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Frederique Constant Presents Its Classic Moonphase Date Manufacture

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Published
04/24/2024 by

Frederique Constant’s flagship Classic Moonphase Date Manufacture is restrained, elegant and contemporary, staying true to its traditional DNA even as the collection expands to include three new 40-millimetre variations endowed with the new Classic steel case, accompanied by a silver, blue or green dial. Designed for everyday wear – and for all lovers of Geneva’s watchmaking heritage – the timepiece features a new, uncluttered sunburst dial, sporting delicate hands powered by a new FC-716 movement. Developed in-house, the latter boasts a 72-hour power reserve. The Classic Moonphase Date Manufacture is so reliable that its performance is now guaranteed for five years. 

The three new models come with both a style makeover and more significantly, new technical features made possible by the new FC-716 Manufacture calibre. This has been fitted with a brand-new barrel providing a three-day power reserve – 72 hours in all. The high-precision movement beats at a rate of 4Hz.

This carefully thought-out decision by the Maison means the watch is better able to withstand day-to-day challenges, returning swiftly to regular oscillations after any disturbance. The FC-716 calibre is itself derived from a technical base that has been used to power the Manufacture’s collections since 2015, the FC-715, and uses over 90% of the same components, making it exceptionally well tried and tested – and highly reliable.

THE HEAVENS
ON YOUR WRIST

It’s been said that ‘watchmaking is the daughter of astronomy’, and these three pieces, all housed in a 40-millimetre case, are perfect illustrations of that assertion. The watchmaking aspect is embodied by the three redesigned steel-coloured central hands; the hours and minutes hands are now diamond-cut, as are the hour markers. The hand-polished hands glide above a fine sunburst dial, available in three different colours reflecting three quite different personalities: bright, radiant silver grey; deep, contemporary midnight blue; and a bold and unusual British racing green.

The pieces feature a ‘railtrack’ minute circle and an onion-shaped crown at three o’clock. As to astronomy, a single window at six o’clock brings together two complications in one display, the moonphase and the date. The two are closely interrelated: the moon completes one cycle of phases across its star-studded background in precisely 29.5 days. The date is indicated by a central hand that travels around a peripheral scale graduated from 1 to 31. Amid this starry firmament, the shorter time marked out for each passing day and the longer moon phases thus dwell side by side in sweet and poetic astral harmony.

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