Maurice Lacroix Teams Up with Mohindra Racing for a New Aikon Tide

It’s been almost a year since Maurice Lacroix unveiled the Aikon Tide watches. These colorful sports watches made from up-cycled ocean plastics represent a new entry point into the Maurice Lacroix collection, coming in at under $1,000 and making an overt play for the hard earned cash of a younger watch consumer. When the watches launched a year ago, many in the community rolled their eyes at another brand jumping on the green bandwagon with a “plastic” watch. But in the months since the Tide’s launch, a plastic watch of a different variety has absolutely taken over the watch world. The MoonSwatch is, admittedly, at a lower price point, but the enthusiastic response to those watches proves that nontraditional and considerably less expensive materials are capable of catching on in the right package. The Tide, then, isn’t going anywhere, and Maurice Lacroix has just unveiled a new version with their partners at Mahindra Racing in an appealing new colorway that might serve to remind some that there are other brands to consider in the plastic watch realm. 

Maurice Lacroix has had a relationship with Mahindra Racing since 2020. The team is part of the founding group of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, which is the premier circuit for the latest crop of single seater electric race cars. The new crop of electrics are serious pieces of tech unto themselves, with lightning quick acceleration and top speeds approaching 200 miles per hour. As with F1 and other motorsport endeavors, partnerships between watch brands and race teams are a natural fit given the inherent importance of timing in the sport, along with a natural overlap between car nuts and watch collectors. 

The new Aikon Tide Mahindra follows a fairly well understood format for this type of watch, which is to ape the color palette most associated with the team and include their logo somewhere on the dial, hopefully in a discrete way. For the Mahinda watch, that means a watch clad in black and red, and the logo in a repeating pattern across the dial. I admit that I’m not a Formula E devotee, so the dial didn’t immediately scream “RACING TEAM LOGO” to me, but read more as a fun, textured design. And I’m quite fond of the red and black combination as well, particularly with the red strap option. Wrong sport, but it’s very 1990s Chicago Bulls, a look this child of the 90s deeply appreciates. 

The ocean plastic derived case of the Tide is 40mm in diameter, and according to Maurice Lacroix each watch requires the equivalent of 17 plastic bottles to produce (including the packaging). The plastics are combined with a glass fiber material, and the big draw here has always been that it can be created in just about any color imaginable without a degradation in quality. Most of the Aikon Tide releases to this point have been in vibrant colors to take advantage of this. The material itself, in a finished watch, feels surprisingly premium. If you hear “plastic watch” and immediately think of a run-of-the-mill Swatch, you’ll likely be surprised by how the Tide feels in the hand and on the wrist. That’s not a knock on Swatch by any means, but the Tide sits at a higher price point and should feel more like a luxury product. 

Like the other watches in the Aikon Tide collection, this one is powered by a quartz movement, outfitted with a sapphire crystal, and includes a screw down crown that aids the watch in keeping water resistant to a full 100 meters. The retail price is $850.