Zenith has been on a tear lately with a horde of new editions to its DEFY lineup, including retro reissues, skeletonized dials, and even a double tourbillon. However, the Swiss luxury watchmaker has always been one of the best at utilizing color in a way that most of its contemporaries can’t.
In 2020, the brand unveiled the Ultraviolet version of its DEFY 21, which used the purple color as a nod to the watch’s El Primero movement. Like ultraviolet light, the El Primero boasts one of the highest frequencies of any chronograph movement, featuring an escapement that beats at 50Hz. The brand’s latest release is a quasi-follow-up to the 2020 watch, expanding the fun with colors to eight distinct timepieces, each with a different hue — violet, black, blue, orange, pink, green, turquoise, and khaki — delivered in a transparent acrylic box with an iridescent finish.
Featuring the El Primero 21 automatic movement, each timepiece sports the same matte gray titanium case with a skeletonized dial. The main difference is the color of the bridges and rotor inside, which match the respective rubber strap. The Ultra Colour Box is released in a super-limited run of just 8 (64 watches in total), with each of the 8 watches in each box being numbered from 1 through 8 without repeating. In other words, the owner will have one watch for each number.
Priced at CHF118,000 (~$128,347), the DEFY 21 Ultra Colour Box is available through Zenith boutiques.
