Launched just three years ago, Frédérique Constant Highlife Automatic The Avener collection is the brand’s luxury sports watch collection with a fresh, contemporary design. Ranging from an affordable perpetual calendar with manufacture movement to automatic time-and-date models, the Highlife targets a younger audience. In 2022, Frederique Constant teamed up with the contemporary French musician and producer The Avener to promote the Highlife collection. Today, Frédérique Constant Highlife Automatic The Avener and The Avener present two 39mm limited editions of the Highlife Automatic time-and-date with dials depicting the frequencies monitored on a recording studio console.
Tristan Casara, aka Frédérique Constant Highlife Automatic The Avener, is a phenomenon on the deep house and electro-music scene and has sold over one million albums. As an ambassador for the Highlife collection, The Avener has put his personal seal on the two Highlife Automatic models. Presented in 39mm stainless steel cases with a thickness of 10.34mm, one is fitted with an integrated steel bracelet, while the second has a black sandblasted DLC coating with a matching rubber strap. The identity of the 100m water-resistant, barrel-shaped Highlife case with its half-moon facets is intact, and the steel version displays the characteristic brushed and polished finishings. Limited to 432 editions in each variant, this number corresponds to 432Hz, which is considered the perfect frequency, producing absolute harmony and promoting mental clarity and calmness.
The dials are decorated with a pattern that evokes the sound waves of studio monitors. On the stainless steel edition, the blue sound waves traverse the dial against a black background, the shade of blue being the same colour The Avener used on the cover of his first album. The black PVD model differs in that the sound waves are depicted concentrically. ‘A tempo’ is printed just above the date window at 6 o’clock, reminding musicians to recuperate a normal tempo after a slow or fast section. Although both models feature applied steel indices, the twelve hour markers on the black dial are filled with black luminescent material matching the hour and minute hands; the blue dial, however, has fewer indices (12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock) and the luminous material on the hour markers and hands appears to be white.
Powered by the automatic calibre FC-303 (base Sellita SW 200-1 without COSC chronometer certification), the movement can be seen on the reverse side of the case with its gold-coloured rotor delivering energy to the barrel for 38 hours.
The stainless steel Frédérique Constant Highlife Automatic The Avener comes with a fully interchangeable integrated 3-link stainless steel bracelet with a folding buckle as well as an additional black rubber strap. The black DLC features a fully interchangeable black rubber strap and an additional black Nubuck leather strap with a pin buckle.