ochs und junior Debuts the Affordable settimana classic black

Back in January we told you about a new line of affordably priced watches by ochs und junior that maintain the brand’s unique design sensibility but control costs by leaving out the potentially expensive customization options they’ve become known for. While not technically part of the “ochs line” of non-customizable affordable watches, ochs und junior’s latest release is very much in that same spirit. The settimana classic black is right in the brand’s wheelhouse, taking a well known complication, in this case a day of the week indicator, and stripping it down to its bare essentials, making it both mechanically and aesthetically simple. 

No surprises here, but the settimana classic black is available in any color you like, as long as it’s black (other versions are available, however). That’s perfectly fine for this watch, though, as it serves to highlight the watch’s complication with a clean white contrasting indicator, matching either Arabic numerals or simple indices at the dial’s perimeter. The complication is pretty easy to understand: there are seven round apertures in a circle in the dial’s interior, and a white dot tracks from one to the next as the week passes on. It lines up at 1:00 on Monday, and then ends at 7:00 on Sunday. The dot jumps between 8:00 and 12:00 when the week resets.

The complication, as implemented here, was invented by ochs und junior’s Ludwig Oeschlin and uses a module on top of a Sellita SW200-1 movement. The module consists of just four components, and its simple construction keeps the watch’’s thickness manageable, coming in at just 10.8mm tall. ochs und junior will make the settima classic black in both 36mm and 40mm case sizes in grade 5 titanium. Cases have an intentionally industrial finish, with visible signs of machining and milling evident throughout. 

The settimana in this configuration reads as a particularly spare watch, and is highly legible thanks to the black and white contrast. The day of the week complication seems like it would be remarkably intuitive, but one wonders how often an owner of the watch will really need to call on it to remember the day of the week. We all have those mornings where we wake up slightly confused and wonder if we need to quickly jump out of bed and get to work, or if we’re good to go back to sleep for several more hours (right?), but in that particular situation, I don’t know that anyone should count on a watch to jolt them back into reality. Like most watch complications, this is more about a certain kind of charm in the mechanics than real, practical, day to day use, and that’s just fine by us. 

The suggested retail is CHF 2,400 (excluding VAT) with orders being taken directly by ochs und junior.