Cadisen diamond dress watch Review

Cadisen is a Chinese watch company that features less prominently in youtube reviews, mostly because the brand is focusing on the Chinese market, with less emphasis on homage models. I have read somewhere that Cadisen runs in excess of 1000 stores in China.

One thing Cadisen is doing well are dress watches, in partciular: dress watches with good specifications. The C8097 is a prime example of that.

We have here a 40mm-dialled case housing a Miyota 9015 high-beat movement.  The movement is not only high-beat, it is also rather thin, allowing the watch itself an 11mm thickness. Water resistance of 50m is perfectly fine for a dress watch. The crystal is sapphire (apparently even on the back). We have a blued seconds hand, a framed date window at 3, applied indices. Lugwidth is a convenient 20mm, which is important as the watchband is probably the least satisfactory part of the watch.

We also have a diamond at 12 o'clock. It is small, but I have seen some watch reviewers shying away from this watch just because of that style element, and when I started collecting watches I would have been similarly squeamish about such bling. However, now I quite like it, for two reasons, first: it is rather understated, it just helps to break up the symmetry of the dial and anchor it at the 12, not unlike the triangle does in a flieger.  The second reason is that it is a style element found in other Chinese watches, so it is telling me: I am a Chinese watch, that touch of bling is what we like, this is not a clone of a Western watch, take it ot leave it. I took.

Cadisen is apparently proud of this watch, as everything is branded: the dial, the crown, the clasp, the movement, the back crystal, the watchband.

The watchband comes with a deployment clasp that is not needlessly pinching your skin, but unless the clasp is attached to a band that is special enough to require extra protection I'd rather have a buckle. The supplied band itself is ok, but not great. The Cadisen tempts me to make it a regular wear, but for that I would want to upgrade the band.

The C8097 is available on amazon (uk) for £175, on the Cadisen website for $135, and on AliExpress for £117 on the Cadisen store. Note that part of the price difference is due to UK tax on Ali not included on the list price, that would add another £20-25 on top.

The watch is availabe (on Ali, not amazon) in various colour options, but the depicted one is by far the most popular. Alternatives are case colours in yellow gold or rose gold, and a black dial colour.