H Moser’s smoked salmon watch dial is deliciously deep

The new H Moser & Cie Streamliner Smoked Salmon is a smoky delight with a complex heart. And true to the company’s sense of humour, available for one leap year only. 

Four years have passed since the debut of the sleek Streamliner, and with its future-minimal aesthetic, this H Moser is still one of the best ways to wear an integrated bracelet. As we’ve seen before from the design-forward team of Eduoard Meylan, there is a unique blend of spare design language with intricate handcrafted details.

Most of the watches emanating from the atelier of H Moser & Cie are by nature delightfully juxtaposed, and the new Streamliner with its Smoked Salmon nomenclature is the perfect example. This is not the first time we’ve seen the deliciously deep tinge of golden bronze they call Smoked Salmon, but it’s the purest effort yet. Consider this a distilled essence of the brand, with a hyper-understated Easter egg of surprising complexity. 

Every Streamliner is instantly recognisable by the armadillo-like armour of the curved bracelet with its indefinably shaped links, offering a soft, weighty comfort. The sinuous curves carry on from the slim bracelet to the watch head, and its futurist visage will fit most occasions, or to quote Meylan, it works underwater or at a soirée. But how they display the perpetual calendar is where the understated genius of Meylan’s team shines through.

H Moser & Cie Streamliner Perpetual Calendar Smoked Salmon

The most obvious design detail is the intricate cut of a dark date window at four o‘clock, matching the ergonomical crown placement. The brushed dial has a warmth that might not spell salmon, but oozes personality, while the vintage feel of the fumé dial, with its dark edges and bronze-gold centre, eschews minute markings. The distinct shape of the Streamliner hands have inset pieces of solid lume material called Golobolight, which makes for instant night-time readability, while at ten o’clock sits an indicator for the movement’s power reserve, here a whopping 168 hours.

But the Easter egg is a cheekily coloured red detail. Perpetual calendar watches usually have a whole host of information populating their dials, while here a tiny red pointer hides under the central axis of the handset. This is, in fact, the month indication, which will point at one of the usual (for an index-less dial) positions of the 12 hours of the day; succinct and elegant, with a tiny dab of colour. It’s yet another understated flourish of Eduoard Meylan’s imagination, making the juxtaposition of rich minimal tones with sleek futurist shapes seem natural.

Around the back, you’ll find a leap year indicator, as a perpetual calendar deserves. The award-winning HMC812 calibre has trademark intricate grey ruthenium details, and a big 168-hour power reserve. This is thanks to the prodigious power stored in its twin-barrel construction, indicated on the dial. With hand-polished anglage within the classic Swiss bridgework, Moser’s movement creators have the power to impress, and do it with aplomb. Sure, it is a large watch at 42.3mm, but with its comfort and slim 11mm body, the Streamliner’s comfort will no doubt resonate with many collectors. Its colour might remind us more of the rich taste of a Cuban cigar rather than smoked salmon, but for futurist horology, there is a podium spot reserved for the Streamliner, this time sporting an understated ingenuity that belies its complexities.

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H Moser & Cie Streamliner Perpetual Calendar Smoked Salmon, CHF49,900 (£44,350) is available to reserve at h-moser.com