This Mid-Century Everyday Watch Gets a Polished-Up Redux

A few months ago, Oris relaunched the Artelier collection with a set of new, mid-century modern-inspired dials positioned as dress watches with daily-wearing appeal.

Now, the well-received release is getting a special-edition encore, featuring a simplified dial with a distinctly polished look. Moreover, as this year’s Hölstein Edition, it has a couple of surprises to reveal.

Oris

Launched in 2020, the Hölstein Edition is an annual limited-edition watch released on June 1 in celebration of the brand’s birthday. It is always a playful reimagining of a popular collection or model packed with little Easter eggs.

As Oris CEO Rolf Studer explains in a press release, “It’s a platform for quirky ideas we’ve had that don’t necessarily make sense in a core collection piece, but create such joy when executed as a short-run special edition.”

Each year has a celebratory theme baked into the watch’s design, and the 2026 edition is all about “thoughtful reflection.” It is meant as an expression of gratitude to the community that has helped Oris flourish, but is cheekily realized through highly polished and mirrored surfaces.

Oris

The textured dials of the core Artelier collection are replaced with a matte light gray surface marked only with a printed Oris wordmark. Faceted metallic hour markers and skinny baton hands remain unchanged, but the date complication is gone.

Instead, the Hölstein Edition 2026 brings the first small-seconds complication to the Artelier. It sits at 6:00 with a red hand, the only dash of color on the dial, over a mirrored subdial.

There’s more to this case

While the Hölstein Edition 2026 dial is an alteration of the 38mm Artelier Date, it is set in the larger 39.5mm case of the Artelier Complication.

Oris

Oris has openly admitted that the new Artelier collection was produced, at least in part, to draw in a younger audience. As millennial watch enthusiasts like me move toward smaller case sizes, younger generations appear more comfortable with the 40mm zone.

Oris knows its audience as intimately as any watch brand and, as Studer informed me last summer, the appetite for larger cases is as strong as ever. It makes perfect sense that the brand’s most fan-oriented release of the year is a larger dress watch.

Hello there

Oris carries its “thoughtful reflection” over to the caseback, where a stainless steel ring holds a mirror-finished insert. It features the Oris Bear peaking over the edge, framed by concentric circles containing “Hölstein Edition 2026.”

The back plate for this watch was developed with Inspire, a Swiss engineering firm. The detailing is laser-engraved to reveal a lustrous rainbow layer.

Oris

The endearing heart-nosed bear obscures the final surprise of the Hölstein Edition 2026. It is the first Artelier reference to be powered by an Oris in-house movement, specifically the Caliber 401 automatic. Its impressive stats include a 120-hour power reserve and an accuracy rating of -3/+5 seconds per day.

Availability and pricing

As only the seventh Hölstein Edition, the tradition is still developing, but it is refreshing to see Oris use it to expand a new collection. Five of the previous six came from the well-established Propilot, Big Crown and Divers collections, and the sixth was a one-off 1990s revival.

The Oris Hölstein Edition 2026 is available now from Oris for $4,600. It is a limited edition of 250 pieces.

Oris

Oris Hölstein Edition 2026

Specs

Case Size	39.5mm
Movement	Oris Caliber 401 automatic
Water Resistance	30m

• $4,600 at Oris

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