Made to celebrate World Ocean Day, Ulysse Nardin unveiled the Diver Lemon Shark, a beautiful shark-themed limited edition variation of the watchmaker's acclaimed diver's watch. Paying tribute to the lemon shark with touches of yellow throughout, the Diver Lemon Shark is an exceptionally interesting timepiece whose back-story is as impressive as is its initiative.
Clad in 42mm of DLC-coated stainless steel, the Ulysse Nardin Diver Lemon Shark holds its own as a formidable diver, whether it be beneath the rumbling ocean surface or at your regular nine-to-five haunt, the foreboding desk. Jokes aside, while the Diver Lemon Shark's 300m water resistance will likely never be put to the test, I guess it's reassuring to know that the watch on your wrist is a fully capable and wholly functional diver's watch.
Aesthetically, I mean, the Diver Lemon Shark is super hard to fault. Edging along the lines of faultlessness, the yellow accents against the black sand-blasted dial and black textured bezel make the Diver Lemon Shark pop, and really give the piece a very special look and feel. In my time with the Diver Lemon Shark, I found it very difficult to nitpick at anything, where the overall look of the piece seemed to work coherently.
It wore beautifully, too. At 42mm, it sat really comfortably on my wrist, with minimal case movement of shaking, even during the most vigorous of G-rated wrist movements! The black R-STRAP, which is made from 100% recycled material from the ocean, was supremely comfortable and didn't cause any sorts of irritations. I wore the Diver Lemon Shark throughout the day and it really did not bother me one bit.
The entire look of the Diver Lemon Shark is understated yet bold in some parts. I love the stealthy look of the black bezel on the black case on the black dial on the black strap, with just enough pops of colour to keep things interesting. I found myself continuously looking down at my wrist and always feeling excited whenever the Diver Lemon Shark entered my vision. This feeling is a must -- especially when you're dropping the kind of money that Ulysse Nardin is asking for.
Powering the Diver Lemon Shark is Ulysse Nardin's calibre UN-816. This is an automatic movement with the hours, minutes and seconds displayed in the centre stack of hands, along with a date display at 6 o'clock. The calibre UN-816 is actually based on an ETA ebauche movement equivalent, albeit tended to generously by Ulysse Nardin including a fully modified escapement which features the watchmaker's silicium technology, making the piece anti-magnetic. Nonetheless, at this price point an in-house movement is expected and amiss in the Diver Lemon Shark. However, the Diver Lemon Shark has a closed caseback, depicting a relief of three lemon sharks again in the same blackened theme consistent with the rest of the watch.
From being pleasantly surprised to ultimately won over, the Ulysse Nardin Diver Lemon Shark ticked all of the right boxes for me, albeit one. The elephant in the room here is the lacking gusto in the movement department, and while the calibre UN-816 is a true workhorse, a manufacture movement is definitely something I would have expected. The Ulysse Nardin Diver Lemon Shark is available in a limited run of 300 pieces and is priced at $10,150AUD.