GOING PRO

Just in time for summer, Tissot is expanding its popular Seastar dive watch collection with a beefed-up version that also comes with a new wave-pattern dial. WatchTime travelled to Le Locle for a first hands-on with the new 46-mm Seastar 2000 Professional.

- Roger Ruegger

For Baselworld 2018, in retrospect the last time the brand participated in the traditional watch fair, the Tissot Seastar was reintroduced with a new design, much closer to the original version from 2003 with conic bezel. The case, on the other hand, was kept closer to the previous generation of 2011, featuring recessed polished sections on both sides, but without the integrated helium release valve at 9 o’clock. Perhaps most importantly, the Seastar 1000 from 2018 no longer came with the rather distinctive “snake head” hour and minutes hands of its predecessors, but with a much less polarizing set of polished sword hands instead. Only the t-shaped counterweight of the second hand has been kept almost unchanged since 2003. In short, when almost every watch brand started to focus on dive watches with retro designs, Tissot had introduced once more a refreshingly modern take on a mechanical dive watch, now successfully using some of the key elements from the last 16 years. And speaking of modern take, one year later, in 2019, the Seastar range was even used as a platform to introduce the Powermatic 80 (ETA C07.811) with “Silicon Balance Spring” in one of its references (T120.407.11.041.01), hinting at the strategic relevance of the range. Sylvain Dolla, Tissot’s CEO, commented, “The Seastar is becoming a very important line in terms of sales. It’s the fourth line at Tissot. Despite the fact that it’s a quite new line, we started the [current version of the] Seastar four years ago.” And he adds, “It’s also important because it can demonstrate what Tissot is capable of.”