Rugged or elegant, the choice was yours - this was the prevailing paradigm in watchmaking for decades. However, with the release of the Mille-Mer, the French brand Bohen Watches has challenged this concept by creating incredibly robust (1000m water resistance) dive watches that feature exquisite design and craftsmanship. Collaborating with leading Swiss manufacturers and suppliers, Bohen has crafted a luxury dive watch that stands shoulder to shoulder with top Swiss luxury brands, while maintaining its own unique design language and surprisingly accessible price.
When creating the Mille-Mer, Bohen's founder and designer Blaise-Dominique Giuliani decided to start from scratch, designing each component independently, and then turning to the best manufacturing partners in Switzerland to help produce the final product to his exact specifications. Despite demanding high standards from his manufacturing partners, Blaise-Dominique was determined to keep prices accessible. Having worked for several decades in design and high fashion, Blaise-Dominique has a wealth of experience and has faced criticism for designing watches that were too expensive to produce. Instead of changing his philosophy, Blaise-Dominique decided to lead his own brand, ensuring full control over design decisions to stay true to his vision. The strict standards, hand finishing, and quality control at every stage demanded by Blaise-Dominique mean that each watch takes about 150 days to produce. As a result, the brand will release only a few hundred pieces annually, with the first batch of 500 watches already available for reservation.
Unfortunately, in the traditional watch industry, a significant portion of the price of elite watches is formed by huge markups that depend on brand recognition and marketing, rather than reflecting true quality. Not to mention the additional costs and markups that arise from supporting a retail network. Bohen wanted to rewrite this equation. According to Bohen, luxury = true design with unique individuality + outstanding quality + craftsmanship + rarity. Sum all these up, and the resulting luxury watch won't be cheap. But instead of inflating the price with unwarranted markups and lining retailers' pockets, Bohen uses small, transparent markups (1.6x the production cost for the first 500 units, and 2x thereafter) and a direct-to-consumer sales model. As a result, the luxury watch can be purchased for €1,659, rather than the $12,000 you might expect from a traditional brand.
Elegance, of course, does not require miniature sizes, and creating a watch capable of withstanding depths of 1000m requires a substantial case. The Mille-Mer is housed in a 43mm case, with a lug-to-lug distance of 50mm, and a case height of 17.5mm. In other words, the Mille-Mer was made not to satisfy contemporary trends, but to endure. As Blaise-Dominique says, “The Mille-Mer is a high-tech tool. In this context, it's not the watch that adapts to its owner, but the owner adapts to the watch. I created Bohen not to please everyone; I just need to satisfy those who appreciate my approach between elegance and technicality.”
Speaking of technical specifications, it's worth noting that in producing the Mille-Mer, Bohen went further than most: they chose aerospace-grade material alloys (316L steel for the case and Grade 5 titanium for the case back), equipped the watch with a helium escape valve and ceramic bezel, and chose sapphire glass created by a Japanese company that manufactures lenses for satellites. Although the watch is made in Switzerland, the most important factor was finding the best components - even if they cost twice as much as Swiss counterparts. Various techniques were used in the case finishing, including straight and circular brushing, as well as the laborious but utterly magnificent “black polishing.”
Every detail of the ink-black dial of the Mille-Mer was carefully considered - from the deeply recessed dial to the applied indices. The markers and hands have a unified style, which, like the case itself, features strong yet elegant lines and a unique design language. Continuing the theme of going beyond, Bohen decided to use Super-LumiNova X1 luminescent coating. This new grade is modified for Bohen to achieve a special gel composition (not ink), providing unprecedented glow intensity and lasting twice as long as regular Super-LumiNova. Completing the dial details is an inner date magnifier. This is not an ordinary magnifier; instead, it is created from a double bridge positioned between the glass and the hands - a world-first invention patented by Bohen.
After completing work on the case and dial, Bohen did not stop there. The Mille-Mer is powered by a Swiss automatic Soprod M100 movement, modified to meet Bohen's strict technical requirements, including rhodium plating, high anti-magnetic resistance (including anti-magnetic casing), shock resistance, and numerous decorations, including pearl bridges and a Côtes de Genève rotor. But the beauty of this movement is not just skin-deep: it has been tested to meet the Chronofiable A8 standard at the Dubois laboratory. In other words, you get accuracy of +/- 4 seconds/day and a 42-hour power reserve. As Blaise-Dominique says, “Bohen is sophistication down to the smallest details, even those not visible.”
The Mille-Mer model is equipped with a tapered stainless steel bracelet that echoes the matte and polished surfaces of the case. The bracelet features a universal link, allowing quick and painless strap changes without tools. In line with modern trends in the luxury watch industry, the bracelet is equipped with a ratchet clasp for quick size adjustment without tools.
It is clear that in producing the Mille-Mer, Bohen did not cut corners. Although the watches are produced by the same manufacturing partners and at the same cost as large brands that sell their watches at much higher prices, by using a direct-to-consumer model and prioritizing quality over profit margins, the brand is releasing the Mille-Mer for just €1,659 excluding taxes. To reserve one of the 500 Bohen Mille-Mer watches, be sure to visit the brand's website. Watches are available for reservation now, the final purchase time will be in October, and delivery will take place in March 2022.