Montblanc Bohème Automatic Date 34mm: Road Test

Taking the Montblanc beauty for a spin.

It’s not every day you get offered a diamond-encrusted watch. Okay, so I had to return it after a week, but still.

Although the watch was the new Montblanc Bohème Automatic Date 34mm, I had my reservations because: 1) I like bigger watches (my go-to size is 38mm), and 2) I’ve always thought diamonds were for, shall we say, ‘ladies of leisure’, and I’m certainly not one.

But all reservations melted away when I actually strapped on the watch for different occasions. Here’s how it fared at work and over the weekend:

WORK

Even though my job revolves around watches, I don’t actually like to wear one when I’m at my desk. In fact, I like my hands to be completely free of jewellery and accessories when I type because it just feels uncomfortable when I’m busy writing a story (confession: I’ve left my wedding band in the office a couple of times!). So it came as a really big surprise when I didn’t feel bothered by the Bohème on my wrist at all. It was unexpectedly light and I hardly noticed it even while I was furiously attacking the keyboard with my digits.

While it had a lovely ring of 72 diamonds around the bezel, the Bohème didn’t feel overly dressy and went just as well with a more formal outfit I wore to an event, as it did my t-shirt and jeans combo for a dress-down day, mostly due to the new shade of blue which does a pretty good job mimicking a denim hue.

PLAY

I’m usually really casual on the weekends but having the Bohème made me want to put a little more effort into my outfit. So I swapped my t-shirt and shorts for a nice dress and went out to dinner. And as you can tell, I was quite excited:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BoBAZUcHP1P/?taken-by=melissa.kong

As expected, the silvery-white mother-of-pearl dial made me feel more elegant than my usual self. Over dinner, my dining companions took turns ogling at the watch (because who cares about food when you have a gorgeous piece of wrist candy, right?) with plenty of approving nods all round.

THOUGHTS

By the end of the week, I’d become quite attached to the watch. It was incredibly versatile, even with the diamonds, and I came to realise 34mm was actually a really good size for my wrist. The almond-shaped date window at six o’clock is a dainty alternative to the more typical (and masculine) square you find on most watches at three o’clock, but the numbers were a little small for short-sighted ol’ me. I love the star at the end of the blue seconds hand, though—a feature shared with the Star Legacy collection. My biggest gripe? The week went by too soon.

Case	34mm stainless steel with 72 Top Wesselton diamonds around the bezel
Dial	White mother-of-pearl with shell pattern guilloché, blue Arabic numerals and minuterie, blue leaf hour hand, minute hand and baton second hand
Movement	Automatic Calibre MB 24.17
Strap	Blue alligator leather with interchangeable strap mechanism
Functions	Hours, minutes, seconds, date
Power Reserve	38 hours
Price	S$7,600

    

---