Description
Zenith has opened a new chapter in its 160-year history with the G.F.J. Calibre 135 Double Signed with Naoya Hida & Co., the watch that inaugurates the Manufacture's brand-new Double Signed Program — a series of collaborations pairing Zenith's most storied references with hand-picked independent watchmakers. For its first partner, Le Locle reached out to Tokyo, choosing Naoya Hida & Co., the independent founded in 2018 and quietly revered among collectors for its mid-century sensibility, exacting typography and restrained finishing.
The project is built on the G.F.J. collection that Zenith revived in 2025 for its 160th anniversary — the line that brought back the legendary Calibre 135. Priced at CHF 58,900 and limited to just ten pieces, this is a connoisseur's watch in the truest sense: a historically significant chronometer movement reinterpreted through the lens of one of Japan's most respected independents.
Design
The 950 platinum case measures a classically proportioned 39.15 mm across and just 10.5 mm thick, with stepped lugs and a slim polished bezel that lend it the presence of a vintage dress chronometer. Water resistance is 50 m. The star is the solid-silver dial: the Zenith and Naoya Hida & Co. signatures, the indices and the markers are all hand-engraved by master engraver Keisuke Kano and filled with deep blue — often reading as black — Japanese urushi lacquer.
Solid-gold hour and minute hands are hand-polished, while a heat-blued steel hand sweeps the small-seconds register at 6 o'clock. Through the sapphire caseback, the re-engineered Calibre 135 reveals broad Geneva stripes, hand-chamfering and a dark ruthenium treatment with gold-coloured engravings.
Specifications
- Reference: 40.1865-2.0135/01.C220
- Case diameter: 39.15 mm
- Case thickness: 10.5 mm
- Case material: 950 platinum
- Crystal: sapphire, front and caseback
- Water resistance: 50 m
- Dial: solid silver; hand-engraved signatures, indices and markers filled with blue Japanese urushi lacquer; small seconds at 6 o'clock
- Hands: solid gold (hours and minutes, hand-polished); heat-blued steel (small seconds)
- Movement: Zenith Calibre 135 — manual winding, COSC-certified chronometer
- Escapement / hairspring: oversized balance with Breguet overcoil hairspring; double-arrow regulator; stop-seconds mechanism
- Frequency: 18,000 vph (2.5 Hz)
- Power reserve: 72 hours
- Functions: hours, minutes, small seconds
- Straps: Himeji Kurozan urushi-lacquered leather, Kyoto-crafted Wagyu leather, and Japanese Kaihara indigo denim; platinum pin buckle engraved "G.F.J."
- Limited edition: 10 pieces
- Price: CHF 58,900
What's Exciting
This is the rare collaboration that makes sense on every level. The Calibre 135 is no marketing relic — it is the most-awarded observatory chronometer movement of its kind, the engine that took more than 230 prizes and five consecutive Neuchatel victories between 1950 and 1954, built by Ephrem Jobin around an oversized balance and a generous barrel for the single purpose of keeping time. Placing that movement behind a hand-engraved, urushi-filled solid-silver dial executed in the Naoya Hida idiom is exactly the kind of cross-cultural watchmaking that should happen more often.
At ten pieces and CHF 58,900 it is unapologetically exclusive, and the value argument is beside the point at this level. But as the opening statement of a Double Signed Program, it sets a benchmark Zenith will struggle to top — and signals a refreshing confidence in letting an outside voice reinterpret its crown jewel.
History
The Calibre 135 was developed by Ephrem Jobin in 1948 and dominated observatory chronometry through the 1950s, its competition 135-O variant amassing an unmatched record at the Neuchatel Observatory and beyond. Zenith resurrected it in 2025 within the G.F.J. collection — the initials honour founder Georges Favre-Jacot — to mark the brand's 160th anniversary.
Naoya Hida & Co., founded in Tokyo in 2018, has become one of the most sought-after Japanese independents of the modern era, prized for its mid-century, Calatrava-inspired design language and obsessive hand-finishing. Their meeting — reportedly sparked by a visit from Zenith Chief Product Officer Romain Marietta to Hida's workshop — yields the first entry in what Zenith intends as an ongoing dialogue with independent watchmaking.
