Blancpain Villeret Day-Date Steel

Quick specs Blancpain Villeret Day-Date Steel Price: $ 10,900 | € 10.350 | approx. £ 9,130 Size: 40 mm Reference: 6652-1127-55B

Villeret is the home of Blancpain and a major watchmaking center. But it is also the name of Blancpain’s classic watch collection. For the first time in the Villeret Collection, Blancpain introduces a day-date complication and releases a couple of models with this complication or a variant of it. Like the Blancpain Villeret Quantième Annuel GMT Steel and the Blancpain Villeret Semainier Grande Date 8 Jours. This Blancpain Villeret Day-Date Steel is more of an entry-level model.

The new complication is housed in a stainless steel case measuring 40 millimeters in diameter. Its matt white dial features leaf-shaped cut-out hands and a small seconds display appears at 6 o’clock. The day of the week and the date are shown at the 3 o’clock position. The day change is instantaneous, while that of the date is semi-instantaneous.

The Blancpain Villeret Day-Date Steel is one of the nicest new dress watches

The heart of the Blancpain Villeret Day-Date Steel is the automatic caliber 1160DD. Normally we provide some details about the balance wheel in the specs, but this time it deserves some special attention. The balance wheel is fashioned in glucydur with gold micro-metric regulation screws and a balance spring in silicon. This material is relatively new in the watch industry and has some advantages. It has a low density that makes it lighter and therefore more shock-resistant. In addition, it is also resistant to magnet fields. The sapphire case back provides a great view of the hand-finished movement and the yellow gold winding rotor with its honeycomb guilloché pattern.

It took some time, but Blancpain has finally delivered one of the more useful complications to its Villeret collection. On a clean, minimalistic dial housed in a stainless steel case. One of the nicest dress watches from this year.