Citizen
Introducing the Citizen Eco-Drive 365
Citizen
Introducing the Citizen Eco-Drive 365
The Low-Down
Citizen, the Japan-based watch company perhaps best known for their highly accurate quartz and solar timepieces has been steadily cranking out affordable and precise timepieces for decades. Eco-Drive, Citizen’s solar powered series, was released in 1995 as an evolution of a technology that had been in the works since the 1970s – a timepiece which had the accuracy and efficiency of a quartz watch, without the cumbersome drawbacks and limitations of a battery. Today, the collection is a cornerstone of Citizen’s offerings and ranges in price from a few hundred dollars to several thousand. While the performance of the Eco-Drive has always been impressive, lasting up to 6 months on a single charge of sunlight, Citizen was not satisfied to rest on their laurels. Thus, the Eco-Drive 365 was born.
Initially, the Eco-Drive 365 will be available in three varieties. The case is a reinterpretation of vintage quartz models from the 1970’s, with a faintly cushion-esque shape that is broken up by sharp straight facets resulting in a somewhat sporty, even muscular profile. The first two are encased in stainless steel, with one blacked-out and the other a more traditional silver tone. Apart from the incredible power reserve and retro-futurist case aesthetic, the real star of the show is the dial, which sparkles with four glittery colors against the inky blackness, like the resplendence of stars on a moonless night sky.
IMHO
Despite the passage of nearly 40 years, there may still remain a subtle undercurrent of resentment left over from the quartz crisis, nagging pressure points like muscular knots logged deep within the tissue of the larger watch industry and enthusiast community. In spite of this, watch collectors are constantly clamoring for fresh ideas, new mechanisms, and innovative approaches to the art of time keeping. While smart watches and quartz watches may be rather ubiquitous, that does not mean that there are not horologically fascinating and genuinely exciting watches available that do not contain a balance wheel.