These days, you rarely see machine guilloche dials and cases. It used to be that many gold watches had machine guilloche cases. They are now quite rare, and vintage ones are hard to find in good condition because the case engraving design has the tendency to rub away after years of wear. It is really nice to see Ralph Lauren bring back this truly beautiful artistic aesthetic in a men’s watch meant to pair with formal attire.

The dial itself is machine guilloche engraved with a few patterns and has Roman number hour markers in black. The time-only dial has two black pomme style Breguet hands. I prefer black to blued markers in this instance. The dial works so well because it is both highly legible and also wonderfully decorated in a masculine manner.

Inside the Ralph Lauren Slim Classique is what they refer to as the RL430 manually wound movement. It is produced for them by Piaget. The caseback, again, is traditional and is merely polished gold. If all you want is the time in a thin profile, this is the way to go.

Attached to the watch is a thin black alligator strap on narrow lugs that, when combined with the larger case size, looks immaculate as it hugs the wrist. Nothing about the Slim Classique is new from a design perspective, it is a clever mixture of classic design elements. That is what you want from a high-end design house. Their job is to mix and match themes and genres to appeal to an immediate sensibility of popular style. To that end, Ralph Lauren succeeds in borrowing elements from various historic timepieces to come up with something impressively well curated. Price for the Ralph Lauren Slim Classique in 18k rose gold is $16,400. ralphlaurenwatches.com