For Watches & Wonders 2023, TAG Heuer continues the lab-grown diamond sports watches with two Carrera Plasma.
AG Heuer’s Diamant d’Avant-Garde technology fuels further innovation with the new TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma set with lab-grown diamonds on bezel and bracelet.
TAG Heuer’s breakthrough, Diamant d’Avant-Garde technology enabled the Swiss luxury watchmaker to use lab-grown diamonds for the first time ever, in 2022, on a chronograph case, crown, dial, and indexes. This year, the brand is taking its cutting-edge and industry- defining CVD expertise one step further, adding lab-grown diamonds in custom, creative shapes to the exclusive timepiece’s aluminum bezel and bracelet.
With the brand celebrating the 60th anniversary of the TAG Heuer Carrera, a historic milestone for 2023, it was only fitting that the iconic flagship collection was once again chosen to express TAG Heuer’s enduring avant-garde spirit and commitment to innovation.
The Diamant d’Avant-Garde technique reaches new creative heights, defying convention and pushing boundaries. It also offers TAG Heuer clients and collectors the opportunity to own a truly disruptive, never-seen-before watch design, combining the most advanced technical know-how with daring style and stunning finishings.
The spectacular new TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde Chronograph Tourbillon 44mmis a matte black chronograph echoing the signature features of the TAG Heuer Carrera, with its highly legible, uncluttered bicompax dial, facetted lugs, sporty elegance, reliability, and timeless spirit.
The 44-mm case, bezel, and bracelet are made of sleek black sandblasted anodized aluminum, set with lab-grown diamonds of various imaginative shapes throughout. The case includes 4.3 carats of
48 lab-gown diamonds, while the bezel features 26 for a total of 1.9 carats, and the bracelet holds 34 for a total weight of 1.9 carats.
The crown is a single 2.5-carat lab-grown diamond, optimized in growth and cut for the sharpest, cleanest fit. The two steel chronograph pushers at two and six o’clock are enhanced with a black DLC coating, allowing the diamond crown its place to shine boldly as a functional jewel.
The arresting 4.9-carat dial, made up of 12 diamonds and three polycrystalline diamond plates, is one of this piece’s most groundbreaking features. The brilliant result is achieved by growing a vast number of diamond crystals as one, as well as creating breathtaking reflections and light effects in a single diamond entity – one of the many creative applications of CVD technology.
This unique dial design is punctuated by 12 white gold indexes set with lab-grown diamonds.
The hours and minutes hands are rhodium-plated with matte black lacquer and white Super- LumiNova® for optimal legibility, joining the fine rhodium-plated central hand.
At three and nine o’clock, we find the two elegantly contrasting minutes and hours chronograph sub-counters, made of black polycrystalline diamond and animated by finely polished rhodium- plated hands.
The black aluminum bracelet echoes the signature TAG Heuer Carrera H-shaped link tapered bracelet, known for its thoughtful ergonomics and streamlined style, dotted with a constellation of 34 avant-garde diamonds totaling 1.9 carats. It is fastened by a double-folding steel clasp with safety push buttons, in matching matte black.
With almost every visible component on the standout new chronograph set with Diamant d’Avant-Garde diamonds, the piece weighs a total of 15.5 carats (124 diamonds in total). These lab-grown diamonds, carefully selected for the TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde , are manufactured by TAG Heuer’s network of partners, such as Lusix and Diamaze, who are specialized in this disruptive, cutting-edge technology.
Just as impressive is the watch’s top-of-the-line movement, the Calibre Heuer 02 Tourbillon Nanograph. Developed and manufactured in-house, the COSC-certified chronograph movement features a tourbillon, beating through the dial at six o’clock. It offers a unique, 65-hour power reserve that was specially developed for the TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma.
This special edition has been extensively hand-finished, and features the oscillating weight in the form of the TAG Heuer shield.
Thanks to its exclusive carbon nanotube hairspring, the piece delivers exceptional levels of anti-magnetism, shock resistance, stability across temperature ranges, and refined geometry for excellent chronometric performance. It also represents an inspiring, thorough approach to mastering the carbon material both on and inside the timepiece, completing the fully carbon-infused vision of the watch.
The new TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde is the ultimate expression of TAG Heuer’s drive to combine advanced innovation with bold creativity. It represents the next step in the brand’s exploration of the boundless potential offered by the Diamant d’Avant- Garde Technology. Only a limited number of pieces will be produced with this highly exclusive design, available upon order in TAG Heuer stores worldwide. A first, commercially available piece can be expected for September 2023 at a price point of CHF 500,000.
TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma 36 mm
TAG Heuer’s breakthrough Diamant d’Avant-Garde technology represents another major milestone for the luxury watchmaking industry. The Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) technique allows the first colored TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma 36 mm, featuring 1.4 carats of colored Diamant d’Avant-Garde. In a first for TAG Heuer, the watch introduces a combination of pink and white lab-grown diamonds, with colored lab-grown diamonds to be used more extensively on luxury watches models in future. This introduction comes on the back of the TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde “2.0” presentation earlier this morning, which sees lab-grown diamonds in custom, creative shapes added to the exclusive timepiece’s aluminum bezel and bracelet for a total of 124, 15.5-carat Diamant d’Avant-Garde diamonds.
The introduction of the TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde 36 mm with pink diamonds is yet another sign of TAG Heuer’s Avant-Garde and innovative spirit. It is a spirit that is deeply ingrained in the brand’s DNA: using lab-grown diamonds in all shapes and forms – now also in color – to create a disruptive design.
This is the extended second chapter in the rich, ongoing TAG Heuer story, where a 163-year legacy meets new avant-garde innovation.
As Frédéric Arnault noted at the reveal “With the new TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde, we intend to expand the new high-end innovative segment with this first colored lab-grown diamond piece. We are proud at TAG Heuer, that we are yet again able to introduce a true innovation with colored Diamant d’Avant-Garde to be used on luxury timepieces .”
This amazing pink color – with further color options soon to follow – can be obtained during a special diamond growing process.
“A diamond, be it natural or lab-grown, consists of a regular arrangement of carbon atoms. A perfect diamond, color D and flawless, has almost no defect in this arrangement and is completely colorless. In order to obtain a colored diamond, one needs to introduce some disorder into this perfect arrangement, in a controlled way. This disorder can be due to the addition of atoms of different elements or to the presence of defects: for example, missing carbon atoms,” as Emmanuel Dupas, Director of the TAG Heuer Institute, remarked. “The CVD process offers the opportunity to introduce these defects during the growth process, in a well-controlled environment, without the need for any post-processing. This way, the diamond is colored all the way through and homogeneously. A very specific know-how – such as it is owned by one of our partners ‘Proud’ – is required to control this process and to be able to reproduce the same color, batch after batch.”
The new colored TAG Heuer Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde timepiece comes in white gold with a 36-mm case, representing the newly refined TAG Heuer Carrera Date just launched in a revisited model for Watches & Wonders 2023. The flange or “rehaut”, located just under the crystal that raises it above the dial and hands, is also newly azured.
The TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma signature crown diamond is a single, 1.3-carat, pink, lab-grown diamond. It also comes with a new signature shape, with a Diamant d’Avant-Garde shield elegantly adorning the polycrystalline dial.
This groundbreaking feature on the piece along with its brilliant result is achieved by growing a vast number of diamond crystals as one, as well as creating breathtaking reflections and light effects in a single diamond entity. Indeed, this is just one of the many creative applications of CVD technology and was also used on previous TAG Heuer Carrera Diamant d’Avant-Garde pieces.
The unique, 2.9-carat dial design is punctuated by 12 white gold indexes and set with white lab-grown diamonds. The hours and minutes hands are “skeletonized”. Above them, the Swiss luxury watchmaker has placed a special shield-shaped pink diamond sitting just below the signature Carrera dial logo.
This unique, three-hands-piece weighs a total of 4.8 carats and comes on a black alligator strap with a white gold pin buckle. The TAG Heuer Calibre 7 Automatic is visible through a sapphire open case back.
With 2023 marking the historic 60th anniversary of the TAG Heuer Carrera, the brand also continues to innovate with these Diamant d’Avant-Garde pieces in this iconic flagship collection, expressing an enduring passion and commitment to TAG Heuer’s pioneering spirit and DNA. The TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde 36 mm presented at Watches & Wonders 2023 is a first prototype. This model will be commercialized in a limited number of pieces and made available upon order in TAG Heuer stores worldwide at the end of 2023. Further fully colored models are to follow.
About TAG Heuer
TAG Heuer, founded in 1860 by Edouard Heuer in the Jura Mountains of Switzerland, is a luxury watch brand that is part of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE (“LVMH”), the world’s leading luxury group. Based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, and with four production sites, TAG Heuer has 1,860 employees and is active in 139 countries. TAG Heuer products are available online at www.tagheuer.com for select countries and in 260 boutiques and 2,300 points of sale worldwide. The company is headed up by Frédéric Arnault, CEO of TAG Heuer. For 163 years, TAG Heuer has demonstrated pure avant-garde watchmaking spirit and a commitment to innovation with revolutionary technologies that have included the oscillating pinion for mechanical stopwatches in 1887, the Mikrograph in 1916, the first automatic-winding chronograph movement – Calibre 11 – in 1969, and the first luxury smartwatch in 2015. Today, the brand’s core collection consists of three iconic families designed by Jack Heuer – TAG Heuer Carrera, Monaco, and Autavia – and is rounded out with the contemporary TAG Heuer Link, Aquaracer, Formula 1, and Connected lines. Embodying TAG Heuer’s motto, “Don’t Crack Under Pressure,” are prominent partnerships and brand ambassadors that express the brand’s passion for action and high performance.