The Windup Watch Fair, especially the New York City edition, has increasingly become a venue for brands to debut new watches aimed at their enthusiast fans. It makes a lot of sense if you’ve ever been to a Windup – there’s an incredibly high concentration of watch lovers in a single place, and many of them are in what you might call a buying mood. And of course, the new stuff is often the most enticing when that particular mood strikes. This year, Serica got in on the act, debuting new references in the Parade collection, their unexpected but incredibly well executed “dress watch” from last year. “Dress watch” is in scare quotes here because of course it’s quite a bit more complex than that, but it’s perhaps easiest to understand the Parade when you view it as a contrast (and complement) to Serica’s sportier offerings.
A quick refresher, in case it’s needed, on the Parade. Serica refers to the case as “stadium” shaped because it’s based on the architecture of the Roman Stadium, with straight sides that blend into an elliptical shape at 12 and 6. On the wrist, it presents as an oval, but a look at the case in profile (or any angle other than top down) reveals the case construction makes this one tough to pigeon hole. It offers 100 meters of water resistance while being just 8.2mm tall thanks to “sandwich” style construction that uses screws that hold the case together from the back and are housed in and protected by the bezel. This is far from an off the shelf design and clearly required a great deal of engineering and tinkering to get just right.
The new Ref. 1174 Linen features, as you’ve probably surmised, adds textured linen dials to the Parade lineup. Available in two colorways at launch, Slate and Tobacco, the new dials have an intricate texture that mimics fabric. Serica wisely chose to let the shape of the case and texture of the dial do the heavy lifting here, with almost no branding (just “Serica Swiss” at 6:00) and 12 polished, spherical hour markers for time telling.
Linen dials of course have a long history and are most often associated with vintage Rolex Datejust references, but many brands have tried their hand at similar dial effects over the years, including Grand Seiko, Stella, and many others. It’s an interesting alternative on a dress watch to a more traditional dial with a gloss finish. I’ve always felt that it makes these watches a little easier to dress down and wear casually, while also being a little more visually dynamic. I had a chance to handle these watches briefly at Windup and came away pretty impressed. It’s a fun alternative to last year’s releases which had an “s-curve” guilloche pattern and a far more metallic finish. It also firmly ties these watches to an era – the 1970s – that feels coherent with the case design and the Serica design language more generally.
The Ref. 1174 Linen watches run on the same Soprod movement found in last year’s Parade variants. The retail price is $1,767, and watches are expected to ship in mid November. Serica
Zach Kazan
2025-10-28 18:00:00