Despite the fact that this watch is patently too hard to read, it is very pretty. If you spend enough time staring at the dial you will eventually see where the hands are pointing, but the design obfuscates the time telling function to a large degree. A large part of that has to do with the fact that the dial of the watch is always moving, just doing so at a slow rate. The Dior Christal Mysterieuse is named as such for the special Quinting manufacture movement that has three rotating plates. One for the hours, minutes, and day. With this constant altering look of the dial, it appears the same only once a month. This way you can never really have any frames of reference to read the hands.

Aside from this novel complication, the Dior Christal uses an geometric art deco themed design that looks beautiful. Inset in the steel case are black sapphire plates used to create the bezel design. Various shades of mother of pearl are used on the dial, placed inside of sapphire plates (6 ring plates total, 3 of which are mobile) on the face. I really like how Dior chose a classic 44mm wide diver watch style case as a base for the Christal Mysterieuse as it helps ground this item as art on top of a timepiece. The movement itself is a quartz. The case is water resistant to 50 meters, and is attached to an alligator strap. Sized with men in mind, the right woman will also be able to pull this look off. Price will be about 20,000 Euros when the watch is released in the fall.

Ariel Adams publishes the watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.