The New Amida Digitrend OSII Black Takes Us Back (and Forward) to the Future

According to Amida’s co-founder and creative director, Matthieu Allègre, the ability for a watchmaker to tap into some kind of archival heritage to move forward is strictly beside the point.

“The mid-century design movement gave us a baseline of audacity that was abandoned too soon. My role is to pick up from where Amida (originally) left off,” he says. “We do not look back to copy the past. We look back to resume the work. We are finally building the machine they dreamed of making, but couldn’t.”

The Switzerland-based Amida began watchmaking operations in 1925, and the 1976 release of the original Amida Digitrend took the straightforward idea of producing a watch a driver could view from a side display while behind the wheel and created something of a watershed moment in watch design.
 

While partially LED-based, the Digitrend boldly combined that new technology with a, in this case, rebellious traditional approach to watchmaking, creating the first mechanical cassquette-shaped driver’s watch. Unfortunately, the soon-to-arrive “quartz crisis” and other market factors led the maker to disappear from the scene in the 1980s.

Revived in 2024 by a dedicated cadre of watch industry veterans and aficionados, Amida’s modern timepiece efforts have been more focused on delivering on the promise of mid-century design than engaging in pure revivalism for revivalism’s sake.
 

In other words, think of Amida as engaging in historical “correction,” if you will, using design language as a way to arrive at a promised future, albeit with a slight delay in execution. And it just so happens that this is also an extremely useful lens through which to view Amida’s new Digitrend OSII Black.

The pinched rectangular 39.6mm x 39mm 316L stainless steel case of the Amida Digitrend OSII Black is capped with a sapphire cover machined from a single piece of the material to not only provide dial protection but also convey an abundance of transparency. That transparency, in new-jack Amida’s book, carries a mandate to design a dial and movement that flows from the outside in.
 

A luminous, transparent jumping-hours display stands side by side with a transparent scrolling minute indicator and allows for even more in-depth views of the Soprod Newton P024 base automatic movement (the jumping-hours module was developed in-house by Amida). Also, expect a 38-hour power reserve from this movement.
 

Moreover, this timepiece’s solid yet stylish caseback further emphasizes the importance of the charming top view of the watchworks. And, true to the intent of the original Digitrend, the new timepiece offers an easy-glance view of the time from the casquette case’s side aperture that is angled at your wrist line.

For the new Digitrend OSII Black, the LED components of the original have been replaced with an elaborate physical LRD (light-reflecting display) that uses prisms to pop the glowing, germane digits into your “side view mirror.”
 

Furthermore, the luminosity of the light-charged BGW9 Super-LumiNova jumping-hour indices joins additional luminous accents on the watch framework to provide a new level of nighttime visibility for the approach, whether telling the time from a top view or a side-view glance (the 1976 Digitrend, alas, went dark when it got dark).
 

The new nocturnal nature is reflected in some pretty stealthy color work, as the moniker “black” portends. While the overall capsule-shaped case is presented in gleaming stainless steel, the internal framework is a rich black, with the previously mentioned bright blue lume components shining through the night.

Available on either a black anthracite Alcantara strap that emphasizes the noir nature of the timepiece or on a clean, modernist steel link bracelet (the watch features a handy quick-swap strap system, BTW), the new Amida Digitrend OSII Black (which is now available) is limited to 150 examples and lists for CHF 5,150 on an Alcantara strap and CHF 5,500 on a steel bracelet.
 

Don’t sleep on unexpected, streamlined wrist beauty. Visit the Amida website for more information.