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I spent three years being too scared to buy an interesting watch. Don't be me.
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For a long time, I only bought grey and black things.
Not just watches. Everything. My wardrobe looked like I was preparing a midnight covert mission. I had convinced myself that this was sophistication. Restraint. Taste. It wasn't.
It was fear dressed up as a philosophy.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately because a watch landed on my radar recently that I would have completely dismissed three years ago. Not because it was badly made, it wasn't, and not because the brand was unproven. Purely because the dial was green. Pistachio green. And past-me would have said something insufferable like "a bit loud for my taste" before going back to browsing grey dials on grey straps like the coward I was.
Present-me thinks past-me needs to have a word with himself.
Tessé is a Canadian brand that assembles in La Chaux-de-Fonds, makes two lines of watches, and doesn't have the name recognition that their product deserves. Simple as that.
Their GMT line leans into 1970s heritage, that warm, analogue, slightly chunky world that everyone is currently obsessed with. The Architect on the other hand is a departure from the usual. It's what happens when you stop referencing the past and just ask: what if we made something beautiful?
The answer is a watch with a dial built from 21 individual components. Matte and polished surfaces sit next to each other fighting for your attention in the best possible way. Thirteen sculpted lume blocks that, after dark, glow like a lit office building seen from the street. I know that sounds like marketing copy. I promise I'm not on their payroll. It's just genuinely what the thing looks like.
Pistachio is a word that has been absolutely destroyed by the watch (and Dubai chocolate) industry. Every brand with a vaguely green dial has slapped the word pistachio on it and called it a day, usually alongside the phrase "inspired by the Mediterranean" or something equally meaningless. So I was ready to be cynical. I queued up my best eye-roll. And then I looked at it properly.
Tessé describe this colour as being inspired by aged copper and modern interiors. Which, fine, sounds like something a designer says when they're trying to justify a colour they already knew they loved. But the result speaks for itself. It's soft and matte and warm. It doesn't shout. It doesn't demand a compliment. It just sits there being quietly, annoyingly beautiful. I think it would work with a suit or a t-shirt. I think it's the rare coloured dial that you could wear for ten years and never get tired of. That's not a thing I say lightly, because most coloured dials are novelties.
The movement is an ETA 2892, which is the right choice. When your dial is the story, you want a movement that does its job quietly and gets out of the way. The 2892 has been doing exactly that for decades. There's a transparent caseback with a custom engraved movement holder that carries the architectural concept all the way through to the parts you'll only ever see when you flip it over. I love that.
The case has a 1200 HV anti-scratch treatment, which is harder than most tool steels. I mention that not to pad this out with numbers but because it tells you something about how seriously they've thought about the things you can't see in product photos.
I bought a green jacket last year. First non-grey item of clothing I'd owned in about five years. My wife said it looked great. My first instinct was to return it but now I wear it constantly. I have no idea what I was so afraid of.
The Tessé Architect Pistachio Vault is, in the most literal sense, a watch I want. Not as a collector's piece, not as a conversation starter, but as the thing on my wrist when I'm living my life. It's interesting without being exhausting. It's colourful without being loud. And it's made with enough genuine intention that I feel comfortable telling you about it. If it still sounds too green for you, that's fine. Some people keep buying grey things forever, and they're probably very happy. But if you've been looking at your watch collection lately and thinking it could do with a little more life in it, well. The Pistachio Vault might be for you.
Cya in the next one x
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