It arrives with a first for the collection, a sunburst salmon dial paired with an anthracite nubuck strap, and a boutique-only study in contrast: steel, yellow gold, and an olive-green nubuck strap.
The Right Size
The most convincing argument is rarely the loudest. The Villeret Ultraplate has always made its case through restraint: an ultra-thin automatic movement, a case that asks for no attention, a presence measured. Today that restraint is offered in a new 38 mm, alongside the 40mm that remains the heart of the collection. The right size, after all, is a personal matter: the one that suits the wrist. One is never overdressed or underdressed with a Villeret - whichever one chooses.
A First in Salmon
For the first time, Villeret wears salmon. A sunburst dial whose warmth shifts through the day between copper, rose and gold, it is set in stainless steel, restraint and warmth in the same timepiece. Its 18 ct gold numerals are treated in a new black finish and echoed by an anthracite nubuck strap. On a collection whose vocabulary runs to opaline and silvered tones, salmon is an event: not a flourish, but a new word in a familiar language. Those who prefer the quieter register will find it in the gold-toned opaline dial alongside it.
Reserved for the Boutiques
One reference makes a quieter kind of statement. Available only in Blancpain boutiques, it pairs a stainless-steel case with solid 18 ct yellow-gold numerals, a gold-toned opaline dial, and an olive-green nubuck alligator strap: saddle-cut and hand-stitched, precious and modest in the same breath. The contrast is deliberate: steel and gold classicism and a colour Villeret has rarely worn. It is the sort of detail a collector notices first.
The Detail, Refined
The aesthetic language introduced across Villeret last autumn now reaches the 38 mm case. The Romar numerals, resized for balance, are solid 18 ct gold satin-finished upper surfaces with polished bevels on the edges. The traditional XII gives way to the JB monogram, for Jehan-Jacques Blancpain. Slender hands carry Super-LumiNova® for readability after dark. At three o'clock, a larger date window. Through the sapphire case back, an open-worked oscillating weight in red gold (on red gold models) or yellow gold (on steel models) reveals the automatic manufacture calibre 1150 and its 100-hour power reserve.
A Conviction, Since 1983
The right size is not a new idea to Villeret: it is the oldest one. In 1983, when much of the industry was turning to quartz, Blancpain went the other way and did so with the smallest complete calendar moon phase of its time in just 34mm. It was a deliberate act of faith in mechanical watchmaking: proof that a watch could be an object of craft, beauty and emotion rather than a piece of electronics. That single timepiece carried the codes - the double-stepped bezel, the understatement, the moon with a face - that the collection still wears today, though it would not be given the name Villeret until 2002. What followed, across the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, was one of the most inventive chapters in Swiss watchmaking: a succession of firsts, complications and ultra-thin constructions, made in modest, classical proportions and a spirit of discretion. A new generation of collectors has since rediscovered these early Villeret pieces - drawn, as it happens, to exactly the qualities this 38mm chapter sets out to honour: restraint, proportion, and the conviction that the most timeless watch is the one that never raised its voice.
The Moon, in 29.2 mm
Few complications belong to a Maison the way the moon phase belongs to Blancpain. Alongside the 38 mm, the Villeret Phases de Lune appears in a 29.2mm case carrying that signature. Within an enlarged aperture, a blue ceramic disc sets off an applied, domed and satin-finished 18ct gold moon with its distinctive face; a diamond-set bezel and indexes catch the light around it, and a blue serpentine hand marks the date. Beneath, the secured, automatic manufacture calibre 913QL allows the calendar to be adjusted at any time without risk to the movement.
Designed to be worn
Faithful to tradition, Villeret
continues to evolve where it is worn. A tool-free system allows straps and buckles to be changed effortlessly, with nothing more than the touch of a fingertip; the hand-stitched alligator comes in beige, anthracite, honey, blue and olive green. The watch adapts to the day with effortless ease.
