TAG Heuer gave the people what they want (more thoughtful small watches) this LVMH Watch Week with the release of a new Aquaracer Professional Solargraph watch in 34mm steel cases. Adding to the existing collection of 40mm pieces, these smaller solar powered Aquaracers have the same traits as their larger siblings with water resistance of 200 m, a unidirectional rotating bezel, screw-down crown, lume, and double safety clasp.
What would previously have been singled out as a “ladies watch” is truly unisex as you can see in the photo of the watch on my wrist. In fact the 34mm wide, 9.5mm thick case has a fairly universal “everyday” lug-to-lug measurement of 40.6mm. While the deep blue and polar blue dials will likely appeal to men more than the mother of pearl dials, there is something to be said for the technical achievement of having an MOP dial on a solar powered watch. Solargraph tech requires semi-transparent dials to work and TAG had to do some real tweaking in order to get these done.
Done in partnership with La Joux-Perret, the Calibre TH50-01 only needs two minutes of exposure to sunlight to power the watch for a full day while 40-hours of sunlight exposure will charge it for 10 months.
This new TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 200 Solargraph collection in 34mm cases is priced at $2,150 for the deep blue and polar blue dials while the mother of pearl is a bit more at $2,350 and $2,950 for MOP with diamond hour markers. These are available immediately while a MOP with diamond hour markers and bezel priced at $5,000 will arrive later this summer.
