Frederique Constant Launches Its First Classics Carrée Moonphase Automatic

Art Deco Elegance With A Lunar Display

Frederique Constant announced the launch of its first Classics Carrée Moonphase Automatic, marking a new chapter for one of the brand’s most emblematic models. The Classic Carrée Automatic has until now been offered primarily with a date complication or the iconic Heart Beat aperture.

This latest release introduces, for the first time, a Carrée Automatic devoted solely to a moonphase complication. Positioned at six o’clock, the display is set against a choice of two chevron-guilloché dials with a subtle sunray finish, available in silver or deep navy blue. The watches are housed in a 42.30 × 30 mm stainless steel case and paired with a calfskin leather strap finished with matching topstitching. With this graceful moonphase edition, Frederique Constant underscored the collection’s tribute to the watchmaking aesthetics of the 1920s and 1930s.

The Moonphase allows collectors to check the Moon’s progress through a cycle lasting 27 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes and 12 seconds. The display constantly offers a fresh vista depending on whether the Moon is new, in its first or last quarter, gibbous, or full, changing imperceptibly in step with the heavenly body against a backdrop depicting the night sky and stars. The charm of the changing phases of the Moon and the discreet dance of the stars above grow on the wearer day by day, nurturing a unique dialogue between the constant movement of the three central hands and the gradual transition of the Moonphase, too subtle to be discerned by the naked eye, two rates of change coexisting in a single universe and a single space of time. 

The new Classics Carrée Moonphase Automatic complication is located at six o’clock, where it offers a balance to the manufacture’s “Frederique Constant Genève” signature at twelve o’clock, both set amid a chevron guilloche pattern, laid out across the dial like a fabric. The silvered dial features a monochrome pattern, while the blue dial sports a combination of midnight blue and lunar grey. The Moonphase is done out in matching colours, with a grey Moon and stars on a deep blue background. The aperture housing the display is itself crescent-shaped, revealing and concealing the various segments of Earth’s beloved satellite as the cycle progresses. 

While the Moonphase is an age-old complication in watchmaking that emerged at the same time as the first perpetual calendars, the rectangular shape of the Classics Carrée Moonphase Automatic is a nod to the formal style codes of the last century, being a classic Art Deco design. Widely adopted in the 1920s and 30s, square cases were originally quite a horological challenge since they almost always had to house an existing movement that was round. 

Frederique Constant has perpetuated this style tradition whilst adding its own contemporary take with a more rectangular shape, 42.3mm high and 30mm wide. This format highlights the three central hands and Moon Phase whilst also making the dial easy to read and providing a satisfying visual sense of equilibrium. The dial features twelve faceted applique hour markers accompanied by dauphine hour and minute hands and a second hand, all three of which are hand-polished. The central pattern is surrounded by a ‘railway’ or ‘sector dial’ minute track, another typical feature of watches of the Twenties and Thirties. 

Additionally, the rectangular case is made of polished steel throughout. Its two-tiered profile is an exercise in studied harmony, with a subtle balance of straight and gently curved lines. On the rear side, in common with almost all Frederique Constant’s mechanical timepieces the two new Classics Carrée Moonphase Automatic watches feature a sapphire caseback revealing the FC-333 automatic calibre, acclaimed for its reliability and long used by the brand; it boasts a 38-hour power reserve.