A Closer Look At The Maurice Lacroix Aikon Venturer GMT

With its angular case, distinctive round bezel featuring six “arms,” and more-than-reasonable price point, the Aikon has become one of Maurice Lacroix’s most popular models since its launch five years ago.

Inspired by the brand’s 1990s Calypso line, the Aikon was introduced as a quartz model in 2016 before an automatic version of this luxury sports watch was launched two years later.

Then came the Aikon Venturer, an even sportier iteration boasting time and date functions plus a rugged 43mm case with 300m dive-grade water resistance and rotating bezel, aimed clearly at outdoor adventurers.

Maurice Lacroix presented four new Aikon updates at the recent Watches & Wonders fair featuring new combinations of case materials, case sizes, and dial finishes. But it was just before this virtual salon that the brand unveiled a new dual time zone edition of the Aikon – the Aikon Venturer GMT – and the Watchonista team has been lucky enough to get hands-on with it.
 

The Aikon Venturer GMT retains many of the traits that made the original Venturer a winner among watch fans – an automatic movement, time and date indications, sunray-brushed dial, Super-LumiNova-filled hands, and applied hour indices. Plus, it has an assertive 43mm steel case with serrated bezel featuring a ceramic insert and the signature six “arms” of the Aikon line. With its protective crown guard, it even enjoys the original’s 30 ATM water resistance.
 

But the vibe of new the Venturer is less about thrills and spills at sea, off-road, or in the air and more about the city-based adventures of fast-paced urbanites and metropolis-centered globetrotters. And that is all down to the GMT complication that lets the wearer know the time in a second location: back home when you’re traveling, maybe, or at the place where your best buddy on the other side of the world lives, for example.
 

Presented in bright red or orange (depending on the dial color), the GMT arrow hand indicating the second time zone is highly legible, even more so thanks to its Super-LumiNova-filled tip, which points to a 24-hour scale emblazoned on the bezel. The solid case back is engraved with a map of the world surrounded by the 24 time zones to aid time-setting.