You don’t need a hundred watches to understand a watchmaker. Sometimes, one is enough if it is honest, consistent, and built with conviction. That was the lasting impression after a conversation with Robert Bailey of Laurent Ferrier during Dubai Watch Week. The setting was understated, much like the watches themselves. But behind the soft light and calm design language was something purposeful. A brand quietly marking its fifteenth anniversary not with loud celebration, but with a series of pieces that speak through detail and discipline.
Among them, the new Classic Origin Beige stood out not for what it added, but for what it left out. This latest interpretation of the Origin line, first introduced five years ago to commemorate the brand’s first decade, returns in a new tone. The familiar 40 mm case, with its smooth, rounded silhouette, is presented for the first time in 5N red gold. The dial is beige, warm, and matte, interrupted only by subtle brown transfers and red numerals in the minute track. The proportions are clean and deliberate. There is no flourish for its own sake.
Importantly, this new reference is manual. While Laurent Ferrier is widely associated with its micro-rotor calibres, the choice to use a hand-wound movement reflects a more tactile philosophy. The LF116.01 movement offers an 80-hour power reserve and featuring a screw balance with Breguet overcoil for enhanced stability. The long-blade ratchet delivers a crisp click when wound, a mechanical detail that collectors often mention before anything visual. Robert noted how much care is taken in such moments. Even the generously shaped crown was designed with feel in mind. These are small decisions, but they define the experience.
The two other watches we saw debuted previously in 2025, each expressing a different side of the brand’s personality.
The Classic Auto Horizon takes the maison’s signature micro-rotor calibre and gives it a more functional brief. It offers a date function and automatic winding, in a format that feels suited for everyday wear. The aesthetic remains unmistakably Ferrier. The lines are soft, the details restrained, but there is a quiet nod to the world of motorsport, which shaped Laurent’s early life and career. It wears with ease, without ever feeling ordinary.
Then there is the Classic Traveller Globe Night Blue, a piece that leans into craftsmanship and ornamentation. This second edition of the Traveller features a champlevé enamel globe with deep blue oceans flecked with gold, evoking the glow of cities seen from above. The continents are shaped by hand, the enamel fired and painted in layers, then fired again. It is housed in a white gold case with dual time apertures at three and nine o’clock, and framed by a satin-brushed slate grey hour ring. Mechanically, it is precise and functional. Visually, it is closer to art.
Each of these watches presents a different face. But what connects them is not a shared complication or form. It is a way of thinking. The design is only considered complete once everything unnecessary has been removed. That is not minimalism in the trendy sense. It is a discipline, a refusal to let the loud distract from the lasting.
Fifteen years on, Laurent Ferrier continues to resist the pull of spectacle. These watches are not designed to impress on first glance. They ask for time. They reward those who notice how a crown winds, or how a bevel catches the light. In a space filled with noise, there is value in that kind of quiet. And if the message of this anniversary is anything, it is that refinement is not the absence of effort. It is what happens when effort is fully resolved.
But there is a conflict.
The front speaks in whispers, clean and composed, almost understated. The back tells a completely different story, rich with detail and decoration, almost extravagant. This is not a contradiction that asks to be solved. It is a tension that lives quietly within the watch, meant to be experienced by the wearer rather than judged by the spectator. Two opposing ideals held in one object, made complete not by agreement, but by contrast.
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