We’ve all at least heard of the Chinese New Year, which celebrates the beginning of a lunar year. This differs from the Gregorian calendar used throughout most of the world, based on a solar year. The Gregorian calendar went into effect in 1582, launched by Pope Gregory XIII to replace the Julian calendar. The difference between these two involve leap years, which became separated by four years with the Gregorian calendar to make a year 365.2425 days. This almost perfectly matched a true solar year of 365.2422 days. The Julian calendar incorrectly assumed a year was 365.25 days, which is about one day per century off. Class dismissed…
Chinese New Year
The Chinese New Year again revolves around a lunar year, not solar. Well, sort of. A lunar calendar bases dates around moon phases, which remains popular in traditional Asian cultures and brings its new year anywhere between January 21st and February 20th. This is because unlike Earth’s rotation around the sun every 365 days, the moon’s phases bring a year to 354-355 days. However, the Chinese New Year is based on a lunisolar calendar, which combines lunar and solar calendars. It celebrates the arrival of Spring and is the most popular holiday in China (also known as the Spring Festival). It’s believed to have originated in the Shang Dynasty with a history of around 3,500 years.
Chinese New Year One Edition
To celebrate, we’re debuting our first Chinese New Year watch with a dragon theme. 2024 is the Year of the Dragon and our Chinese New Year One Edition is based on the Autark K2 Small Seconds. This features a special dragon-themed “fire red” dial and our in-house, COSC-certified K2 micro-rotor caliber. The tungsten micro-rotor also displays an intricate dragon engraving. Autark is German for “independence” and “self-sufficiency” and is a natural fit with this year’s Wood Dragon theme. As with all of our Autark watches, everything is surrounded by grade 5 titanium with an integrated, sports watch design. Of course, we’re not the only watchmaker celebrating the holiday as many have special additions for the occasion, from super high end to accessible. They incorporate the Chinese zodiac (dragon) into the dial, caseback and/or movement.
Chinese Zodiac
Within the Chinese calendar, there are 12 Chinese zodiac signs represented by animals assigned to months, days and even hours. Each year represents one of these animals: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. A person’s zodiac year traditionally reveals parts of their life, such as personality, compatibility with others and so on. This is identical in many ways to the 12 astrological signs like Pisces, Leo, Aries and Sagittarius.
Year of the Dragon
2024 marks Chinese New Year’s Year of the Wood Dragon, following the order of Chinese Zodiac animals (last year was the rabbit and next year will be the snake). It began on February 10th and represents authority, prosperity, and good fortune. As mentioned, this annual holiday is celebrated globally by watchmakers and the dragon theme makes for dramatic and colorful offerings. Given that this is a Chinese holiday, many intriguing options originate in this country with dragon models or prints on the dials and other themed elements.
Ultra-Luxury Chinese New Year
Some of the highest end brands embrace the Chinese New Year as well, but these special editions come with significant price tags. Whether or not it’s worth it is up to an individual collector, but some are incredible examples of haute horology. For example, Genus created an articulating, animated dragon on the dial of their Genus Dragon. It’s a wild and creative kinetic celebration of the holiday, but also comes with a six-figure price. Legendary watchmaker Breguet has a pair of dragon watches, but the Classique Double Tourbillon Dragon stands out with a hand-engraved gold dragon between a double tourbillon system that also acts as the hour hand. It’s an amazing fusion of complex watchmaking and art, but rings in close to a million US dollars.
Horage Autark K2 Series
Our Chinese New Year One Edition is the latest piece in the Autark line, which includes the new Autark Tourbillon. This represents our most advanced watch with an integrated sports watch design wrapped in grade 5 titanium and powered by our in-house K-TMR micro-rotor tourbillon. The blend of a tourbillon and micro-rotor is already exceptionally rare, and our preorder price of just under CHF 10,000 is unheard of for such an exceptional piece. Older Autark models include one of our best sellers, the Autark Hv and also the Autark T5. We’re proud to celebrate the 2024 Chinese New Year with the dragon themed Chinese New Year One Edition and look forward to future Chinese New Year additions.
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Erik Slaven
Hey Horage team
The new Autark K2 Small Seconds looks great. 2 quick questions:
The dial color seems to be grained. Is that correct?
Am I right saying the crown is push-pull, not screw down?
Thank you and looking forward to the K-TMR on my end. That red dial wouldn't look half bad there either!
Didn’t know the details behind Chinese new year. Shame on me though I am married with our boss who is Taiwanese 😅. This watch is going to be so beautiful exactly because it is demonstrating the dragon in such a subtle way. Lots of style coming with a ton of good tech. 🙏
Recently, Chinese new year seems to be as big a celebration here (Canada for me, Swiss for you) as it is in China. Interesting that this holiday has been so enthusiastically exported. In contrast, I don't know about any about unique Swiss holidays, are there some? Do they get unique watches? Can we expect some unique Canadian Family day Horages? 😉
No need to respond.. I'm kidding around - I know we don't represent big enough markets to get watches or international acclaim.
Yup - micro rotor AND tourbillon is an epic combination. Deserves accolades if it's as great as prior movements. I'm hoping Horage will get some industry wide acclaim when released. BTW - have you noticed that when Horage releases a new tech (a tourbillon, a micro-rotor..) shortly thereafter Yema announces they are doing the same thing? 🤔. Annoying. I hope Horage continues to amplify the visibility and appeal of your tourbillon. Perhaps get inspired by the elevated and skeletonized tb, like a moser cylindrical pioneer... or the angled/faster/larger tb like a Gruebell Forsey? Shooting for the stars here, but why not? 😊
I hope for some modern styles like the Tourbillon 1 again, that watch remains incredibly popular!
BTW: Horage (and Moser) got a shout out in a recent ABTW podcast talking about 'true swiss watches', so kudos to you guys for that!