At 91, Norman Foster has designed his first watch, and it starts by deleting something every watch has: lugs. The Lebond Norman Foster joins case and strap into one continuous shape. So the FKM rubber strap flows straight out of the 38.5mm Grade 5 titanium case. Lug to lug is 38.5mm, because there is nothing else to measure.
The practical trick is the bidirectional 12-hour bezel. Turn it and the main hour hand reads a second time zone, no GMT hand, no extra complication. Inside is an ETA 2892-A2 automatic with a 50-hour reserve, visible through a sapphire caseback with a custom perforated rotor. The case is 10mm thick with 50 meters of water resistance and a date window at 3 o’clock. I have not worn one yet, so this is a design story, not a wrist report. But the thinking is pure Foster: strip it to the function and let the engineering carry the look.
Two editions are available: Natural Titanium and Black DLC. Natural Titanium has a sunray dial, light grey strap and blue rotor. Black DLC has a black lacquer dial and red rotor. Both are individually numbered, available now from Lebond at 3,500 euros, about $4,000. It sits at the opposite end of the titanium automatic spectrum from Casio’s titanium automatic field watch. That watch starts at $320.
