A STAR IS (RE)BORN
In 1965, Oris changed the Swiss watch industry forever. A year later, the first Oris lever escapement watch arrived. Sixty years on, the Oris Star Edition celebrates these milestone events.
A HERO OF HIS TIME
In the mid-20th century, Oris was in a battle to overturn the Swiss Watch Statute. Thanks to Dr Rolf Portmann, it was a battle it would win.
In the 1960s, long before the Quartz Crisis, the Swiss watch industry experienced an existential event. Over the previous three decades, it had been subject to the Swiss Watch Statute, a law that had been introduced in the 1930s to counter anti-competition measures taken by companies battling for survival during The Great Depression.
One of the unintended consequences of the statute was that it prohibited Swiss watch companies from innovating. Oris was one such company. The law limited it to less accurate pin-lever movements – and that law was upheld by a Swiss lobby glad to see competition held in check.
In 1956, Oris hired a young lawyer and tasked him with getting the statute reversed. Dr Rolf Portmann would fight the “Swiss Watch Cartel” for a decade. In 1965, he broke the chains that had held Oris back and the law was scrapped. For Oris: liberation, independence.
Now free to innovate, only a year later Oris would introduce the Oris Star, our first in-house lever escapement movement watch. In 1982, Dr Portmann and Ulrich W erzog would stage a management buyout. Now in his nineties, he remains Oris Honorary Chairman.
Oris, and Swiss watchmaking, owe Dr Portmann a debt of gratitude. As watch historian Gisbert L. Brunner says on page 11, “without Dr Portmann’s tireless insistence, the ill-fated Watch Statute would have remained in force.”
This year, Oris marks the 60th anniversary of that heroic, historic moment with the Oris Star Edition, a tribute to Dr Portmann and his unique contribution to Oris and to Swiss mechanical watchmaking.
Oris is delighted to introduce the new Artelier Complication, the flagship model in the new Artelier collection, an Oris classic that returns with a dynamic new profile. It’s been designed by Lena Huwiler, Oris’s new Product Design Engineer, who at 24-years-old has brought fresh sensitivity to a much-loved watch.
The major update is in the complication and how it’s presented. This begins with the new Calibre 782 automatic. It has the same base architecture as its precursor, Calibre 781, only without the gearing that served two further dial indications on previous models. The new watch therefore, has only two sub-counters, a moon phase at 12 o’clock and a second 24-hour time zone at 6 o’clock.This delivers two immediate benefits. First, it declutters the dial while retaining all the essential information. And second, it means adjustment can be managed through the crown and a single pusher integrated into the right case flank.
The dial is available in three colours: ivory, midnight blue and chestnut. Each has three zones: a textured centre, a smooth, gently curved outer rim, and those two subcounters to display the watch’s signature complications. On the chestnut version, these counters are a darker colour, further enhancing legibility. The silvered moon sits on a starry background that matches that of the moon phase’s curved aperture cover (the shape enables the indication of a waxing and waning moon), a decision taken to reduce the visual impact of the cover’s baroque form.
The dial is covered by an elegantly domed sapphire crystal. Further details add to the modernist feel. It has tapered and stepped hour markers and square-tipped hour and minute hands, and there’s a new sans serif typeface for the words “Artelier” and “Swiss Made”. The result is a deliberately modern design that reimagines two classic watchmaking functions for a youthful, urbane audience.
