Every year, in the weeks ahead of Watches and Wonders, media outlets start getting flooded with releases for the show. And every year, a handful of brands set their embargo dates before the show, despite the watches being explicitly slated as a Watches and Wonders release. Enter Raymond Weil, which set its embargoes for two weeks ahead of the show. We’re not keen to reward such sneakiness, so we’ve lumped it in with the rest of the day-of releases. Raymond Weil is probably not the brand most people are looking out for at WW25, but a brand that’s been doing some excellent things in the past few years. Still riding the high of the Millesime collection, this year, the brand is adding a new complication to its ranks. Positioned to offer a more affordable alternative to far more expensive calendar watches, the new Raymond Weil Freelancer Complete Calendar is so classically styled that it’s difficult to find much fault.
This is perhaps the most sophisticated Freelancer that Raymond Weil has released. In fact, I’m surprised the brand didn’t release this as a Millesime, though it may have made that case a bit too bulky. The Freelancer is an objectively sporty collection, yet as presented, the complete calendar is an objectively unsporty complication. Here, the Freelancer’s recognizable design is put in a 40mm case in either stainless steel or rose gold PVD. It’s just 10.15mm thick, which seems rather slim for the bolder case form. It has a screw-down crown, sapphire crystal (front and back), and 100 meters of water resistance. The stainless steel is paired with a 5-link bracelet with a folding clasp, while the rose gold PVD version is paired with a brown calfskin strap with a deployant buckle.
The dials here look very nice. The sunray finish on the “dune” and blue dials, the azzurage on the two-tier, and the Dippin’ Dots stars on the moonphase wheel. Raymond Weil hasn’t phoned this in one bit. The way the hands and the indices have the same tonneau shape is another great touch, as are the beveled windows for the day and month. And look at the truncated 5 and 7 markers: allowing a gap between their termina and the edge of the subdial shows an intentionality that many dials don’t have. This is just a very well-done dial, and there’s not much more to it. For what it’s worth, the lume you see is Super-LumiNova, though it’s unclear if there’s lume on the moon (which is inspired by an actual NASA image) or the stars.
The Raymond Weil Freelancer Complete Calendar uses a new movement for the brand, the RW3281. As with all mechanical RWs, this uses a Sellita base, the SW300-1. That means it delivers a solid 56 hours of power at 28,800 vph. On top of the base caliber, RW puts a complete calendar module. Details are otherwise sparse, but I’m impressed that they’ve managed to keep the watch as thin as it is, and the Sellita base should keep this running reliably.
I like the Freelancer case, and the dials here are clean and elegant, so there’s really not much to complain about. The pricing for these falls about $700 above the three-hand Freelancer and about $200 under the Freelancer Chronograph, which I think is fair. Moreover, these watches are competing against a slew of complete calendar models from other brands, all of which have the exact same layout or one very similar. The closest comparison is the JLC Master Control, but Ball, Montblanc, Blancpain, and even Roger Smith have made or currently make watches with similar complete calendars. All of them are thicker than the RW, and the Montblanc and Ball models — the only ones in the RW’s price range — both lack the refinement of the Freelancer. The Raymond Weil Freelancer Complete Calendar in rose gold PVD (2766-PC5-64001) and steel (2766-ST-50001) are both priced at $3,650 USD. For more information, please visit the Raymond Weil website.
Source: New Release: Raymond Weil Freelancer Complete Calendar Watches | aBlogtoWatch
