For Watches & Wonders 2023, Oris, known for their purpose-built Pilot’s and exceptional tool watches goes green, and just a little froggy.

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Oris Propilot X Kermit Edition

Although there is another famous watch by another famous brand that is nicknamed the “Kermit,” the Oris ProPilot X Kermit Edition is an official collaboration between Oris and Disney’s The Muppets that brings together Kermit, the world-famous verdant protagonist who has inspired virtue in generations of children since 1955, and the ProPilot X Caliber 400, Oris’s pride and joy.

Rolled out in October 2020, the Caliber 400 is Oris’s second in-house movement after the manual winding Caliber 110, which had a single mainspring barrel. A definitive milestone for Oris, the Caliber 400 packs five days of power reserve and comes with an extended warranty of 10 years. Its lever and balance wheel are silicon, and despite not having a silicon balance spring, this antimagnetic movement showed a deviation of less than 10 seconds per day after exposure to a 2,550 gauss magnetic field. The Oris ProPilot X Kermit Edition’s official accuracy is -3/+5 seconds a day.

No reversers in the automatic Caliber 400 means it only winds in one direction, but this system also experiences less wear and tear than a bidirectional winding rotor. Ball bearings of the winding system have been swapped out in favor of a sleeve bearing. Designing the Caliber 400 to have low torque and low inertia has also reaped the reward of higher efficiency.

A momentous accomplishment by Oris, the Caliber 400 has just been reinterpreted in an attractive color and with a light-hearted theme. The Oris ProPilot X Kermit Edition is meant to remind everyone to have some fun. On the first of every month, Kermit’s face pops up on the Oris ProPilot X Kermit Edition’s date window, bearing a big, big smile. The watch’s 39mm titanium ProPilot case contrasts a dial in a Kermit shade of green.

Closed up of Oris Propilot X Kermit Edition

Says Oris’s creative director Ken Laurent, “What is a mechanical watch for? We talk a lot about functions in a literal sense, but really, the purpose of an Oris watch is to make people smile. That’s it. And with the ProPilot X Kermit Edition, there’s nothing else to it. OK, yes, it’s powered by a brilliant movement and the case design is spectacular, but the function of this watch is really simple: to bring joy.”

Purportedly, Ken Laurent met the real Kermit the Frog (who is more than 68 years old) and Kermit composed and sang a song for Oris called “Gotta Make Time For Me.” There’s even a short film about this meeting and collaboration that you can watch on the Oris website.

Says Laurent, “It was so much fun. On set, you have to be so careful because all you want to do is laugh, but of course that would ruin a take. Everyone feeds off Kermit’s energy. Anything he does or touches, it just becomes funny. I didn’t want the day to end. We spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of brief we should give The Muppets. We could have written a script or something, but Kermit and The Muppets know how to entertain better than anyone. So we left them to it. In a couple of days, they came back to us with a song — the lyrics, the music and the idea that Kermit would sing it while playing his banjo. It was perfect. And so catchy…”

A high-precision aviation-themed timepiece, the Oris ProPilot X Kermit Edition is meant to remind everyone not to take life too seriously

The Oris ProPilot Altimeter and Oris ProPilot X Kermit Edition are affordable, hardy, legible, reliable and versatile timepieces that are designed for activities like hiking, mountain climbing and ultra marathoning. Best of all, when you depart nature and go back indoors, they double up as subtly elegant conversation pieces suitable for both formal or casual functions.

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