In a move that many have been waiting for for well over a year, anOrdain has introduced their stunning fumé dials in their Model 1 collection. Readers and fans of the brand will of course remember the introduction of the Model 2 fumé dial series (Brad Homes went hands-on with the green last year), and it seemed like an inevitability that these unique dials would make their way into the Model 1. As the folks at anOrdain would tell you, working with enamel is a finicky business, and these things take time. But if the texture and vibrant color of anOrdain?s fumé is at all appealing, it was likely worth the wait. 

There?s a great deal of craft and hand work that goes into crafting a ?normal? enamel dial, and that process becomes trickier when the fumé effect is applied. Enamel is essentially a smooth coating of melted glass that has been fired at extremely high temperatures in a kiln. It takes a lot of skill to understand how high to heat the enamel, and what to mix it with to achieve the desired color, texture, and size. If you look very closely at even the most expertly made enamel dials, you?ll see small imperfections that add charm and depth to a watch that you can?t achieve with a dial made using industrial processes. The standard vitreous enamel dials that anOrdain has been using since the brand was founded in 2018 have a quiet and calm serenity to them, while the fumé dials are visually a bit louder, and perhaps a little more viscerally exciting. The fum�...