Blancpain Revisits Proportion with the Villeret Ultraplate

Good dress watches ask surprisingly little of their owners. They slip beneath a cuff without negotiation, disappear after a few minutes and reappear only when they’re needed. Proportion has always mattered more than presence. It is a quality measured in millimetres, though experienced almost entirely by instinct.

Case sizes have settled again, and with them, so has the conversation. Collectors are spending less time asking how large a watch should be and more time asking whether it feels right. A few millimetres can change the way a watch sits on the wrist, the way a cuff falls over it, even how often it leaves the watch box. Blancpain has been working within that logic for decades. The Villeret has remained remarkably consistent in its proportions, even as the wider industry moved through successive cycles of larger sports watches and integrated-bracelet designs. The arrival of a new 38mm Villeret Ultraplate broadens the collection without altering its identity.

The new reference joins the existing 40mm model in stainless steel and 18-carat red gold. At 8.35mm thick, it houses Blancpain’s manufacture Calibre 1150, an automatic movement measuring just 3.25mm in height. Equipped with a silicon hairspring, it offers a 100-hour power reserve while preserving the slim profile that defines the Ultraplate. The collection also introduces its first sunburst salmon dial. Throughout the day, the finish moves between copper, rose and pale gold, framed by black-treated 18-carat gold numerals and paired with an anthracite nubuck strap. Alongside it sits a boutique-exclusive reference with a gold-toned opaline dial, yellow-gold numerals and an olive-green nubuck strap, offering another interpretation of the same design.

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The updates continue across the dial. Roman numerals have been resized to suit the new case, the traditional XII has been replaced by the JB monogram in honour of Jehan-Jacques Blancpain, and the date aperture has been enlarged. Through the sapphire caseback, an open-worked gold oscillating weight reveals the Calibre 1150, finished to the standards expected of the Maison.

Blancpain has also expanded the Villeret Phases de Lune with two 29.2mm references powered by the manufacture Calibre 913QL. The familiar moonphase display appears against a blue ceramic disc with an applied gold moon, while a blue serpentine hand traces the date around the dial. The movement’s secured calendar mechanism allows corrections at any time without risking damage.

The Villeret traces its origins to 1983, when Blancpain’s revival of mechanical watchmaking centred on a 34mm complete calendar moonphase. The stepped bezel and measured proportions with an emphasis on mechanical ingenuity introduced then remain intact. The new 38mm case feels entirely at home within that lineage, offering another expression of a collection that has never relied on excess to make its point.

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