Frederique Constant introduced a GMT timepiece with an in-house movement to its Classics dress-watch collection in 2011. Now the Geneva-based, Citizen Group-owned affordable luxury brand adds this travel-friendly complication to its nautically sporty Yacht Timer series in a new model with two distinct executions.
The 42-mm case of the Frederique Constant Yacht Timer GMT is made of stainless steel with a rose-gold plating. Under its convex sapphire crystal is a guilloche dial in either silvery white or anthracite gray, with rose-gold plated hands and hour indices treated with Super-LumiNova and a date window at 3 o’clock. Bordering the inner edge of those markers is a 24-hour GMT ring, with a red-tipped central hand to indicate the hour in a second time zone. The user-friendly design of this scale uses black for the nighttime hours between 6:00 PM and 6:00 AM, and white or light gray for the remaining daylight hours. The date is paired with the local time displayed by the main hour and minute hands.
Beating inside the 100-meter water-resistant case, and behind a sapphire window in the back, is Frederique Constant’s self-winding FC-350 caliber, based on a Sellita SW200 and incorporating an in-house-designed GMT module. The movement beats at a brisk 28,800 vph and stores a respectable power reserve of 38 hours. The white-grained dial version comes on a brown alligator leather strap, while the gray-dial model is on a bicolor bracelet of steel and rose-gold-plated steel. Both watches come with an additional rubber strap perhaps more suitable to withstand the sea spray on the deck of a yacht. The gray-dial/bracelet watch retails for $1,095, and the white dial/strap model for $2,095.
Good exquisite GMT watches from Frederique Constant but suffers from lack of brand recognition. I owned a Rolex but would not mind to have such good time pieces to my collection ….