Couldn't resist, had to get the blue Saxonia thin rep. I wanted an aventurine dial watch for a while, but all non-rep ones are kind of ugly. This one is certainly not ugly - in fact it's quite beautiful. Maybe a bit too beautiful even, heh
Let me explain. In all the promo videos of the gen and all the photos and videos of this rep, the sparkling of the dial looks somewhat monochromatic. There's a dark blue dial, and silvery shimmer of the sparkles. That's pretty much what I thought I'd be getting. However, what it looks in real life can be best described as the diamond dust spread across the dark blue dial (dial also has a hint of dark purple to it). The sparkling is not really monochromatic, but instead, much like diamond dust, you can see various colors in the sparkles - white, blue and purple shades. It greatly varies on the lighting situation around you, but in general, the effect is FAR stronger than I expected. Almost to the point that it looks like a fashion watch (something from Swarowski for example), but only superficially, as the effect is certainly a lot different looking than if it was a bunch of tiny crystals spread across the dial. Trusty's video makes the dial look really dull, but trust me, it's anything but! All of this is neither good or bad, but just surprising to me.
Remember that even the original ALS is being advertised as unisex, and in my experience with this rep, that kind of look is definitely captured here.
I also want to say that even ALS in its promo videos has shown this dial as far more subdued than it actually is. If you look at this video, you can see what the gen dial looks like, and that's pretty much the kind of look you'll get with this rep also - except I think a rep is a tiny bit more colorful:
https://www.facebook.com/marshallpie...6421456814305/
Or maybe the gen is also more colorful than I think, because it looks that way in the photos here:
https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/a-...opper-hands-on
The rest of the watch is as I expected from the photos. It's nicely finished, indices are well placed, it keeps time really well so far, and other than the spacing in the logo it just looks great. Even the strap is pretty good, and I don't feel the need to replace it with something more expensive. Another nice thing about it is that the winding rotor is not noticeably loud, which often tends to be a problem with rep movements. Only thing that I'd objectively put against it is that it looks like the crystal has no AR coating. So with the crystal being flat, you'll see reflections, and fingerprints easily on it. I wish they'd apply some AR coating, but overall, I would recommend it to anyone looking to add a bit of glitz to their collection.
