yet unexpected and interesting at the same time. It evolved its initial field watch design and adapted it to dive and GMT watches.
Each of the brand’s existing collections has that spark of novelty and creativity, but they also share a consistent design language. That’s just good branding. Dot indices unusually close to the dial’s center and an arrow-shaped hour hand are recurring elements. But, to me, it’s the underlying approach that defines the brand more than specific design traits, and the Parade helps reveal this about Serica.
The Serica Parade doesn’t share many design features from the brand’s previous watches. What it does share is, rather, that quality of looking classic and yet not quite like anything you’ve seen before. Here it takes the form of an oblong case with a stepped bezel recalling the likes of "disco volante" watches. And this fits right in with the current enthusiasm for small, funky-yet-dressy vintage styles, which some have called “geezer watches,” and of which I’ve been a fan for many years. Serica calls the case style "stadium."
The one component that does recall previous Serica watches is the bezel with its flat, brushed top a subtle nod to the field watch. But this is a dressy affair through and through (despite a welcome 100m water resistance). With a pattern the brand calls S guilloche, the dial comes across as pretty minimalist. There’s no branding aside from “Serica” alongside the usual “Swiss” at the dial’s edge at 6 o’clock. It might almost appear to lack indices at first glance, but they’re there: little applied spheres to help ease reading the time.
And here’s where I put on my annoying legibility czar hat. The Serica Parade comes in two dial variants: Satin Black and Sunray Brass. Dark dials + shiny hands = a recipe for squinting and angling one’s wrist awkwardly in many situations. The people at Serica are no dummies, though, and although this kind of thing is most forgivable on a dress watch such as this, I do believe they considered legibility. Here, domed hands are not just a cool aesthetic touch but they’ll help the hands find light to reflect. Regardless, the brass version will likely be more legible, and that’s something I always take into consideration.
Key to the whole thing, though, is that case shape as well as its thinness. It’s such a simple silhouette and yet one that remains uncommon in watches. You might think of watches like the Patek Philippe Golden Ellipse and similar models from the 1960s. But Serica’s has a different character completely. Despite a thickness of 8.6mm, there’s still room for that stepped bezel design with brushed tops and broad, polished chamfers.
A few elements work in conjunction with the generally thin measurements. Spreading out toward the caseback helps it sit nice and flat against the wrist. The caseback is where the brand notes a neat little engineering feature: the screws don’t merely secure the caseback to the case, but they’re longer than usual and extend all the way into the bezel. According to Serica, this helps further compress the O ring gaskets and achieve that sport watch-worthy 100m water resistance.
Of course the case’s other dimensions are also part of its wearability with a width of 35mm that’ll be palatable for the crowd that loves vintage sizing. A “lugless” design, meaning the strap attaches directly under the case, always helps a watch wear more easily, regardless of the above mentioned thinness and other elements. Longwise, it measures 41mm. The strap’s custom buckle that echoes the case shape is another highlight. That case conceals a Soprod M100 automatic movement which features basic Geneva stripe finishing which you won’t see due to the closed caseback.
Serica has a knack for making a familiar type of watch novel and fresh through design. It’s one thing you can expect from the brand: watches that look like nothing else, and the Parade delivers that once again. It appropriately comes on a leather strap, but can't you imagine it on, say, a thin mesh bracelet? It's also easy to envision more dial variants and fun iterations. It’s one of the standout microbrand releases of the year, and a collection with a future to look forward to.
Serica Parade
Dimensions: 35mm x 41mm x 8.6mm
Movement: Soprod M100 automatic
Materials: Steel case; sapphire crystal
Water Resistance: 100m
Price: EUR 1,490
To learn more, visit Serica here
