Rado teams up with some of the world’s most prolific designers for a series of watches that pair gorgeous design with functionality the brand has long been known for.
Rado teams up with some of the world’s most prolific designers for a series of watches that pair gorgeous design with functionality the brand has long been known for.
The wealth of options available to watch lovers today is astounding. Whether it’s a complication-laden beast or a jewellery piece with enough rocks to sprain your wrist, there’s something for everyone. But if what you’re looking for is clean design realised in high-tech materials, Rado has you covered. As the pioneer and leader in high-tech ceramic, the brand has for years been making remarkable innovations that include extreme scratch-resistance and never-before-seen colours like plasma. But it has also recently decided to up its aesthetics game with a series of new models made in collaboration with leading designers around the world.
The Rado True Blaze is a collaborative effort with Sam Amoia, an American furniture designer known for creating textures using stone and metal fragments. It’s a technique that works marvellously with the True Blaze’s dial. What looks like a watch covered in diamonds is actually one solid piece of metal that underwent a galvanic process so that it replicates the crystalline structure of diamond powder. This also meant the gold-coloured logo and indexes had to be placed directly on the underside of the glass, allowing them to appear as if they’re floating above the disco ball dial. It is limited to 1,001 pieces.
Offering a modern take on the skeletonised watch is the Rado True Phospho by Big-Game. The Swiss design studio believes in functionality and simple shapes with just a touch of the unexpected. That philosophy led to the True Phospho’s perforated brass dial, which lets the movement peek through. Adding more visual excitement to the dial are geometric shapes formed by filling empty spaces with Super-Luminova. The lume also coats the hands for easier reading. While 1,003 pieces were made, three of them were allocated to Big-Game.
The soft curves and minimalist form of the Rado True Cyclo are unmistakably the work of French industrial and homeware designer Philippe Nigro. The matte black high-tech ceramic case, black leather strap and silvery concave case is good design at its purest. With just recessed markers in dove grey and a round date window at 6 o’clock, Nigro has managed to distil the essence of Rado’s DNA into an accessory that is both clean and stylish.
Master of photochromic fabrics Kunihiko Morinaga brought his playful yet cerebral ideas to the Rado True Shadow. The transforming watch dial goes dark when exposed to sunlight, but gradually fades into grey and eventually becomes transparent when the sun goes down — allowing a view of the movement inside.
“The idea was to add colour and to take it away,” explains Morinaga. “I tried to capture the ‘floating’ essence of time in the design of a watch by using a photochromic lens that changes colour based on UV light.”
Another designer that has brought his design codes to the wrist is Polish architect Oskar Zieta. His series of polished mirrors and furniture, titled Plopp, makes stainless steel appear inflated like a balloon, and it’s a style that continues in the Rado True Face.
A highly re ective steel disc sits in the centre of the dial, while the underside of the matte grey hands (which match the ceramic case and bracelet) have been given a rose gold-coloured finish so they can be reflected in a different hue on the dial.
A complete contrast to that is Austrian designer Rainer Mutsch’s Rado True Stratum, a simple black beauty that almost seems to swallow light. His trademark style has been re-created here with asymmetrically descending steps in a concave surface.
The slightly raised, oblong logo plate adds dimensionality to the whole look, while a perfectly centred black dot on the underside of the sapphire crystal provides yet more depth by casting a shadow on the dial.
Rado has spent nearly a century honing its craft and identity. Today it is the undisputed leader in ceramic technology and created an visual identity that complements its futuristic ambitions. With a template like that, it was only a matter of time before like-minded individuals from outside the world of horology joined forces in the name of good design and innovation.
