Get a Grip: Gucci’s New Gender-Neutral Digital Display Watch

Much has been made of the way creative director Alessandro Michele revived the luxury house Gucci by exploring and expanding the brand’s codes. In their watch and jewelry collections, this means embroidered bees on the dials, king snakes on the straps, and the interlocking double G logo everywhere else (read HERE, HERE, and HERE). Gucci has even gone back to the archives, resurrecting its Lucite watches from the 1970s in classic red and green colorways.



But at this year’s Baselworld, Gucci released the Grip, a collection of direct read timepieces so unique that they took fairgoers by surprise.

Gucci says The Grip is meant to evoke the heyday of the 1970s skateboarding scene (grip tape being a thing you put on your deck to keep your feet from slipping). Frankly, we don’t see the connection. Maybe it’s because the cushion-shaped case is flat like some boards? It seems like a stretch, but we don’t care — it still has a vintage feel — just maybe not vintage skate culture.
 

In fact, the direct read display, with three discs that show the hour, minute, and date are more reminiscent of a different era — the design of Art Deco era jump hour watches.
 

Since fashion industry veteran Piero Braga took over as President and CEO of Gucci Timepieces in 2016, the company has worked hard to bring the watch collection in line with Michele’s unmistakable design vision. Call it pastiche or collage, but it feels like everything Gucci puts out is weird and wonderful but never so strange to alienate anyone.
 

The collection is comprised of four new timepieces. There’s an edition with a yellow gold PVD case and bracelet and another in stainless steel. Both are engraved with Gucci’s famous interlocking G logo. Two other versions come on colored calf leather straps: green with a steel case, or Bordeaux with a yellow gold PVD case.
 

The watch is available in either 35-millimeter or 38-millimeter size. The cushion-shaped face has three display apertures, in which three white rotating disks indicate the hour, minute, and date.
 

The new Gucci Grip will be available in 10 different references in two colors and two sizes (35 or 38mm). and two precious gem versions. All in, the Gucci Grip will be available in 44 different variations! We don't have prices or delivery dates yet but expect it the Grip to be available sometime this summer.