The 1960s was a rich period of creativity, in watchmaking and certainly beyond it. It’s hard to imagine any field untouched by the influences of the Swinging ’60s, the Youthquake, and the burgeoning Space Age. In the realm of watches, these wrist-bound creations were undergoing a tremendous shift: increasing popularity and availability meant that they were being worn on the daily by more people around the world than ever before. That’s the stage upon which Rado debuted its DiaStar in 1962—or the DiaStar Original collection in contemporary form.
As watches transitioned from precious, delicate luxury objects into tools of utility—no smartphones yet, remember?—what people needed out of them changed. The DiaStar had an unusual and striking design; but it’s what it was made of that set it apart. It introduced a revolutionary ‘hardmetal’ material, a composite of metal and a ceramic, that was durable and scratch-proof, and was one of the early few watch brands to adopt sapphire crystal in place of glass on its watches.
Now, a little over six decades on, the DiaStar is perhaps not so much a leader in materials—Rado itself has made advances in high-tech ceramics—but an icon of the brand’s innovation and creativity. And, in its latest forms, as an emblem of a unique design language born in the ’60s, but continued today. The brand has just announced two major additions to the DiaStar Original collection.
The first is the introduction of models with a new 30mm case diameter—the smallest in the collection now after the 38mm variant. Cases come crafted in stainless steel, with platinum-coloured Ceramos bezels, and this new size debuts with three models that combine fun, stylish colours.
There is a glacial blue like a placid lake, an Art Deco-inspired turquoise, and a vivid purple meant to evoke an exotic flower in bloom. The dials are finished with vertical and horizontal satin brushing in alternating quadrants, and feature Rado’s signature moving anchor logo that is designed to indicate when the oil in the watch has dried and is in need of servicing. Inside, an automatic movement with a 48-hour power reserve.
The second addition is a DiaStar Original created in collaboration with British industrial designer Tej Chauhan. This is the second collaboration between Chauhan and the brand after a twist on Rado’s True Square in 2021. Chauhan, on his part, is a designer known for his emotive approach to industrial design. Before founding his own studio and practice in 2005, he worked at Nokia on some of the tech brand’s most memorable models.
AI futurescapes and a space movie inspired by the DiaStar Original x Tej Chauhan Special Edition, says the designer in press notes. In particular, gold space helmets—apt for the ’60s birth of the watch—that informed its final design. What the designer introduced, too, was his creative perspective on near futures. That is, futuristic design that is plausibly within reach, and not so far off that it becomes polarising or hard to imagine. To wit, the familiar form of the DiaStar is coated all over—both on the stainless steel case and Ceramos bezel—with yellow gold-coloured PVD.
The dial design, meanwhile, receives a heavy dose of Chauhan’s creativity. A matte black base is printed with silver and blue minute tracks, with Superluminova hour and minute hands, and a seconds hand painted neon yellow. The 9 to 12 indexes are printed in blue—what the brand dubs the “Party Time indexes”. For the designer, these are special hours of a day. In the mornings, when productivity is (hopefully) at a high); and in the evenings, when parties and fun kick off.
Look closer into the day and date windows and you’ll notice that even these details have been touched by Chauhan. The date numerals and days of the week are printed in custom-designed typefaces by the designer. Days, in particular, come in seven variations and in colours from cool to warm to reflect, says Chauhan, how he feels about the progression of a week.
For all the free rein that Chauhan had, the one actual stipulation that came from Rado CEO Adrian Bosshard was a rubber strap. Chauhan’s instinctive first impression of a rubber strap—like it is for most people—is sportiness. That, however, was not the goal. Instead, the designer worked on a pillow-shaped rubber strap that’s more akin to plush, puffy furniture than performance sportswear. The reverse of each strap is embossed with messages from the designer: “The time is now”, and “TC Souvenirs of the Near Future©”.
Designing a watch, even if for the second time, presented Chauhan with some unique challenges. “I am used to working at different scales, including very small ones,” he explains in a press release, “calculating to within fractional increments of a millimetre.” On a watch, however, Chauhan had to work with microns. In his first collaboration with Rado, for example, the design of watch hands had to be changed because of the different thicknesses of paint pigments. A minuscule, barely noticeable example of a detail that makes the accumulation of character on his DiaStar Original all the more appreciable.
