Watches & Wonders 2025: Moser’s Concept Pop Collection Is Unseriously Seriously Good
Moser’s new Pop collection stone dials are a bright and beautiful break from stone dial business-as-usual.
The use of hardstones – you can call them semiprecious stones if you want, although some people find the term “semiprecious” pejorative – for watch dials has gone in and out of fashion many times since they first began to become popular in the 1960s and 1970s, with some of the most popular and widely collected examples being produced by Piaget and Rolex (two companies that otherwise don’t have a great deal in common). Stone dials began to become popular again in recent years as enthusiasts began to rediscover that period in watchmaking design overall, along with a renaissance of interest in smaller and dressier watches sometimes filed under the rubric, “geezer watches.” The making of hardstone dials can be technically challenging compared to using more conventional materials like brass or precious metals, which can be worked, stamped and drilled with little danger; minerals like lapis lazuli, onyx, turquoise, and coral as well as many others, can be difficult to cut to the right thinness and drill out for things like dial markers, without running the risk of fracturing the disk.
Stone dial watches tend to be rather serious affairs, with the materials used as elements in conventionally luxurious designs. Moser’s new Pop collection is about as far removed from the aristocratic sobriety of most hardstone dial watches as you can get. The “pop” here refers to the visual pop of the watches, which is nothing short of extraordinary for stone dials, but you can also read it as a reference to the Pop Art movement prevalent in the art world in the 1960s, which made use of bright areas of vivid color, clearly delineated geometry, and graphic design cues taken from popular culture (especially comic books). The Pop collection includes time-only models, tourbillons, and tourbillon minute repeaters and their use of bright, graphically sharp shapes and colors is like nothing else I’ve ever seen in hardstone dial watches.
The Pop collection watches use a pretty wide assortment of minerals – Burmese jade, turquoise, coral, pink opal, lapis lazuli, and lemon chrysoprase. The collection’s divided into three groups; one using Burmese jade and pink opal (as seen above) one using lapis lazuli and lemon chrysoprase, and one using turquoise and coral.
Each collection consists of a time only model, a tourbillon, and a tourbillon minute repeater, with the central part of the dial alternating between one hardstone and the other.
Each of the materials has its own particular texture, grain, and color saturation but they work together across all models extremely well –colors are rich, bright, and have been chosen so that they complement each other, without any one color overpowering the other.
The colors might seem candy-like, or a little too pastel for their own good but in person they have a richness and depth that keeps them from looking gimmicky. The level of craftsmanship in the dial construction is impressive; making the watches requires cutting apertures for subdials and tourbillon openings, as well as constructing concentric rings sitting inside each other level with the surface of the dial. The only exceptions to the use of two contrasting stones are the minute repeater tourbillons, in which the gongs and hammers sit in a recess in the dials, the background of which is lacquered to color match what would be the contrasting stone. Cases across the board are stainless steel, except for the tourbillon repeaters which are in pink gold; the time only models are 38mm in diameter, with the tourbillons and tourbillon repeaters sized at 40mm.
The graphic clarity of the designs is perhaps most unobstructed in the time only models, but the design concept behind the Pop Concept watches works remarkable well for complications as well. The minute repeaters are especially attractive; normally this is a complication which either leans into its own complexity (think open dial watches with the racks and snails visible in operation) or which relies on tradition and conceals that complexity behind a deceptively plain dial (a classic example of this approach is the Patek Philippe 3939, everyone’s favorite example of a masterpiece of complicated watchmaking that in poor light – or even pretty good light – a lot of people would mistake for what we used to call a drugstore watch).
The movements in the Minute Repeater Tourbillon Concept Pop watches are partly inverted from the usual arrangement.
Normally, a minute repeater has its gongs and hammers, along with the centrifugal regulator that controls the speed of the chimes. In the caliber HMC 904, the going train for the tourbillon is on the back along with the centrifugal regulating system for the chimes, but the hammer and gong are on the front; this is the same arrangement used in the Endeavour Concept Minute Repeater Tourbillon, of which the Pop version is a variant.
The Pop collection watches are all limited editions or (in the case of the tourbillon repeaters) unique pieces. The small seconds models will be produced in 28 pieces each, at $33,500, with the coral and turquoise versions a bit more, at $42,900. The tourbillons will be produced in five examples of each model, at $82,500 with the turquoise and coral models again commanding a premium, at $42,900. Finally, the six repeater variations are all unique pieces, all in red gold, and priced at $340,000.
This sort of color scheme plays a little bit, I think, with high-low expectations; normally, we associate bright colors and saturated pastels more with entry level brands than with inhabitants of the rarefied spaces of haute horlogerie, although if you are familiar with Moser you’re probably aware that the brand likes to play with expectations and also, to play around with high/low signaling, as it did in its collaboration with Studio UnderdOg, which Moser described as “seriously fruity.” The fruity part is easy to see, but the serious part – that’s the Moser part, with a grand feu enamel dial and perpetual calendar – is just as indispensable for the impact of the collaboration.
The Pop collection is in the same vein; the lighthearted and bouyant use of bright color is anchored by the luxuriousness of the actual dial materials, the technical challenges of working with them, and the technical sophistication and high level of finish of the movements. Edgy in the hands of a luxury watch brand trying for something different can feel either half-hearted or off-brand; the Pop collection is neither and though thanks to the limited nature of production, they’re going to be hard to see in person, I’d recommended trying to see one in the metal if you can. Taste the rainbow.
The Moser Pop Collection:
References 1202-1200, 1202-1202, 1202-1203, 1202-1204, 1202-1205, 1202-1206, steel case, dials made from natural gemstones, grey ostrich leather strap. Cases, stainless steel, 38mm, movement, HMC 202 automatic.
References 1805-1201, 1805-1203, 1805-1204, 1805-1205, 1805-1206, 1805-1207, steel case, dials made from natural gemstones, grey ostrich leather strap. Cases, 40mm, stainless steel, movement, HMC 805, automatic tourbillon.
References 1904-0403, 1904-0405, 1904-0406, 1904-0407, 1904-0408, 1904-0409, 5N red gold case, dials made from natural gemstones, grey alligator leather strap. Movement, HMC 904, hand wound tourbillon and minute repeater, gongs and hammers on the dial side.
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