Ebel Turns 115. Its Anniversary Watches Split the Difference Between Mechanics and Sparkle

Eugène Blum knew how to build a movement. Alice Lévy knew how to make it beautiful. In 1911, the couple opened a watchmaking business in La Chaux-de-Fonds built on that division of labor, and the tagline they landed on — "Beauty Marries Function" — has stuck to Ebel ever since. For the brand's 115th anniversary in 2026, that split gets a literal interpretation: two limited editions in the Sport Classic line, one built around a chronograph movement, the other built around colored stones. Function gets its watch. Beauty gets its own.

Sport Classic Chronograph 40mm: An Early-'80s Throwback, Built by Dubois Dépraz 

The more technically interesting of the pair is the Sport Classic Chronograph. It's a direct nod to Ebel's Sport Classic chronographs from the early 1980s, the era when the brand made its name pairing steel cases with gold accents. The 40mm case, in steel with 18-karat 3N yellow gold elements, runs 11.6mm thick and is rated to 5 bar (50 meters). 

The caseback is sapphire, so the movement is on display. That movement is the DD2222, an automatic chronograph caliber supplied by Dubois Dépraz. Ebel's press materials don't list a frequency or a power reserve figure — a gap that's worth flagging, since Dubois Dépraz is best known for chronograph modules built to sit on top of someone else's base caliber rather than for standalone movements.

The dial is opaline white with black printed Roman numerals, gold-plated counter rings, and matching gold-plated baton hands for the hours and minutes; the flat sweep seconds hand gets the same treatment. The date window sits at 4:30 — a placement dictated by the rest of the dial Tricompax-Chronograph-Layout. Alongside the deep blue dial on a further gold-and-steel anniversary piece, Ebel also offers the chronograph in pure steel with white or navy dials, though the yellow gold accents are reserved for the anniversary version. Production is capped at 115 pieces, individually numbered 001/115 through 115/115, with a market launch set for October 2026 (Reference 1216750).

Sport Classic Gemstones 29mm: No Mechanics, All Color 

The second release drops any mechanical pretense entirely. It runs on the ETA E61.031 quartz caliber, and the real story is the bezel: 47 multicolored gemstones, each 1.20mm in diameter, VS-SI clarity, totaling 0.329 carats and arranged in a rainbow gradient. The stone lineup contains tsavorite, yellow sapphire, spessartite garnet, red spinel, pink spinel, amethyst, blue sapphire, and London blue topaz. This repeats in smaller form on the mother-of-pearl dial, where eight more multicolored stones (0.056 carats combined) sit alongside applied Roman numerals.

At 29mm across and 5.99mm thick, the steel-and-18K-3N-gold case is considerably more compact than the chronograph's, with the same 5 bar water resistance. The standout detail is the original 1911 Ebel logo, printed in black on the dial, a nod to the brand's founding rather than to the '80s Sport Classic aesthetic that shapes the chronograph. The bracelet uses Ebel's signature wave-link construction, satin-brushed with polished, 3N yellow gold PVD-coated links and closed with a folding clasp, the same bracelet architecture as the chronograph, scaled down. Unlike the chronograph, the Gemstones edition isn't capped at a fixed number, but it does come in three case sizes: 24mm, 29mm, and 33mm. It hits the market in August 2026 (Reference 1216753 for the 29mm version), two months ahead of the chronograph.

The Dubois Dépraz-powered chronograph and the quartz Gemstones piece are clearly aimed at different buyers, and Ebel isn't pretending otherwise. What both pieces share is a reliance on the brand's own history, from the early-'80s chronograph design on to the 1911 founding logo. Pricing has not yet been disclosed.