News · Nectere

Nectere builds its eclipse watch around a shield-shaped case rather than a dial print

A 38 mm rounded triangle in PVD gold, 8.5 mm thick on an ultra-thin manual Seagull calibre, limited to 100 numbered pieces at HK$6,900.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 4 min read · 17 August 2026

• Nectere, a small Hong Kong brand, has launched The Eclipse, a rounded triangular watch released on the day of the August 2026 solar eclipse.
• The concentrically ridged PVD gold case measures 38 mm wide and just 8.5 mm thick, made possible by an ultra-thin manual winding Seagull calibre.
• It is limited to 100 individually numbered pieces at HK$6,900, with fulfilment stated to begin by the end of August 2026.

A shield-shaped case that arrived in time for the eclipse

Anyone who watched the sky on 12 August this year, or who watched the internet watching the sky, will have noticed how quickly the watch world attaches itself to an eclipse. Omega did it with a MoonSwatch, and a few small brands did it with dial prints that will look dated by Christmas. Nectere, a small Hong Kong operation, took the harder route and built its release around a case shape rather than a graphic, launching The Eclipse on the day of the event itself.

The case carries the release on its own. It is a rounded triangle, closer to a guitar pick than to a circle, with concentric ridges stepping down from the outer edge towards the crystal so that light runs around it in bands. The effect is unmistakably 1950s American, the era when case makers were briefly allowed to be strange, and it is a shape almost nobody attempts now because it makes every subsequent decision harder. Where do you put the crown, for a start. Nectere has hidden it at the lower right, signed with an N.

Under that ridged bezel the dial is black with a fine radial texture that the brand describes as a void with a dynamic sunray effect, and the description is closer to the truth than most marketing copy manages. Applied gold batons radiate outwards to follow the case rather than sitting on a conventional circle, and a small seconds register drops to the lower left. The hands are leaf-shaped and gold. In the brand's photographs the dial reads as a genuinely dark surface with the texture only appearing when it catches an angle, which is the point of it.

Eight and a half millimetres, and what that costs elsewhere

The measurements are the part that will interest anyone who has tried to buy a thin watch lately. It is 38 mm across and 40.5 mm from lug to lug, which is compact by any modern standard, and it is 8.5 mm thick. A watch under nine millimetres slips under a shirt cuff without the shuffle, and on a case this wide and short it should sit flat rather than perching.

That thinness comes from the movement choice, and Nectere has been open about it. Inside is the Seagull ST-17, an ultra-thin manual-wind calibre with a long history in Chinese watchmaking, and choosing hand winding rather than an automatic is what keeps the case from gaining the two or three millimetres a rotor demands. The trade is that you wind it every morning, which people who buy thin watches tend to accept cheerfully and people who do not, do not.

Materials are stainless steel with a PVD gold coating, which is the honest answer at this price. A coating is not solid gold, and coatings wear at the high points over years of contact with desks and door handles. On a case with ridges standing proud of the surface, those ridges are where it will show first. Whether that reads as damage or as patina depends entirely on the owner.

The window in the back, and the mesh on the wrist

Turn it over and the caseback carries an open-heart window, not in sapphire but in K1 hardened mineral glass, which is a cost decision Nectere has stated rather than buried. Sapphire covers the front, where scratches actually matter, and the back gets the cheaper material. I would rather a brand tell me that than quietly write "crystal" twice and hope nobody asks.

The watch comes on a PVD gold mesh bracelet, which is the correct choice for the shape, since a mesh has no rigid links to fight a case that is wider than it is tall. Nectere also includes an 18 mm black leather strap with a quick-release fitting, so switching between the two is a thumbnail job. Water resistance is 3 ATM, which is a dress rating: rain and hand washing, nothing submerged.

Nectere The Eclipse pricing and availability

The Eclipse is limited to 100 individually numbered pieces and is listed on Nectere's own store at HK$6,900. The brand states that fulfilment begins by the end of August 2026, and that United States orders include import tariffs and duties while orders everywhere else exclude local duties, which for an Australian buyer means the landed cost will be the listed price plus whatever the border adds. Nectere does not publish an Australian price and has no local distribution.

What I like here is the discipline. A 100-piece run from a young brand could have been a printed eclipse on a round case and a press release about totality, and instead it is a genuinely awkward case shape executed cleanly, with the compromises stated rather than hidden. What I am less sure about is the gold, which makes an already assertive shape louder, and I suspect a steel version would be the one most people would actually wear. The brand has not announced one. Give it a year, and the next alignment.