Zenith: Harking back to its history
While Zenith unveiled numerous DEFYs at LVMH Watch Week, the focus definitely was on the prestigious history and patrimony of the brand. We speak to Romain Marietta – Products Development & Heritage Director at Zenith Watches – who explains how the current DEFYs hark back to their historic counterparts
Can you tell us about the DEFY Skyline, its case, and the starry sky pattern on the dial?
We were partly inspired by the original DEFY that came out in 1969, and partly by the DEFY collection that we refreshed in 2017. The 1969 timepiece had an octagonal shape, with numerous angles and a particular bezel – a very avant-garde design when it was launched. It is an important chapter of our history that we wanted to highlight and create a special edition around – a revival that focuses on our patrimony and extends the programme of revival that we started in 2019, with the Chronomaster. It mostly focuses on the chronographs, but I think it is now time to write a new chapter and educate our audience about our cool designs and how we were at the forefront of avant-garde even back in the days. This timepiece specifically has been the inspiration for the Skyline – for the case, the aesthetics.
On the caseback of this watch – not only this watch but on most of the watches, chronographs and iconic models of the late 60s, is featured a star, a double Z combined to form a star. This star is the starting point for the dial pattern – the starry sky pattern. We were inspired by this and recreated and replicated the specific pattern on the dial to obtain the starry sky.
This is also linked to our name Zenith, meaning the highest point in the sky – which we are highlighting in some of our other collections, such as the DEFY Midnight that we launched in Dubai in 2020. This is also the inspiration for our communications “Time to reach your star” as it is our guiding star since the foundation of the Manufacture.
Looking closely at the dial, you can easily recognise this four-pointed star that we have recreated. This is perfectly aligned – horizontally and vertically – and creates a beautiful pattern that has no equivalent in the market and is featured on all of our DEFY Skyline models. As all of these are inspired by the original 1969 Zenith timepiece, it is a real link to our patrimony.
Were you surprised at how successful the Revival line has been?
We first thought about the possibility of doing a Revival line, in early 2018, before we finally decided we would launch it for our 50th anniversary in 2019. It started out as being quite niche, but then became really big immediately. I think it is because not only was it a surprise for our audience, but it was so well-done. We have been recreating our most iconic products in a very respectful way. We have been able to maintain the same proportions as the watches from 60s, which is an asset as others cannot do this. They do not have the same movement any more, whereas we still have the same movement and, thanks to the proportions of the movement, recreate faithfully our most iconic product.
We have to admit that this line had become really big in the Chronomaster collection, and we want to extend this to other lines starting from the DEFY now. We have two main pillars of our collection equipped with Revival and we can think of the future. We will most probably do something similar with our Pilot and Elite collection. We have such a rich history and patrimony that we will go further with this concept. We started as a niche line, but it has grown really big with this Revival. In terms of quantity, annually speaking, it is a few thousands.
Given Zenith’s history, there must be a historical database which Zenith can look back and decided which watch to revive next?
Exactly, we have our own museum with a lot of watches; we have all the archives, the technical plans, documents, and all the serial numbers from all of the past 157 years. We can authenticate and restore all of our watches that went out of our Manufacture from any period. When we do a Revival watch, we take the original watch from our museum, measure all the proportions with laser. We are able to recreate these watches because most of them are equipped with El Primero and the movement has stayed the same for 53 years.
In the new DEFY Revival A3642, we have changed the movement; it is the Elite movement – our second Manufacture calibre – which is extra-thin and allowed us to recreate the same proportion. So, even if we do not have the same movement, we have another calibre that allows us to do a Revival in a respectful manner.
