Description
Blancpain has finally given its Villeret Ultraplate the dimension dress-watch enthusiasts have asked for: a properly classical 38 mm case, down from the slightly oversized diameters the line previously offered. Alongside the new size comes a first for the collection — a sunray-brushed salmon dial — and the whole package rides on the in-house automatic Caliber 1150 with a silicon hairspring and a 100-hour power reserve.
Priced from USD 12,700 in steel, the 38 mm Ultraplate repositions one of haute horlogerie's quietest dress watches as a genuinely contemporary, daily-wearable proposition. It is aimed at the buyer who wants traditional Villeret codes — double stepped bezel, slim profile, refined dial — in a size that finally sits right on a modern wrist.
Design
The new case measures 38 mm in diameter, 8.35 mm thick and 43.35 mm lug-to-lug, in polished stainless steel or 18k red gold, with the Villeret's signature double-stepped bezel, a sapphire crystal and a sapphire display caseback. The headline dial is a sunray salmon — the first salmon in the collection — whose tone travels from copper through rose to gold as the light moves, set off by 18k white-gold hands and markers and paired with a grey nubuck strap that cools the warm dial. Other dial colours round out the line. Blancpain fits its tool-free interchangeable strap-and-buckle system, an unusually practical detail on a watch this classical.
Specifications
- Case diameter: 38 mm
- Case thickness: 8.35 mm
- Lug-to-lug: 43.35 mm
- Case material: polished stainless steel or 18k red gold
- Bezel: double-stepped Villeret bezel
- Crystal / caseback: sapphire crystal; sapphire display caseback
- Water resistance: 30 m
- Dial: sunray salmon (first for the collection; steel) with 18k white-gold hands and markers; additional dial colours offered
- Movement: Manufacture Caliber 1150, automatic, 28 jewels, 210 components, 26.20 x 3.25 mm
- Frequency: 21,600 vph (3 Hz)
- Hairspring: silicon
- Power reserve: 100 hours (twin barrels)
- Functions: hours, minutes, seconds, date
- Strap: grey nubuck with tool-free interchangeable strap-and-buckle system
- Price: USD 12,700 (steel) / USD 26,100 (red gold)
What's Exciting
This is the watch the Villeret should always have been. The Ultraplate has long been a connoisseur's favourite — a thin, beautifully proportioned dress watch let down only by a diameter that wore a touch large for the genre. At 38 mm that objection disappears, and Blancpain sweetens it with a silicon-hairspring, 100-hour automatic calibre and a salmon dial that has been one of the most coveted dial colours in collecting for a decade. Under USD 13,000 for a manufacture-movement dress watch from a house with Blancpain's pedigree is a serious value argument, and the interchangeable strap system is a genuinely useful, modern touch grafted onto a deeply traditional design.
History
Blancpain traces its name to 1735 and bills itself as the oldest watch brand in the world; the Villeret collection — named for the village where Blancpain was founded — is its purest expression of classical round watchmaking, defined by the double-stepped bezel and clean enamel-style dials. The Ultraplate has been the slim, time-and-date heart of that collection for years. Bringing it to 38 mm, and adding a salmon dial and a silicon-balanced automatic movement, is Blancpain answering a market that has decisively swung back toward smaller, more wearable dress watches — and doing so without diluting the Villeret's heritage codes.
