This Might Be the Most Perfect Dress Watch I’ve Ever Seen

Chopard might just be the ultimate sleeper watch brand.

The Alpine Eagle is perhaps the most underrated integrated sports watch on the market. The Mille Miglia series doesn’t get its due as an outstanding racing chronograph. And the brand’s L.U.C collection, which comprises Chopard’s most prestigious watches, boasts complications and beauty standards capable of going toe-to-toe with any haute horlogerie watchmaker.

But lately, Chopard’s L.U.C releases have been getting more and more attention. I’m reminded of that famous Steve Martin quote: Be so good they can’t ignore you.

I for one am most certainly not ignoring the latest watch from Chopard L.U.C, as it might just be the most perfect dress watch I’ve ever seen.

Chopard

Ticking All the Boxes

Dress watches, like all watches, are subjective. Some people — a lot of people — prefer minimalist dress watches: Simple hands and indices, a neutral color, and a complete lack of complications or ornamentation — even a date is often considered non-traditional.

Personally, I tend to find such watches boring. I gravitate more toward watches that are visually interesting. I want style, I want panache, I want complications, and I want all of it in a package that’s beautiful and classy.

Basically, I want the new Chopard L.U.C Lunar One.

The third generation of Chopard’s original astronomical calendar watch reads like a checklist of features I want in a dress watch.

Chopard

• Impressive Complications

The watch boasts three of my favorite complications. First, as the name of the watch suggests, there’s a moonphase display. I’m a sucker for moonphases, and this one is particularly cool as it features the moon as it appears in both the northern and southern hemispheres simultaneously — with their corresponding constellations, the Big Dipper and Southern Cross.

Next, there is a big date display, another complication I love simply for how fun they are to adjust. It’s like having an old-school train departure board on your wrist.

Lastly, there’s a perpetual calendar, arguably the most prestigious complication there is. Chopard says its accurate to within one day every 122 years, which is plenty good enough for me. For good measure, there’s even a 24-hour indicator, which should help when setting up the calendar.

Chopard

• A Gorgeous and Balanced Dial

With all of those complications, the dial could quickly become a horrid mess in the hands of a less-capable brand. But here, everything is so balanced that even Thanos himseld would struggle to find fault in it.

The big date sits just below 12 o’clock, while three evenly spaced subdials handle every other complication. At 9 o’clock, you have the day of the week and the 24-hour display; 6 o’clock bears the moonphase and small seconds; and the 3 o’clock counter has the month and year. Nothing looks crowded or off. It’s perfect.

The rest of the dial is no slouch, either, and is massively improved compared to the two previous generations of the Lunar One. The dauphine hands have been slimmed down, and the ugly oversized Roman numeral indices have been swapped out for elegant applied daggers, all in white or red gold to match their respective case.

The dial has been given a hand-guilloché treatment in unique rays emanating from the moonphase display, while the subdials feature different finishes, such as snailing. All of these extra details provide a ton of visual interest and depth while still working within the design and keeping the watch from looking too busy. It’s a delicate balancing act that Chopard pulls off masterfully.

Chopard

• A Drool-Worthy Movement

Visible through the Lunar One’s sapphire caseback is the in-house calibre L.U.C 96.13-L. Given the aforementioned complications, it’s obviously an impressive movement, but it’s made more impressive by the fact that it’s wound via a micro-rotor.

Micro-rotors are another obsession of mine, and the one used here is in solid gold with guilloché decoration. The micro-rotor, which sits inside the movement, keeps the watch slim for its complexity, with the case measuring just 11.63mm.

The movement has twin stacked barrels providing 65 hours of power, beats at 4 Hz, is COSC certified and has received a Poinçon de Genève designating supreme quality. It’s also dressed to the nines, unsurprisingly.

Chopard

• Sports Watch Tech

I admittedly am a sports watch guy. I rarely wear a dress watch, which probably explains why I like my dress watches to have some interesting things going on with them. Again, I feel like this Chopard was made specifically for me, as it incorporates some decidedly sports watch-like technology in its strap.

At first glance, the Lunar One’s strap appears to be a regular alligator leather strap. But turn it over and you’ll find a proprietary quick-change strap system with a sliding button to make strap changes a breeze. The clasp is a deployant, which I vastly prefer to a pin buckle, and it, too, has a quick-release feature that makes it simple to add to another strap.

These are features I don’t think I’ve ever seen on a dress watch in this echelon before, and they’re both user friendly and add a nice touch of modern tech to what is a mostly traditional watch.

Chopard

• A Comfortable Case in Precious Metal

Finally, we come to the case. It’s available in either solid white gold or rose gold, both of which are 18k and ethically sourced. The case is considerably smaller than the previous generation of the Lunar One, having shrunken down from 43mm across to 40.5mm.

If I were to change one thing about this watch, I would make it a tad smaller — I’d love to get below 40mm — but even as is, there’s very little to complain about. That’s because Chopard gave the case a “bassine” shape, which means its narrower at the base than at the bezel. This effectively allows the watch to sit more comfortably on the wrist, meaning it feels smaller than its dimensions would suggest.

Pricing and Availability

While I like to think the Chopard L.U.C Lunar One was made just for me, its price tag reminds me that it most assuredly was not. This is a serious luxury watch meant for collectors with serious luxury wallets, and it’s priced accordingly at $85,800.

There are two versions of the watch: one in rose gold with a blue dial, and another in white gold with a salmon dial. I vastly prefer the salmon, as I prefer white metal and salmon is my favorite dress watch dial color (Chopard, get out of my brain), but you really can’t go wrong with either if you have the budget.

I, sadly, do not. But if I did, this would be the first dress watch on my shopping list.

Chopard

Chopard L.U.C Lunar One

• $85,800 at Chopard

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