INTRODUCING: Orient Bambino with Day-Date and 24H Indicators
The cult classic sees a new execution with dual analogue counters, raising the bar for the daily beater.
The Bambino is considered one of the most accessible dress watches in the market, making it an ideal wristwatch for daily wear. With a wide variety of sizes – from 33 to 42mm – and seven dial or design variations, there’s a Bambino for every watch lover.
The Bambino is a retro-chic series that recalls the watchmaking style of the mid-20th century. Think clean white or black dials with domed crystal covers, arrow or bar indexes and, on one model, a small seconds indicator. There are other variations that feature an open-worked display revealing the heart of the carefully finished F6T22 movement powering it.
As such, the watches appeal greatly to vintage watch lovers or style savants who enjoy a reasonably sized dress watch that’s reliable and well-priced. Orient has capitalised on this, creating special editions and dial variations regularly to keep collectors returning.
While the Bambino has mostly been a three-hand watch (there’s also a moonphase complication model), this year sees a new variant with an analogue day display and 24-hour indicator on the dial. Four dial executions of this new model exist on a 40.5mm steel case.
The watch is based on the version 2 design of the Bambino, which is also its most vintage-inspired model. On the dial, a railway minute track surrounds Roman numeral hour indexes, with slim hands and a date display at 3 o’clock. These elements are retained on the new Bambinos, with the reference numbers RA-AK0701S, RA-AK0702Y, RA-AK0704N and RA-AK0705R.
The previously austere dial now hosts two additional counters at the unusual positions of 5 and 10 o’clock, which stands out. The smaller counter at 10 shows the day of the week, while the larger counter at 5 o’clock is a 24-hour display indicating military time and, therefore, doubling as a day/night indicator.
The dials come in four colour options: a handsome off-white, vintage cream, dark grey anthracite, and vivid red. Within the case lies the automatic in-house Calibre F6B22 that’s produced in Japan, with a precision of +25/-15s per day. The movement has a power reserve of 40 hours, and the watch is water-resistant to 30m.
The new Bambino models offer incredible value with useful functions (the day-date combination is always welcome and easy to read off the dial). Unfortunately, we’ve yet to obtain pricing on the models, but we will update once they are out. And if we could wish for something next, it would be a day-date version using just apertures at 9 and 3 o’clock on a more compact model to accommodate smaller wrists.
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