“The Swatch Group has decided not to participate in Baselworld from 2019.” In July of last year, Nick Hayek, chairman of the Swatch Group, made the above statement. With the departure of the kingdom with 18 brands, Baselworld this year was held in a quieter atmosphere than usual. As such, the influence of the Swatch Group was strong and absolute. Many were keen on when and where the Swatch Group would unveil new products. The Swatch Group has taken the lead in the direction of showing new products by traveling around the world by brand.

Time Forum has been covering Tissot’s 2019 new product launch event held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on April 3rd. The event, titled the 2019 Tissot Brand Summit, was not just about introducing new fake watches, it was about explaining the status of the brand. Chairman François Thiebaud, who has led Tissot for over 20 years, was also expected to attend, but was unable to attend for personal reasons. He sent a video to express his regret and gratitude instead.
Tissot is an industry magnate that makes 4 million watches a year, with a manufacturing facility with automated systems at the fore. About a quarter of the replica watches that Switzerland exports abroad are shipped from Tissot’s factories. In other words, one Tissot watch is sold somewhere in the world every eight seconds. Realizing economies of scale, Tissot has the ability to mass-produce products that combine high quality with reasonable prices. There are only a handful of brands that can make so many watches, both mechanical and quartz, while maintaining a consistent level of quality. They take pride in leading the Swiss watch industry beyond the Swatch Group.
Tissot doesn’t just make a lot of watches. As the motto of Innovators by Tradition suggests, they used to show off their pioneering spirit with a bold and challenging spirit of experimentation. It was none other than Tissot that completed the world’s first anti-magnetic watch (anti-magnetic in 1930), screwless plastic watch (IDEA2001 in 1971), and a screen touch watch (T-Touch, 1999), which can be said to be the progenitor of the smart watch. . Tissot is also a brand that actively utilizes its strong partnerships with various sports. As an official partner of the Asian Games, MotoGP, Tour de France, and NBA, their existence is clearly imprinted in the hearts of people around the world.
Now it’s time to meet Tissot’s new products for 2019 in earnest. Tissot released 160 new products this year. Among them, we will select the most important products and introduce them one by one.
The first product is the Seastar 1000 Quartz Chrono. With a water resistance of 300m and a date function, the SISTAR collection has taken a step further by combining durability and practicality. The engine was changed from a self-winding movement to a quartz caliber ETA G10.212. The seahorse engraved on the caseback also directly expresses the watch’s identity.
With a unidirectional rotating aluminum bezel for up to 20 minutes of dive time, a screw-down crown and chronograph pushbuttons, it’s the perfect diver’s watch. The diameter and thickness of the stainless steel case are 45.5mm and 12.8mm, respectively. The hands and indexes are painted with Super-LumiNova. There are also variations with a rose gold PVD coating or a light orange trim. Metal bracelet with diver extensions, including an active rubber strap. The price of the rubber strap model is 600,000 won.
It has two faces: a dress watch and a casual daily watch, inspired by Seastar, which was introduced in the 1960s. The most striking part is the 18K pink gold bezel. It uses real gold rather than PVD coating, giving it a more elegant and noble charm than other products. To prevent the gold bezel from turning over, we added the delicateness of unifying the needles and indexes in the same color. The polished stainless steel bezel measures 40mm and 10.64mm in diameter and thickness, respectively, and is water resistant to 50m.
The construction of the dial with crosshairs is quite elaborate. The date window and the three-sided indexes crossed the finish to create a three-dimensional effect, and Super-LumiNova was applied thinly to the sharply stretched hour and minute hands. Thanks to the second hand, which precisely touches the index, the time can be read down to the second, and a second is divided into 6 divisions according to the frequency of the movement. As stated on the dial, the movement adopts the Powermatic 80 with silicon balance springs. Based on the ETA2824, the frequency is lowered to 21,600 vph (3 Hz) while the power reserve is increased to 80 hours. The combination of a silicone balance spring with excellent anti-magnetic and isochronous properties and a free sprung balance wheel ensures excellent accuracy.