TAG Heuer’s breakthrough Diamant d’Avant-Garde technology represents another major milestone for the luxury watchmaking industry. The Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) technique allows the first colored TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma 36 mm, featuring 1.4 carats of colored Diamant d’Avant-Garde. In a first for TAG Heuer, the watch introduces a combination of pink and white lab-grown diamonds, with colored lab-grown diamonds to be used more extensively on luxury watches models in future. This introduction comes on the back of the TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde “2.0” presentation earlier this morning, which sees lab-grown diamonds in custom, creative shapes added to the exclusive timepiece’s aluminum bezel and bracelet for a total of 124, 15.5-carat Diamant d’Avant-Garde diamonds.

The introduction of the TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde 36 mm with pink diamonds is yet another sign of TAG Heuer’s Avant-Garde and innovative spirit. It is a spirit that is deeply ingrained in the brand’s DNA: using lab-grown diamonds in all shapes and forms – now also in color – to create a disruptive design.

This is the extended second chapter in the rich, ongoing TAG Heuer story, where a 163-year legacy meets new avant-garde innovation.

As Frédéric Arnault noted at the reveal “With the new TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde, we intend to expand the new high-end innovative segment with this first colored lab-grown diamond piece. We are proud at TAG Heuer, that we are yet again able to introduce a true innovation with colored Diamant d’Avant-Garde to be used on luxury timepieces .”

This amazing pink color – with further color options soon to follow – can be obtained during a special diamond growing process.

“A diamond, be it natural or lab-grown, consists of a regular arrangement of carbon atoms. A perfect diamond, color D and flawless, has almost no defect in this arrangement and is completely colorless. In order to obtain a colored diamond, one needs to introduce some disorder into this perfect arrangement, in a controlled way. This disorder can be due to the addition of atoms of different elements or to the presence of defects: for example, missing carbon atoms,” as Emmanuel Dupas, Director of the TAG Heuer Institute, remarked. “The CVD process offers the opportunity to introduce these defects during the growth process, in a well-controlled environment, without the need for any post-processing. This way, the diamond is colored all the way through and homogeneously. A very specific know-how – such as it is owned by one of our partners ‘Proud’ – is required to control this process and to be able to reproduce the same color, batch after batch.”

The new colored TAG Heuer Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde timepiece comes in white gold with a 36-mm case, representing the newly refined TAG Heuer Carrera Date just launched in a revisited model for Watches & Wonders 2023. The flange or “rehaut”, located just under the crystal that raises it above the dial and hands, is also newly azured.

The TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma signature crown diamond is a single, 1.3-carat, pink, lab-grown diamond. It also comes with a new signature shape, with a Diamant d’Avant-Garde shield elegantly adorning the polycrystalline dial.

This groundbreaking feature on the piece along with its brilliant result is achieved by growing a vast number of diamond crystals as one, as well as creating breathtaking reflections and light effects in a single diamond entity. Indeed, this is just one of the many creative applications of CVD technology and was also used on previous TAG Heuer Carrera Diamant d’Avant-Garde pieces.

The unique, 2.9-carat dial design is punctuated by 12 white gold indexes and set with white lab-grown diamonds. The hours and minutes hands are “skeletonized”. Above them, the Swiss luxury watchmaker has placed a special shield-shaped pink diamond sitting just below the signature Carrera dial logo.

This unique, three-hands-piece weighs a total of 4.8 carats and comes on a black alligator strap with a white gold pin buckle. The TAG Heuer Calibre 7 Automatic is visible through a sapphire open case back.

With 2023 marking the historic 60th anniversary of the TAG Heuer Carrera, the brand also continues to innovate with these Diamant d’Avant-Garde pieces in this iconic flagship collection, expressing an enduring passion and commitment to TAG Heuer’s pioneering spirit and DNA. The TAG Heuer Carrera Plasma Diamant d’Avant-Garde 36 mm presented at Watches & Wonders 2023 is a first prototype. This model will be commercialized in a limited number of pieces and made available upon order in TAG Heuer stores worldwide at the end of 2023. Further fully colored models are to follow.