Review: H. Moser & Cie. Swiss Alp Watch

Between you and me, this watchmaking lark can get a bit too serious sometimes. Without a drop of irony, watchmakers trade blows on heritage, quality and functionality on devices that really, honestly, have no logical place in this world anymore. It’s taken a brand like Apple to really revitalise the wearing of watches by the general public, and H. Moser, for one, has had enough. So much so, it’s gone a bit mad. Here are three reasons why this $25,000 Apple Watch is both cool … and crazy.

It Looks Like An Apple Watch

Right away it’s worth noting that this watch has nothing to do with Californian fly-tech brand Apple, despite what the looks might tell you. Yes, it’s a near-perfect carbon copy of Apple’s now ubiquitous self-titled watch—remember when everyone predicted that Apple were making an iWatch and they were like, “No we’re not,” and the big reveal wasn’t that they weren’t working on an iWatch it was that they’d broken their own naming convention just so they weren’t caught talking nonsense?—but this Swiss Alp Watch from H. Moser is very much not an Apple Watch.

Coincidence? Is H. Moser so isolated deep in the Swiss mountains that it had no idea about the Apple Watch and somehow managed to stumble across the same design all by itself? Absolutely not. H. Moser has earnt itself a reputation for making watches that leverage amusement from those that take themselves too seriously, and the Swiss Alp Watch is one of those watches.

Previously we’ve seen the Swiss Mad watch, a $1million timepiece that lampoons the Swiss Made threshold of just 60% by being entirely made in Switzerland, cheese case and all. Sorry, what? Yep. It had a case made of cheese, Swiss, obviously, from the hometown of the brand’s CEO, encapsulated in resin to stop it getting nibbled.

Then there was the Swiss Icons watch, which ribbed watchmakers that lean heavily on one prominent style by combining all of them into one single monstrosity, the likes of which cannot be unseen. As you can imagine, the lawyers of the brands being poked fun at didn’t think this was very amusing and the watch was repealed, which sort of proved H. Moser’s point all along.

So how about this then? The Swiss Alp Watch. This time H. Moser was looking outside of Switzerland for its next victim, to Silicon Valley and the army of tech companies that have inherited the mantle of keepers of the time. Never mind circuit boards and batteries; H. Moser is keen to show the young whippersnappers how watchmaking is done by taking the icon of timekeeping future and filling it full of Swiss Made past. The gag was compounded even further with a full marketing suite of Apple-esque promo, including a slick launch video complete with H. Moser’s CEO doing his best impression of Jony Ive.

It Costs $25,000

Aside from the watch’s mechanical innards, the biggest difference between the Apple Watch and this is the price. The $25,000 sticker of an H. Moser Swiss Alp watch would equip you and one hundred of your best friends with Apple Watches, and I’m pretty certain most of your hundred friends would rather you purchase them an Apple Watch than get one of these for yourself.

So why does it cost so much? For a start, that’s not steel you’re seeing in the curved, rectangular case; it’s 38 by 44mm of white gold. That gives more shine, thanks to gold’s higher reflectivity, and a noticeably heavier feel. And we all know that, in luxury terms, heavier is better. Obviously, the dial isn’t digital, it’s a smoky hue set over a sunburst pattern that glints with texture rather than pixels, set with H. Moser’s house style hands and markers. Between it and the Apple Watch, it’s the difference between swinging between the skyscrapers of New York on the PS5’s Miles Moralis—yeah I managed to get a PS5, don’t hate on me—and being on top of the Empire State building for real, smelling New York for yourself.

Where this watch truly makes its point, however, is in the way it’s made. Apple Watches fly off the production line as fast as they can sell them—they’re tallied at about 100 million activated units, in case you were wondering—whereas the Swiss Alp Watch is an altogether slower affair, limited to just fifty pieces. The wheels, gears and springs of the Calibre HMC 324 bring life to H. Moser’s creation, not plastic and electricity, with the wind of the crown charging it for a solid four days, which can be seen ticking down on the rear-facing power reserve indicator.

This movement is a work of effortless artistry, hand decorated and, you’ll note, exactly the right proportions for the watch. See, as a manufacturer of just 1,500 watches per year, and with the capability to make everything in-house, that gives H. Moser the option to make ridiculous luxury watches like these. For anyone else it would mean partnerships, trade agreements, making deals and all the other kinds of things that stop anyone having a nice time. For H. Moser, if the CEO fancies it, it gets done. So, the Swiss Alp Watch is really a solid demonstration of how far-reaching H. Moser’s talents are. You just have to pay $25,000 for the privilege.

It’s Actually Really Cool

So, we know what it is and we know where it came from—but is it any good? By description alone, it honestly sounds like the cringiest thing since David Brent graced us with his less than exceptional dance moves, and had I not been able to spend some time with one, that would entirely, one hundred percent be my take on it. Swiss watch manufacturer takes on tech giant with optimistically priced watch only the wealthiest can purchase, citing the singular ability to tell the time via an archaic mechanism over the functionality of being digitally connected for a single percent of the price? No thanks!

But … weirdly … it works. It really, really works. Perhaps it’s the shininess or the weight or that beautiful movement, but H. Moser’s Swiss Alp Watch is actually really cool. I mean, I’m no barometer for trend, so take that with an entire ocean’s worth of salt, but this watch is so ridiculously audacious that it comes full circle all the way back to effortlessly cool. The fact that, at a distance, no one would have any idea it’s not an Apple Watch is cool. The fact it packs a movement to rival some of the best watchmakers in the world is cool. The fact that H. Moser made it just to be annoying is exceptionally cool. It’s a whole new brand of luxury pranking, and I’m down for that.

And I’m not the only one. What was first produced as a limited run of a single model has, thanks to its success, spawned many more iterations, including a plain-black-dialled version with a second hand that looks like the Apple boot icon and one with no hands at all that requires the use of its minute repeater to gauge the time. All cheeky, all fun, all very much what Swiss watchmaking should be, and I love it. And do you know what? Apple must love it too, or at least tolerate it, because despite the company’s reputation for litigious behaviour, it’s left H. Moser well enough alone. H. Moser’s lawyers can breathe a sigh of relief—at least until next time.

What do you think of the Swiss Alp Watch and H. Moser’s approach to watchmaking and the industry? Love it or loathe it? At the very least, it’s to be universally acknowledged that the brand is broaching some very real and very important topics the luxury watch industry needs to tackle if it wants to survive another generation. Less and less young people are wearing mechanical watches, and if we’re not careful, it could all go the way of the Minidisc player. Here’s hoping brands like H. Moser keep what we love afloat a little while longer.

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