Longines Conquest Ceramic Diving Sports Watches Review

Longines Conquest watches project a sharp sports look that merges elegance with focus. There are several remarkable features about this collection: it incorporates ceramic, a rare material in watchmaking (a specialty of Rado watches), and it exhibits a unique visual modularity, where the bezel, the lugs, the bracelet and the dial appear to be separate, yet somehow harmonize into a coherent and somewhat elusive watch. Undoubtedly, Longines Conquest is the brand's most enigmatic collection.

Longines Conquest watches carefully combine ceramic with rubber or stainless steel, importing several sports features from HydroConquest: the basic dial layout (chronograph subdials, indexes organization, hands), and the laterally protected crown. What might have turned out to be a disjointed compilation of features, emerges as a confident, well unified, and independent design that easily conveys the notion of athletic elegance.

Longines Conquest is also notable for its unusual two-tone combination: gray and black, rather than white and gold. Grey intensifies the dimension of mystery that black always brings to the show, creating a self-sustained dark look – these are a black magician's watches, if you will. Despite the stress on looks, Conquest also retains some important features of a diving watch: water resistance up to 300 meters, and luminescent hands and index markers.

Ladies Conquest watches are smaller in size, and usually include diamonds (encrusted on the bezels), and mother-of-pearl (on the dials). These models fit well into the sports luxury category. The most interesting Ladies timepieces, however, are the least decorated ones – those where the ceramic bezel is given space to impress, and the diamonds only mark the hours. The smooth ceramic bezel surprises by its minimalistic surface, creating a psychologically intense micro-environment.

Men's Conquest watches are larger, and encase automatic movements, while smaller feminine timepieces incorporate Longines in-house made quartz calibers. Complications include date and chronograph.