News · Tissot

Tissot PRX 40mm Powermatic 80, now in white mother-of-pearl

The nacre dial that had been a 35mm exclusive moves up to the 40mm case, waffle pattern and all, at A$1,280 on the integrated bracelet.

Hen & Mills Editorial · 5 min read · 21 August 2026

• Tissot has moved its white mother-of-pearl dial up from the 35mm PRX to the 40mm Powermatic 80, keeping the pressed waffle pattern on top of the nacre.
• The nacre sits beneath the tapisserie grid, so the pattern holds still while the iridescence underneath shifts colour as the watch is tilted.
• Reference T137.407.11.111.00 is a regular production model on the integrated steel bracelet, listed on Tissot's Australian store at A$1,280.

Anyone who has watched the PRX from the beginning will have noticed the pattern by now. Tissot tries something on the 35mm case first, waits to see whether people take to it, and then, once it is clear they have, gives the same treatment to the 40. It happened with the gold-toned dials and it happened with the green. The white mother-of-pearl dial has been a 35mm-only proposition since it arrived, which made it the most obvious candidate on the list, and Tissot has now done the predictable thing with the Tissot PRX 40mm Powermatic 80.

The one dial material that has to be cut, not printed

Mother-of-pearl is the nacre lining of a shell, sliced thin and laid onto a dial blank, and it is the reason no two of these will be identical. Tissot has then pressed the PRX waffle into it, which is the genuinely interesting bit. The tapisserie grid that on a standard PRX reads as crisp and slightly cold now has an iridescent layer beneath it, catching light at a different angle to the pattern above. Tilt it and the grid stays put while the colour underneath moves.

The effect is closer to the inside of an abalone shell than to a white lacquer dial. It is not really white at all, more a pale ground shot through with pink and green depending on where you happen to be standing. Applied metallic markers and hands carry Super-LumiNova, and the date sits in a framed aperture at three o'clock. In a fluorescent office it will look plain. In afternoon light it will not.

Forty millimetres, but only 39.5 of it front to back

The case is unchanged, and the numbers are worth restating because they are the whole reason the PRX wears the way it does. It is 40mm across the bezel, 10.93mm deep, and just 39.50mm from lug tip to lug tip. That last figure is the one that matters. A 40mm watch measuring under 40mm the other way effectively cannot overhang a wrist, which is why the PRX keeps getting recommended to people who were told 40mm was too big for them.

The material is 316L stainless steel with the usual mix of brushed tops and polished chamfers, the crystal is sapphire with an anti-reflective coating on the underside, and there is a display back. Water resistance is 100 metres, which is not a diving credential but does mean the watch can go in the pool without a conversation about it first. The whole thing weighs 138 grams on the bracelet.

Eighty hours, and what that actually buys you

Inside is the Powermatic 80, Tissot's workhorse automatic, running with a Nivachron balance spring and offering up to 80 hours of reserve. The practical value of 80 hours is not the weekend, which every watch with 40 hours also survives. It is that a watch in a drawer on Monday morning is still running on Thursday, so a two or three watch rotation stops involving any resetting at all. That is a genuinely different relationship with an automatic, and it is the single reason the PRX has eaten so far into territory that used to belong to watches costing three times as much.

You see the rotor through the caseback, which on a movement at this price is more generous than obligatory. Tissot names the calibre only as Swiss automatic and publishes neither a frequency nor a jewel count for this reference.

Twelve millimetres of lug width, and why that number looks wrong

The bracelet is the integrated steel PRX design with a butterfly clasp and push buttons, and it is on the quick-release system Tissot rolled out across the collection, so it comes off without tools. The lug width Tissot quotes is 12mm, which looks startling next to a 40mm case. On an integrated bracelet, though, that figure describes the narrow attachment point rather than anything you would fit a conventional strap to. Tissot sells its own leather and rubber options cut for the case, and an official black leather PRX strap with a steel end piece is listed at A$110.

I went back and forth on whether a mother-of-pearl dial belongs on a watch this determinedly seventies. The PRX is a tool-adjacent design, all flat surfaces and hard angles, and nacre is the softest material you can put behind a hand. Then I looked at where the light actually lands on the waffle and changed my mind: the pattern needs something underneath it that is not uniform, and this is the first PRX dial that gives it one.

Tissot PRX 40mm Powermatic 80 white mother-of-pearl pricing and availability

The Tissot PRX 40mm Powermatic 80 in white mother-of-pearl carries reference T137.407.11.111.00 and is sold on the integrated steel bracelet. Tissot's Australian store lists it at A$1,280, which is the local retail price rather than a converted one, and it is not a limited edition. Delivery is free on Australian orders over $150, returns run to fourteen days, and the watch carries Tissot's two year warranty. It is made in Switzerland.

The argument for the PRX has never been that it is cheap. It is that Tissot picked a case shape from 1978 that happened to be one of the great ones, and has spent five years refusing to ruin it. This dial is the least tool-like thing the 40mm has worn, and it still looks like a PRX from across a room, which is the test. At A$1,280 the objection people will reach for is that mother-of-pearl reads as dressy on a sports case. The answer is that the seventies did exactly this constantly, and we have simply forgotten. Some shells, it turns out, are worth cracking.

| Specification | Tissot PRX 40mm Powermatic 80 white mother-of-pearl | | --- | --- | | Reference | T137.407.11.111.00 | | Case | 40mm x 10.93mm, 39.50mm lug to lug, 316L stainless steel | | Crystal | Sapphire with anti-reflective coating on the underside | | Water resistance | 100m (10 bar) | | Dial | White mother-of-pearl with waffle pattern, applied indexes, Super-LumiNova on the hands, framed date at three | | Movement | Swiss automatic, Powermatic 80, Nivachron balance spring | | Power reserve | Up to 80 hours | | Case back | See-through | | Bracelet | Integrated stainless steel, butterfly clasp with push buttons, quick release | | Lug width | 12mm | | Weight | 138g | | Warranty | 2 years | | Price | A$1,280 |