FROM THE LAB TO REALITY
Zenith paves the way with the DEFY Inventor
WITH ITS SIGHTS set on pushing the boundaries of precision and innovation, Zenith wrote a new chapter in its history in 2017 with the launch of the DEFY collection. This saw the introduction of the remarkable 100th of a second chronograph, the DEFY El Primero 21, followed by the DEFY Lab, an “archetype” regulated by a revolutionary oscillator developed in-house and issued in a limited edition of just 10 pieces.
Today, the “specimen” has moved beyond laboratory stage and become the DEFY Inventor, produced in a run of several hundred units and equipped with its own patented regulating organ. Like its predecessor, DEFY Inventor offers superlative technical performance and a modern aesthetic composed of cutting-edge materials. With its chronometric precision, this avant-garde three-hand watch is now seriesproduced ‒ an industrial tour de force ‒ and stylised to appeal to urban aesthetes.
Beating at the extremely high frequency of 18Hz (compared to the usual 4Hz) and endowed with a comfortable two-day autonomy, DEFY Inventor owes its exceptional properties to a disruptive technology: the single-piece Zenith Oscillator developed and patented by the company. The result of an unprecedented scientific approach to the quest for performance, it has replaced the sprung balance used in mechanical watchmaking for three and a half centuries.
This major innovation for the industry offers a number of benefits. Firstly, increased reliability, given that this unique ultra-thin element (0.5 mm) replaces the thirty or so components of a standard regulating organ and thus eliminates contact, friction, wear and deformation; and secondly, stability, since it is made of monocrystalline silicon and therefore insensitive to temperature variations and magnetic fields. In addition, its escape-wheel is made of flexible blades, a first in the watch industry. These exceptional qualities are triple certified: for magnetic insensitivity, thermal insensitivity and chronometric precision.
Design-wise, DEFY Inventor is as architectural as it is organic. Like an animated being in a state of perpetual motion, its heart pulsates on the dial side, beneath a sophisticated open-worked construction. Its powerful stature is carved from ultra-light materials: brushed titanium for the 44mm case and Aeronith, the world’s lightest aluminium composite to date, for the textured bezel. Three times lighter than titanium, made of open-pore aluminium foam, stiffened with a polymer, Aeronith is easily forgotten when worn, while asserting a unique modern style. The equally airy open-worked dial forms a stylised propeller with five ‘blades/ branches’ that evoke the Zenith star. Broad hour and minute hands sweep over the mechanism, while a slender star-tipped central hand ‒ equipped with a stop-seconds system enabling ultra-accurate adjustment ‒ marks off the seconds. In an ultimate touch of futuristic sophistication, DEFY Inventor is secured to the wrist by a black rubber strap with a midnight blue alligator coating.