Irresistible

There is only one word to describe Tissot’s new PRX Powermatic 80

THE TREND FOR 1970S-INSPIRED sports watches with integrated bracelets continues to be the hottest segment in the industry. In fact, Tissot had been there in the mix since the early 1970s, embracing the hybrid case profile with a version of the Seastar sport watch and dressing it with a blue dial and quartz movement.

First unveiled under the name “Seastar” in 1978, Tissot later registered the name PRX, where P stands for Precise, R for Robust and the X is the Roman numeral for 10, referring to the 10 bars of water-resistance. Launched earlier this year, the new Tissot PRX series was named for that early Seastar, successfully incorporating key elements of that era’s sport-watch designs, with a modern quartz calibre and an insanely attractive price point.

Founded in 1853, Tissot is a Le Locle manufacture with a long tradition of designed watches spanning a variety of styles including 1960s watches with bold shapes (hello Banana), oversized cases, and colourful dials. With the help of models such as the Le Locle, Gentleman, Seastar, T-Touch, and many heritage pieces, it is one of the largest producers of Swiss-Made timepieces in the world.

The new Tissot PRX in quartz or automatic Powermatic 80 variant leaves no doubt on that Tissot is capitalising on the current demand for luxury sports watches. It ticks all the right boxes: shaped case, brushed surfaces with polished facets, textured dial, thin case and of course, that all important integrated bracelet. That said, we are duty bound to address that this is not some Nautilus-Oak wanna-be homage, the PRX is a class unto itself. It shares more in common with the Rolex Oysterquartz or its sister brand’s Omega Seamaster Geneve. Incidentally, Tissot was once merged to Omega in the 1930s, when they formed the SSIH (Société Suisse pour l’Industrie Horlogère), the precursor to Swatch Group.

To our modern perspective, it feels like the waffle dial is the sole purview of Audemars Piguet, but the fact is that these patterned dials have been used by the likes Bulova, Omega and even Rolex in the,’60s andm ’70s. In terms of watch architecture, clean satin-finished surfaces flow directly from the single-horizontal-link bracelet to the rounded caseband and angular lugs. It avoids the “Oak-trap” by eschewing the “shaped bezel” for a simple funny polished raised bezel, setting it apart from the 1956 Seamaster Geneve and providing a “frame” for the dial. Should Tissot release a brushed dial version of the PRX Powermatic, it might prove to be more popular as it puts some distance (aesthetically speaking) from the rest of the players in the field.

Incredibly, for a sub-$1,000 timepiece, every angle and facet is as sharp as you would expect from a timepiece more than 10 times the price. In fact, at this price range, you could be forgiven if your expectation was a workhorse ETA ebauche instead.

You even get an exclusive Powermatic 80 calibre with amagetic nivachron hairspring. Nivachron, of course, is the titanium-based alloy that is resistant to magnetism, shocks and temperature variation. It is a superb material for balance springs, developed by the Swatch Group ETA in collaboration with Audemars Piguet. and unveiled in 2019. It is what brings the PRX as close as to the Royal Oak as possible. How is that for its value proposition?