Frederique Constant's Most Affordable Tourbillon Watch is Now Available in Green

Frederique Constant is a Swiss watch brand that can lay claim to a distinct accolade in the industry, as a maker of perhaps the most value-driven, in-house-made, mechanical high complications available in a watch today. Over its nearly four decades in operation, the Geneva-based firm has produced a world timer and a flyback chronograph for under $5,000, a perpetual calendar for under $10,000, and — perhaps most attention-riveting — a self-winding tourbillon for just shy of $16,000. As it kicks off what promises to be a big year of new releases, Frederique Constant is rolling out the latest version of its Classic Tourbillon Manufacture in a steel case with a new “Palm Green” colorway for the dial and strap.

As I explore in much more detail here, the tourbillon is a device invented by legendary watchmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet in the late 18th Century, designed to compensate for the ill effects of gravity on a pocket watch movement's accuracy by placing the balance and escapement inside a cage that rotates 360º every minute. While its gravity-defying functionality is less important in a relatively mobile wristwatch than in a mostly stationary pocket watch, the tourbillon's balletic motions make a luxury watch come to mesmerizing life when it is displayed through a dial aperture, as it is in the vast majority of timepieces that include it today. When Frederique Constant unveiled its first tourbillon watch, all the way back in 2008, it was a major coup for the brand, but also a somewhat appropriate evolution of its collection, as it took the open “Heart Beat” dial design of some of its early models to the next level. In 2023, on the occasion of its 35th anniversary, Frederique Constant revamped its exclusive tourbillon movement, Caliber FC-980, and released it in a series of limited editions over the next couple of years, in rose gold and steel as well as a very special model in platinum with a meteorite dial and a white-gold edition with aventurine dial. This new model, limited to 150 pieces, is the first to combine a stainless steel case with the new green dial.

The three-part case has a polished finish and features understated dimensions of 39mm in diameter and 10.99mm in thickness. It’s water-resistant to 50 meters, with an antireflective, convex sapphire crystal and the large, fluted, pocketwatch-inspired onion crown that has become emblematic of the model. Under the crystal, the palm green dial has a sunray finish, with silvered, diamond-cut hour indexes and hand-polished, silver-toned hands for the hour and minute. The seconds hand has been incorporated, somewhat subtly, into the upper bridge of the tourbillon, whose 81-part rotating cage is in full, spectacular view in the large aperture at 6 o’clock. 

A clear, sapphire window also dominates the caseback, offering a rear view of the recently revamped manufacture movement (which technically now carries the designation FC-980-4), whose noteworthy features include bevelled, beaded, and circular grained finishing, straight grained flanks and mirror polishing on various components. The tourbillon’s anchor and escapement are made from silicon, an antimagnetic and temperature-resistant material that Frederique Constant was one of the first Swiss watchmakers to use, since 2008 to be precise. The dial-matched palm green strap is made from alligator leather with tone-on-tone topstitching and fastens to the wrist with a steel folding buckle.

This “Palm Green” version of the Frederique Constant Classic Tourbillon Manufacture, whose individual limited-edition number is engraved on both the movement and the metal part of the exhibition caseback, maintains the same value-oriented price point as its predecessors with black, gray, and white dials — $15,695 in the U.S., before taxes. They’re available at retail — for however long the 150-piece run lasts — as of February 2025.