Favre Leuba, a 287-year old watchmaker that was relaunched this year, is dipping into its historic archive for reissues that connect its illustrious past to the present day.
Among a broad range of new watches introduced at Geneva Watch Days covering air, land and sea themes, the standout pieces are the Deep Blue Revival and Deep Blue Renaissance, both modern reworkings of models introduced in the early 1960s.
Both use beautifully finished G100 automatic movements from La Joux-Perret in watches and are attractively priced at €2,200 to €2,300.
There is a choice of green, blue or black sunray dials in the 40mm Deep Blue Rennaisance collection, each of which is sold on either a steel bracelet or rubber strap with ceramic insert dive bezels in matching colours.
The 39mm Deep Blue Revival is a 60th anniversary reissue, which is a faithful reproduction of the original 1964 model, arrives as a single reference sporting a grey sunray dial with indexes and hands that are filled with eggshell-coloured Super-LumiNova.
This gives a vintage look similar to the radium lume of the originals.
All Deep Blue watches have the acrylic crystal found on historic pieces replaced with modern scratch-resistant sapphire crystal.
For around £2,000, FavreLeuba has produced a range of dive watches that deliver maximum value for money.
Even challenger brands without the power of a Rolex or Omega would likely charge double or even treble the price for watches with high end features like decorated La Joux-Perret movements on view through crystal exhibition case backs, ceramic uni-directional divers’ bezels, 300 metre water resistance and elegant five-link bracelets with brushed and polished surfaces.
“Value is the big story,” says Patrick Hoffman, chairman of Favre Leuba. “We are building a thoroughly modern brand on almost 300 years of history,” he adds.