Corum is notable among watch brands for its very diverse range of families — playful oddballs like the Bubble and Coin models, the horologically avant-garde Golden Bridge, and the nautical-themed Admiral’s Cup among them — but what it has lacked up until recently in its modern collection has been a simple, traditional “starter” watch for those whose wristwear tastes are a tad more subtle. The La Chaux-de-Fonds-based manufacturer remedies that oversight this year with the introduction of Corum La Grande Vie, an entirely new collection which Corum CEO Jerome Biard describes as having “an elegant, classical design,” which “complements, following our customers’ demand, our most daring pieces.”
The Corum La Grande Vie collection is comprised of three pieces, all in 42-mm round cases made of grade 2 titanium, each with a very eye-catching sunburst-effect dial in blue, red or green; the shimmering effect radiates from the center all the way to the flange of the dial, catching the light in pleasing fashion as the colors fade to dark tones at the edges.
The baton hour markers, a fixture of many traditional timepiece dials, are here more elongated than the norm, helping to accentuate the sunburst effect. The rhodium-plated, openworked hands are in the classical Dauphine style. In keeping with the dial’s understated, clean design — some elements of which, Corum says, are a nod to a previous model, the Chargé d’Affaires from the 1950s — Corum’s brand name doesn’t even appear on the dial, replaced at 12 o’clock by an oversized, tone-on-tone imprint of the company’s “key” logo.
Inside the 9.5-mm-thick case, and visible through a sapphire caseback, beats a self-winding, Swiss-made movement, the Sellita SW300, with 25 jewels, a 28,800-vph frequency, and a 42-hour power reserve. Each Corum La Grande Vie watch — which, based on these photos provided by Corum, is intended to be a unisex model — comes on an imitation-alligator calf leather strap, in a color matching that of the dial, with a simple steel pin buckle closure.