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Half a century ago, Swiss watchmaker Edox created its legendary SkyDiver timepiece, which was a rugged and high-performance tool watch that was produced specifically for an elite Swiss military group. Over the years, the SkyDiver has evolved, and its function-forward design ultimately became the foundation for the brand’s Neptunian collection, which takes the core design of the SkyDiver and transforms it into a thoroughly modern professional dive watch. As its latest new release of 2023, Edox is introducing the next chapter in the evolution of the Neptunian, and the new Edox Neptunian Grande Réserve represents the most refined dive watch in the brand’s current catalog, yet it still offers all of the features and durability that are required in order to survive a life deep below the surface of the ocean.

While the fundamental styling of the new Edox Neptunian Grande Réserve makes it immediately identifiable as being part of the greater Neptunian collection, its proportions and aesthetics are significantly more refined compared to the original highly purpose-built Neptunian diver. By omitting the helium gas escape valve and opting for a lower depth rating, the new Neptunian Grande Réserve is able to achieve a significantly thinner case profile to compliment its overall reduction in size, and the new watch measures 42mm in diameter by 12.3mm thick with 20mm lugs and an overall lug-to-lug profile of 49mm. With that in mind, despite its slimmer and more refined design, the Edox Neptunian Grande Réserve is still a highly capable professional dive watch that offers users a generous 300 meters of water resistance.

To protect the dial of the Edox Neptunian Grande Réserve, a 3mm thick flat sapphire crystal is fitted to the top of its brushed and polished stainless steel case, and this gets surrounded by a 60-click unidirectional rotating timing bezel that is fitted with a fully demarcated insert made from scratch-resistant ceramic. To help guarantee its dive-ready depth rating, a signed screw-down winding crown with Edox’s signature double O’ring gasket system sits between two large crown guards at the 3 o’clock location, while the reverse side of the watch gets fitted with a solid screw-down stainless steel caseback that is adorned with the Neptunian collection’s signature engraving of Neptune, the Roman God of the Sea.

Just like the original Neptunian diver, the new Edox Neptunian Grande Réserve is offered in a variety of different colorways including traditional options such as black and dark blue, along with more vibrant options such as green with orange accents, ice blue with white details, and a two-tone version that features a rose gold-finished bezel ring to match the golden accents on its hands and hour markers. Each of the different colorways offers its own unique aesthetic, and the versatile proportions and refined styling of the Neptunian Grande Réserve allow it to be anything from a person’s everyday timekeeping companion to their fun and playful vacation watch, simply depending on the colorway that they choose for their timepiece.

Regardless of their color, all of the dials fitted to the Edox Neptunian Grande Réserve feature the same highly legible design with applied geometric hour markers and a date window at the 3 o’clock location. Just like the original Neptunian diver, the depth rating is printed along the color-matched angled rehaut to increase the amount of negative space on the dial and maximize its legibility. Meanwhile, the handset has been updated to feature a revised appearance, and it consists of a sword-shaped hour hand paired with a minute hand that has a large arrow-shaped tip. Just as you would expect from a high-performance dive watch, the three centrally-mounted hands, plus the zero marker on the bezel and each one of the applied indexes on the dial all receive a healthy application of X1 Super-LumiNova to provide the Edox Neptunian Grande Réserve with a bright green luminous display in the dark.

Powering the new Edox Neptunian Grande Réserve is the brand’s Caliber 808 automatic movement, which is based upon the La Joux-Perret G100 and therefore runs at a frequency of 28,800vph (4 Hz) while offering users an extended power reserve of approximately 68 hours. In addition to representing a significantly longer duration of autonomy compared to similar self-winding movements from manufacturers such as ETA or Sellita, the 68-hour power reserve offered by the underlying architecture of the Swiss La Joux-Perret G100 means that the Edox Neptunian Grande Réserve is capable of spending an entire weekend away from your wrist, and it will still be running and displaying the correct time when you reach for it again on Monday morning.

Fitted to the lugs of the Edox Neptunian Grande Réserve is a three-link stainless steel bracelet that features completely solid components and tapers from 20mm at the case down to 18mm where it connects to its signed folding clasp. The links are finished with brushed sides and high-polished center sections, and to compliment the refined styling of the Neptunian Grande Réserve collection, the clasp has been updated to a butterfly-style design with a double push-button release. That said, despite its relatively thin profile, the clasp still offers an integrated extension system, and each side includes a fold-out structure that allows the bracelet to be expanded to fit over the sleeve of a wetsuit. When not in use, the two extensions lock back into the clasp with spring-loaded bearings, leaving a fairly compact structure for maximum comfort and an elevated overall appearance.

While the Neptunian itself is a fairly modern addition to Edox’s catalog, the story of the Neptunian collection is over half a century in the making, and the new Edox Neptunian Grande Réserve represents the next chapter in its ongoing evolution. While the standard Neptunian diver is a highly purpose-built underwater timekeeping tool, the new Neptunian Grande Réserve can be seen as its more refined sibling that is equally at home both on dry land and deep below the surface of the ocean. Accompanied by an official retail price of $1,990 USD, the new Edox Neptunian Grande Réserve combines professional dive watch features with an elevated aesthetic to create a timepiece that is perfectly suited to being a person’s everyday do-anything timekeeping companion, regardless of whether they find themselves wearing a three-piece suit or a wetsuit. For more information on the Edox Neptunian Grande Réserve, please visit the brand’s website.