Two faces and one glass of Chasselas
By Julien Moreau, Geneva ยท
The finest use of a Reverso Duoface I have ever witnessed was at a lunch in Gstaad, where a banker turned his watch over to show the table his second time zone and, in the same flourish, sent a glass of Chasselas into his own lap. He took it very well. The watch, I noted, was perfectly unharmed, which is more than could be said for his trousers.
The Tribute line is the most faithful of the modern Reversos to the 1931 original: the proportions, the gadroons at top and bottom, the plain hands. This Duoface version puts a black dial with small seconds on the front and, on the reverse, a second time zone with a day and night indicator, both driven by the one hand-wound calibre, the 854A/2, with 42 hours of reserve. The case is 47 mm long and 9.73 mm thick in steel, and the closed back here is no longer blank but a second dial, so you lose the engraving and gain a passport.
I have two quibbles. Forty-seven millimetres of length is a lot of rectangle; on a slim wrist the lugs will overhang and the whole effect tips from elegant to slightly theatrical. Try it on before you decide anything. And thirteen thousand eight hundred to fourteen thousand eight hundred dollars is a jump of nearly six thousand over the Classic Medium for what is, in fairness, a clever but simple second time zone. You are paying for the trick of it.
Still, for someone who flies between Geneva and anywhere else and refuses to wear a sports watch on a plane, I cannot think of a more civilised answer. Just keep it well away from the wine.