The Oris Big Crown Calibre 113 features a full business calendar, showing the day, date, month, and 52 weeks of the year
Oris introduces the Big Crown Calibre 113, a watch that brings together Oris’s signature design, a high-functioning in-house calibre, and a joyful color palette.
The Big Crown was originally created in 1938 as a precision timekeeping instrument for airmen. Its round, ergonomic case, oversized crown, and now familiar Pointer Date complication delivered practical benefits for aviators, and through time, they have assumed iconic status, making the Big Crown one of Swiss watchmaking’s most recognizable designs.
Those same attributes provide the basis for the new watch, which carries Oris’s in-house Calibre 113, a hand-wound movement with 10 days of power and a patented non-linear power reserve indicator that appears to slow down as the time to wind the watch approaches. As per those features on original Big Crown watches of almost 90 years ago, this greatly increases legibility.
Calibre 113 also equips the watch with a business calendar, a useful function for those needing to keep track not just of the day, date and month of the year, but also the weeks. The watch has a 52-week scale around the dial, with the week indicated by a central pointer hand.
Oris designers then gave the watch an equally memorable color palette to highlight the joy that infuses the watch’s function. The main body of the dial is a minty green, while the counters and some dial details are in a rose pink. For contrast and ease-of-use, some dial details are in gold, others in white. The watch sits on either a metal bracelet or a leather strap.
The result is a striking expression of Oris’s proud watchmaking story.
Fusing together Oris’s iconic Big Crown with one of its game-changing 21st-century mechanical movements provided its engineering and design departments with a fascinating challenge.
BIG CROWN CALIBRE 113
IN DETAIL
Case: Multi-piece stainless steel case
Size: 43.00 mm (1.693 inches)
Thickness: 13.50 mm
Lug to lug: 50.50 mm
Dial: Green with pink counters
Luminous material: Hands, numerals and indices filled with Super-LumiNova®
Top glass: Sapphire, domed on both sides, anti-reflective coating inside
Case back: Stainless steel, screwed, see-through sapphire glass
Operating devices: Stainless steel screw-in security crown
Bracelet/strap: Multi-piece stainless steel metal bracelet or charcoal brown leather strap, both with Oris-developed folding clasp
Water resistance: 5 bar
MOVEMENT
Number: Oris Calibre 113
Functions: Center hands for hours, minutes, week and month, small seconds at 9 o’clock, non-linear power reserve indication at 3 o’clock, date window at 6 o’clock, day window at 12 o’clock, date, day and week corrector, fine timing device and stop-second
Winding: Hand-wound
Power reserve: 240 hours
Warranty: Extended to five years with MyOris sign-up. Applies to watch and movement.
Special box: Presented in a special wooden box
Swiss retail price: Leather strap CHF 6’150 Metal bracelet CHF 6’350
Availability: December
INTERVIEW: BEAT FISCHLI AND LUKAS BŰHLMANN
Gentlemen, let’s start with quick introductions and your Oris stories. Beat Fischli I joined Oris in 2012 as Chief Operating Officer, which is still my role today. In addition to the traditional areas of responsibility of a COO, such as procurement, production and quality management, I’ve had the opportunity to lead and take responsibility for many technical development projects over these 13 years, including the Oris in- house movements, Calibre 100 Series and Calibre 400 Series.
Lukas Bűhlmann I’ve been at Oris for 10 years and Head of Design for three. I’m originally an industrial designer and previously worked for a design agency. I find it a joy to design Oris watches, and a really stimulating challenge to contemporise our collection.
It’s interesting to see Calibre 113 back, one of the Calibre 100 Series of 10-day hand-wound movements. Remind us of its backstory.
BF Ahead of Oris’s 110th anniversary in 2014, we decided we wanted to put Oris back on the map as a movement creator. We love mechanics and while for years we’d only been making mechanical watches, at that time we no longer had our own in- house movements. During the 20th century, Oris developed almost 300 calibres and had a proud engineering tradition. Our goal was to bring that back with a movement that told this story and that fitted contemporary client expectations. So we created the hand-wound Calibre 110 with a huge 10-day power reserve and a non- linear power reserve indicator. It was clever and very well received. Later, we added complications, including a 52- week business calendar to Calibre 113. This is the beautiful movement we’re now putting into this new watch.
Calibre 100 Series opened the door to a season of movement creation that led to the Calibre 400 Series of automatics. Why does Oris continue to develop movements today?
BF They’re a clear statement of one of our core competencies. The capability to develop and implement mechanical movements in-house is a hallmark of our company. Strategically, it highlights Oris’s excellence and aligns us to Switzerland’s globally recognised watchmaking traditions.
What are the guiding principles behind those movements?
BF The product brief must be technically challenging, outlining a unique and distinctive combination of features. And things must make sense for the customer. We always say we make watches for today’s world citizen, for whom value, function and design must synchronise.
What challenges do you face when looking to deliver new calibres based on those principles?
BF Innovation is never easy, but that’s what makes it rewarding. As a team, we’re hugely ambitious and this is what spurs us on. It’s a challenge to push the technical limits of manufacturing technologies and materials, and we enjoy entering new territory together with our suppliers and partners to deliver engineering solutions that take mechanical watchmaking in new directions and tell new stories.
Roughly how long does it take to develop a new Oris calibre?
BF There’s no simple answer, but broad strokes, we’d allow up to six or seven years for the development of a new base calibre from scratch, but a fresh iteration on an existing calibre with minor modifications can typically be done in less than two. But the goal is always to make sure we get it right, rather than to fit into a timescale.
Going back to Calibre 100 Series, what was the original brief?
BF The essential element in the product brief for Oris Calibre 100 Series was a hand-wound movement combined with a 10-day power reserve and a power reserve indication. We set ourselves the goal of creating a movement that was challenging and unique, and that made sense.
A 10-day power reserve is unusual. How did you arrive at that figure and what’s required to deliver it? BF At one level, we felt 10 days was a distinctive and catchy figure, but we also knew it was a feature not often seen on a mechanical watch, and certainly not in Oris’s category. The Oris philosophy meant we didn’t want to overcomplicate it, so the solution was to keep the single-barrel construction and a single, extra-long mainspring. This way, we were able to push the boundaries without compromising value, function or design.
Its other distinctive feature was its non-linear power reserve indicator. What inspired that?
BF Clarity and legibility. We wanted the remaining power reserve to be really easy for the wearer to read, so they would recognise precisely when the watch needed rewinding. The angle between the displayed days of power reserve becomes progressively wider the lower the remaining power reserve is. This makes sense. Oris has patented this non-linear power reserve indication device.
What is special about this iteration of the Calibre 100 Series?
BF In addition to hour, minute, second and non-linear power reserve indications, Calibre 113 provides indications of date, day, calendar week and month. Wearing a watch with Calibre 113, you have a complete business calendar on your wrist. I particularly like the smart feature of Calibre 113 that the settings of all these functions are carried out via a single crown. There is no additional crown, and no pushers.
And why choose to return to Calibre 113 and the business calendar?
BF Calibre 113 is unique and makes sense for many customers and watch enthusiasts. It’s an interesting and complete combination of complications. Even eight years after the launch of Calibre 113, I’m very often asked about it.
For the first time, the Calibre 113 appears in a Big Crown – why?
LB As we know, the Big Crown collection has a long history with pointer hands, as does Calibre 113, so in that sense, it’s a perfect fit. It also helps that the proportions and functions of the movement also slot neatly into the Big Crown design. The stars aligned, you could say.
After a season focusing on the Calibre 400 Series, does this signal the return of Calibre 100 Series movements into the Oris collection? BF Demand has meant that the Calibre 100 Series has been in constant production since we launched it in 2014. The skeletonised ProPilot X Calibre 115, introduced in 2019, is widely acknowledged as an outstanding, iconic timepiece, and an Oris masterpiece. And now comes Calibre 113 in the Big Crown.
The new watch has bold colourways: what’s the inspiration behind the choice of the pink and green?
LB Oris, as ever, takes watchmaking seriously without taking itself too seriously. Mechanical watches should bring joy, and that’s what this fresh, perhaps surprising choice of colours it all about. Yes, it’s bold, and yes, it brings joy. We love it and we think our customers will, too.
In your mind Lukas, how does the new Big Crown Calibre 113 capture the story of Oris watchmaking?
LB It’s a story of deep-rooted traditions and contemporary sensitivities. We’ve been making mechanical watches for more than 120 years, but this watch is young, spirited and joyful. It’s a watch for today, and for today’s world citizen.
