Kelp forests are the rainforests nobody sees — underwater cathedrals of swaying green that shelter entire food chains and quietly bank carbon on a scale that shames most things ashore. They are also disappearing. Oris, which has made a habit of attaching its dive watches to causes with actual salt in them, has turned its attention there with the new Aquis Date Kelp Forest Limited Edition, created with the Canary Islands underwater photographer and long-time brand ambassador Francis Pérez.
The watch is a 41.5mm Aquis in brushed and polished steel, water-resistant to 300 metres, with a unidirectional bezel carrying a green ceramic insert. The dial is the reason to look twice: an ocean-green surface with a three-dimensional printed texture that mimics the sway of a kelp canopy, shifting between green and gold as the light moves across it, the way the real thing does a few metres down. Gold-outlined hands and applied markers carry Super-LumiNova; the date sits at six; the screwed caseback is engraved with a kelp motif. Inside is the automatic Calibre 733 with a 41-hour reserve, and the steel bracelet closes with Oris’s quick-adjust clasp — a small mercy over a wetsuit sleeve or in a Gulf summer.
It follows the Yangtze Jiangtun and New York Harbor editions in Oris’s run of environmental releases, and like them it is limited — 1,000 pieces — and sensibly priced at CHF 2,450. The formula is familiar, but it keeps working because Oris keeps choosing causes with texture: not the ocean in general, but this forest, this photographer, this particular shade of green.
For divers along this coast, the Aquis hardly needs an introduction. This one simply arrives with a better story than most — and the rare dial that genuinely looks alive underwater.
