Alessi Tic AL5011

I've been aware of the Alessi brand for a long time, but not for watches. The Alessi brand is most known for it's interior design products with an experimental (and often expensive) style. The company started its sense of style in 1935, and makes what it calls 'handicraft items made with the aid of machines'. They don't employ in-house designers, but work with freelance talents.

This watch was designed by Piero Lissoni who was an architecture graduate born in 1956. He started an industrial designer, architectural, and graphic design studio in 1986 and has worked for many Italian design houses. His most seen works include homes and hotels in Venice, Zurich, Istanbul, and Bangkok.

Alessi has produced many watches over the years, and this model is called the Tic. Lissoni designed 5 different watches for Alessi, all with the same shape case.

The watch design uses a rounded square (or maybe squared circle) face. It is actually a 4-hand dial which is rather unusual. It has the usual 3 hands but with a second hand that spans almost the whole diameter of the dial. The 4th hand is a 24-hr hand (the thin hand) which corresponds to the numbers around the face. There is also a small window at around 1:30 for the date.

The watch has a model number of AL5011, and was released in 2002. It is a solid stainless steel watch and is 30m water resistant.