Review: Horage Supersede

Some people want the obvious choice. Other people don’t. The Supersede by Horage is a GMT watch that’s definitely not the obvious choice—but should it be your choice?

Background

Horage leapt onto my radar a few years ago with the headline grabbing Tourbillon 1, the cheapest Swiss tourbillon ever made. At $8,000 it did exactly what it set out to do: establish Horage as a very definitive player in the modern watch market. But that was several years ago. What has it done for me lately?

Making that tourbillon wasn’t just an exercise in upsetting the established players because, one, the established players are too busy making more money than you even knew existed, and two, it’s back with the new and very shiny Supersede.

Whilst “Supersede” means to take the place of something previously in authority, this watch won’t exactly be doing that with the Tourbillon that came before it. For one thing, it’s almost as expensive at $7,000 and for another, it’s not attached to a big, flashy headline that’s going to stop traffic and drop jaws.

The Supersede is, quite simply, a GMT watch. That’s it. Feels a bit like a damp squib. A fart in the bath. We all knew the Tourbillon 1 was an ambitious project to launch Horage into the stratosphere and such an incredible first album made second album syndrome all the more likely, but this feels a bit like reanimating Jeff Buckley just for him to do a series of Baby Shark covers in the style of each nation.

But wait, because Horage itself knew that starting that strong was going to make for a hard act to follow, and so the Horage Supersede is, really, an entirely different approach. It’s not a second album exactly, it’s a mixtape, a medley of all those tracks you can never remember that every now and then you stumble upon and feel an instant rush of nostalgia for. Moments In Love by Art of Noise. You’re welcome.

So instead of one big slap in the face, it gives you a few sultry tickles instead. At least, that’s the idea. So, it might not get a tourbillon, but it does get an ultra-thin micro-rotor movement that’s just 3.6mm thick. That keeps the entire case thickness down below 10mm, whilst still being a tidy 39.5mm across. But get this: it’s not a Sunday best only kind of watch. There’s 200m of water-resistance and of course the independently settable GMT hand.

There’s more, because the Supersede also gets a twenty-four-hour sub-dial, a power reserve and a big-ish date, too. There’s even a unidirectional dive timing bezel. If the Swiss were ever to make tiny knives that did everything, this would be the watch version. You couldn’t dig a great big hole with it, but you’ll sure free some horse’s hooves of errant stones no trouble at all.

This is the watch you buy because you can’t decide between a dive watch, a GMT and a nice, thin, dressy micro-rotor. This is the pizza with every topping, including chicken nuggets and a double cheeseburger. It doesn’t Supersede the Tourbillon 1 exactly. It’s supposed to Supersede the rest of your collection.

Review

The level of thought that’s been put into this watch is really rather nice. Take the calibre K2, for example. It’s not just lovely and thin, allowing a lot more room for activities, it’s also pretty techy. There’s a three-day power reserve and a silicon hairspring so you won’t be bothered by naughty magnets trying to bind your bits together. The clasp, too, is designed so wearing the thing is an experience you actually want to do every day. It’s slender, but still offers up to a centimetre of adjustment in tiny millimetre increments.

Rather than the Supersede, this watch could be called the Horage “Quality of Life”, because rather than trying to win customers over with a big song and dance number, it’s all about the subtle wins you’ll appreciate on the daily. No one gets out of bed for an adjustable clasp—that is, until you try one and can’t live without it.

If you’ve got heated seats in your car, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Seems like such a waste of money until that one frigid morning when you park your keester in that cold seat and—ahhhh… From that moment on, you can never have a car without them again.

That quality of life isn’t just a post-purchase experience. It starts before you’ve even begun, because there’s a whole host of options to choose from when building your order. The micro rotor, for example. It’s solid tungsten because tungsten is dense and has good swing to keep you in juice. It’s gold plated as standard, but you can switch it out to a techier-looking platinum if you’d prefer—for a price, of course.

You can also choose whether you want polished centre links for the full Rolex GMT-Master II scratchathon experience, or brushed centre links like a sensible person. Dial of course comes in a selection of colours including white and grey, plus two blues and a green. You can even choose what colour your complimentary rubber strap comes in.

That’s all fine and lovely on paper, but what’s the execution like? To be honest, it’s certainly as good as you’d hope for $7,000, probably a bit better. And that’s the part of this watch that makes the decision less of an impulse and more of consideration. You can’t brag about your cheap, Swiss tourbillon, and your friends aren’t going to stay your friends if you try and explain everything I’ve just described here.

If you see the cumulative advantage of all those little quality of life benefits that pip the Supersede above its competition and you aren’t flatly deterred by having a name on the dial that sounds like a French prison, then this could be right up your street. If you want the Supersede to make all your dreams of becoming a rockstar super-complication owner come true, then you might be disappointed. This is the Horage mixtape to dip into here and there and always come away pleasantly pleased. Papua New Guinea by Future Sound of London. You’re welcome.

What do you think of Horage and the Supersede? Do you like the combination of a usable daily wear features or does it not quite light your fire?