Founded in 1904 in Holstein, Switzerland, Oris has developed a reputation as a purveyor of very reasonably priced timepieces in a variety of styles, and all with Swiss-made mechanical movements.
Boasting a newly developed movement with a second-time-zone function, the Oris Big Crown ProPilot GMT ($2,300) expands the aviation-inspired Big Crown collection, based on a 1938 model and launched in 2014. The watch has a hefty, multi-piece 45-mm case, made of matte satin-finished stainless steel and topped off with a vintage-look coin-edge top ring on the bezel that evokes the design of a jet turbine. The domed sapphire crystal is engineered to be cockpit-friendly, minimizing glare with a nonreflective coating applied to the inside. The big, white Arabic numerals also aid in legibility, contrasting starkly with the black dial and printed in Super-LumiNova. (The hour and minute hands are also filled with the luminous substance.) The date appears in a window at 3 o’clock, while the small seconds tick away in a subdial at 9 o’clock. The watch’s signature feature, its GMT indicator, uses a center-mounted, yellow-tipped hand and a 24-hour scale that encircles the dial. The self-winding Oris Caliber 748, which is visible through the clear caseback, is based on a Sellita SW-220-1. Even the military-style, olive-green textile strap offers a nod to aviation: its patented folding clasp operates like an aircraft’s safety belt, with a release tab indicating “Lift.”
