Oris’s New Dive Watch May Be Its Best-Looking Yet

Few dive watch brands are more committed to environmental conservation than Oris.

The Holstein brand is constantly putting out new limited-edition divers in support of various environmental causes, including the recently launched special-edition Aquis in collaboration with the Billion Oyster Project.

Today, Oris is at it again, this time coming to the aid of the critically endangered Yangtze finless porpoise with one of the best-looking Aquis divers I’ve ever seen.

Oris

Porpoise-built

Oris has joined forces with a new conservation partner, China’s Changjiang Conservation Foundation, to bring awareness to the plight of the Yangtze finless porpoise — “jiangtun” in Mandarin — a critically endangered species native to the Yangtze River and the last remaining freshwater cetacean in China.

Raising awareness of the endangered aquatic species is a porpoise-built purpose-built new Aquis Date boasting all of the usual goodies associated with Oris’s professional dive watch, including 300m of water resistance, an integrated three-row steel bracelet, a rugged 43.5mm stainless steel case and a Sellita-based Calibre 733-1 automatic movement.

But notably, the watch has a few features you won’t find on a typical Aquis. Most obvious is the dial, which is rendered in blue-green mother-of-pearl.

Oris

We’ve seen Aquis divers with this dial material before, including on the aforementioned Billion Oyster Project watches last year. But this time around, Oris has added a unique printed wave pattern to the mother-of-pearl. These aren’t just generic ocean waves, either. Rather, they’re inspired by the echolocation sound waves produced by the finless porpoise’s ultrasonic clicks, which it uses for communication and navigation. The result is gorgeous.

Another nice touch is the tungsten bezel insert on the 120-click unidirectional bezel. The heavy metal has rarely shown up on other Aquis models and is always a welcome sight thanks to its premium heft and unique luster.

The caseback hides another surprise, perhaps the most fun detail of all. It features a polished relief engraving of a finless porpoise against an engraved wave background, with a 3D effect that makes the endangered mammal appear as if it’s about to swim right out of the watch (at least in pictures).

Oris

Pricing and availability

Oris has limited the Aquis Date Yangtze Jiangtun Limited Edition to 1,249 examples. That may seem like an extremely random number, but it was chosen because that’s how many Yangtze jiangtuns are believed to remain in the wild, according to a 2022 study.

For pricing, modern Oris watches tend to fall into two camps. Watches powered by third-party “red-rotor” movements are more affordable, with prices more in line with what we’ve always seen from Oris, while watches boasting the brand’s fancy new in-house movements are priced more like mid-level luxury watches. This limited edition is the former, meaning the price comes in at a reasonable $2,900, which is just $100 over a standard Aquis Date on a bracelet.

Oris

Oris Aquis Date Yangtze Jiangtun Limited Edition

Specs

Case Size	43.5mm
Movement	Oris Cal. 733-1 automatic (Sellita base)
Water Resistance	300m

• $2,900 at Oris

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