I’ll be upfront here: I love the Defy. All the Defys. I’ve said many times to many people that the Defy is probably my favorite sports watch line of all time. It’s certainly my favorite corner of the Zenith catalog, and vintage Defy references are some of the coolest you can own, and somehow still represent a great value compared to comparable sports watches from other brands. To me, these watches have historically been exactly the right combination of avant-garde design and sports watch functionality. A Defy, unlike a Submariner, for example, can be both an art piece and an everyday wearer. They are also consistently interesting from a materials perspective, particularly when they get into colored ceramic, as they have with the newest Defy introduced today, a successor of sorts to one of my favorite watches from last year.
The Defy Skyline White Ceramic Skeleton is in some ways a predictable, natural evolution of the current generation Defy. It takes the ceramic case and bracelet we saw in last year’s black model, turns them white, and gives us the skeleton dial treatment that debuted early last year. It’s a similar trajectory to the Defy Classic releases from several years back, which started in titanium, with colorful skeletonized ceramic versions to follow.
This new reference is a little different though for how it plays with contrast. Against the stark white of the case and bracelet, we get a skeletonized blue dial and a movement in a matching shade. That’s a lot of blue, presented across multiple levels that should account for a great sense of depth in person. Like other skeleton dial Defy Skylines, the caliber powering this watch is the El Primero 3620 SK, derived from the current generation of Zenith’s famous high frequency chronograph caliber. The subsidiary seconds register at 6:00 is actually not a true running seconds indicator, as it completes a full rotation every ten seconds. That’s not super practical (although it does make it incredibly easy to see that the watch is running at a quick glance) but it serves as a constant reminder of the movement’s precision.
The white ceramic case measures 41mm in diameter and features alternating polished and satin brushed surfaces. Finishing on ceramic Defy references has been a highlight of these watches going to back to the Defy Classic, and it’s only gotten better with the Defy Skyline, at least with the black version that I’ve handled. Ceramic, at one point, was considered a difficult material to finish in interesting ways for watchmaking purposes, but as the material has become more common across the watch world, we’ve seen a greater variety of high quality finishes applied. It doesn’t look exactly like metal, but that’s kind of the point. It has a unique sheen to it exudes quality, and a particularly well made colored ceramic (and I count white as a color, just like vanilla is a flavor) is something else that I always find impressive.
The retail price of the Defy Skyline White Ceramic Skeleton is $17,500. That’s up from $15,000 for last year’s black model, which of course doesn’t have the skeletonized dial that we see in the white version. It’s an expensive watch, to be sure, but context is important. A ceramic sports watch on a full ceramic bracelet is still a pretty rare thing. This watch, like all recent Defys, is sure to be compared to aesthetically comparable Royal Oaks, which of course are going to be dramatically more expensive. I’m personally not a fan of those comparisons, though. The Defy is a sports watch with its own unique history and is every bit as special as a Royal Oak in its own way. And this Defy is currently sitting at the top of an increasingly crowded collection of impressive pieces bringing my favorite sports watch line into a new era. Zenith
