For the past few weeks I have been wearing the Technomarine Cruise Steel Camouflage watch. Since I don’t hunt or fish, and since I very much love color, I elected to wear the royal purple version of the timepiece. However, it does come in army green, desert sand or ocean blue. Naturally the green and tan camo versions are much more suited to the great outdoors. However, I must say, once we put the issue of color aside, the Technomarine watch has come a long way since its inception nearly 14 years ago – especially now under new ownership and management.
This new version — Cruise Sport Camouflage – is an especially cool example of function and style. Available in either steel, black PVD, or pink gold PVD (my model), it is bold, powerful and noticeable. The royal purple version that I’ve been wearing is a 40mm chronograph offering hour, minute, second and date function at 4:00. It houses a Swiss Ronda 5040D quartz movement and is water resistant to 200 meters. It features a sapphire crystal with anti-reflective treatment, unidirectional rotating bezel and goldplated indexes.
It functioned perfectly while swimming (I timed my 30 laps and didn’t do as good as I would have liked – but the watch did fine), raking acorns (which is literally a pain in the neck where I live because we get dozens of wheelbarrows full of acorns. So again, I timed the event—it took longer than swimming by a long shot). And for me, the purple camo blended perfectly with my very purple wardrobe – proving the timepiece’s camouflage abilities.
My only complaint is the date aperture is slightly too small. For $795 retail, though, it offers a great look and is a head-turner. I got lots of comments on it from men and women alike – most of them a nod first to the color and then to the camo appeal. 