Czapek's Promenade is the quiet one in the catalogue, a round time-only watch that has always sat a step behind the integrated-bracelet Antarctique. The Transparencies Aqua Blue changes that by opening the dial to the movement and treating the opening itself as the decoration. Monochrome published a first look on 21 August, SJX covered it the same week, and it is listed on czapek.com.
The dial does the work
Most skeleton watches cut a hole in the dial and leave it at that. Czapek's approach is a gradient. The dial is a single disc of sapphire, and its blue comes from vapour deposition, microscopic metallic dots roughly eight microns across laid onto the underside of the glass. The dots are packed tightly at the outer edge and spread out as they move inward toward the small seconds at 4:30, so the surface reads as a solid blue fumé at the rim and fades to clear glass toward the centre, where the gear train shows through. It is the same fumé idea Czapek uses on the Antarctique, done in a way that turns the dial from a coloured surface into a window.
Blue-lumed baton markers and a set of red-tipped hands sit above the sapphire, with "Czapek Genève" printed twice and "Fabriqué en Suisse" at the base. From straight on the movement is legible through the middle; from an angle the blue closes up and the watch reads as a dark dress piece.
A 38mm steel case
The case is steel, 38mm across and 10.8mm thick, with 42mm from lug to lug. Those are dress-watch proportions, and the Promenade wears as one, with a thin polished bezel and short lugs. Water resistance is 50m, which is enough for a watch built around a sapphire dial rather than a gasketed metal one.
Calibre SXH7
Behind the dial is the reason for the exercise. The SXH7 is a new movement, a fully skeletonised development of Czapek's foundational SXH5 automatic, with its bridges cut back so that the openings in the dial line up with real space in the movement rather than a printed suggestion of it. It runs at 28,800 vibrations per hour with a 60-hour power reserve, and it is wound by a micro-rotor machined from recycled platinum and engraved on both faces, which keeps the winding mass off the dial side and out of the view. Through the sapphire back the calibre is signed SXH7 and marked as adjusted in five positions.
Price and availability
The Promenade Transparencies Aqua Blue is limited to 38 pieces at CHF 28,800, or about US$40,300, and can be had on a blue nubuck strap or an integrated steel Milanese bracelet. That is a real step up from a standard time-only Promenade, and it buys the dial technique and the skeleton movement rather than a complication. For a house that made its name on the Antarctique's fumé dials, turning that same fumé into a way of seeing the movement is a coherent next move, and a more interesting one than another colourway.
