Yema Superman Swiss Edition 41mm Watch Review

Yema have been going from strength to strength since the introduction of their Morteau workshop and high quality CMM movements. However, with the added costs of manufacturing their own movements, Yema prices have been steadily on the rise as well. Compared to the old Superman with the Yema 2000 or 3000 movements that were around the £1,000 mark, the new Superman Slim CMM.20 is £1,889. But Yema don’t want to leave the accessible watch market behind entirely and so they’re introducing a new entry level Superman collection suitable to sit alongside their manufacture editions, dubbed the Superman Swiss Edition. I’ve spent time with the black and beige editions so let’s get into the review.

First of all, let’s talk Swiss. Yema, as you may know, is a French watch brand with their Morteau workshop sitting close to the Swiss border but ultimately being situated very much in France. However, hold the new Superman up to the light and you’ll see that each of them bears the inscription Swiss Made at 6 o’clock below the minute scale. That’s because Yema have partnered with a Swiss firm in Biel/Bienne just 70km from their own workshop to manufacture and assemble these watches inside Switzerland, using an off the shelf Swiss movement.

By outsourcing the production to the heart of the world’s most iconic watchmaking region, the costs of production are actually reduced in comparison to the French manufacture. It’s not often that the words “Swiss Made” and “more accessible” get used together but that’s really the case here. It’s also not as if they’ve outsourced production halfway across the globe, this is still Switzerland we’re talking about and a Sellita movement, so the quality is still high.

You can really feel that quality in the case and the watch’s heft on the wrist with its 41mm stainless steel construction. As a dive watch it has plenty of presence, especially with its fairly tall profile. The thickness is listed as 11.3mm and whipping out a ruler that metric covers from the rear of the caseback to the top of the bezel. However, the domed sapphire crystal sits on top of that giving a total thickness in region of 13mm, which is not dramatically huge but definitely worth remarking on. It’s not a watch that slips under a cuff easily – but why would you want to hide away something that looks this good.

I’ll come out as biased that the Superman is one of my personal favourite dive watches. The 300m water resistance makes it as practical as you like while the display is the perfect blend of retro and modern. Featuring highly legible arrow hands and a combination of triangle, circle and rectangle hour markers, all with lume of course. Here, that retro aspect is emphasised further by the aluminium insert dive timer on the bezel. It all comes together to create the impression of a modernised 1960s skin diver, which also happens to be my favourite period in dive watch history.

As to colour, there are four available for the Yema Superman Swiss Edition. Between the two I have here I naturally gravitate to the black version with matching black bezel as it’s the most traditional dive watch colour scheme that exists. Although the beige dial with black bezel is arguably the most distinctive of the four. The other colours not shown here are blue with a blue bezel and white with a black bezel.

It’s also really easy to swap between the two versions in front of me as they have really nice heritage five-link steel bracelets with three-part clasps and diver extensions. While we’re talking about the tactile aspects of the watch, the large crown makes it very easy to manipulate and the date change has a satisfying responsiveness to it. The 120 click bezel is naturally fun to fiddle with – though the bezel lock system at 3 o’clock, held in place by the crown, has always struck me as a tad delicate.

Turning the watches over reveals a new caseback that has been redesigned to feature the Yema logo in the style of a historic coat of arms stamped into place with a hydraulic press. Beneath that caseback is the Sellita SW200-1 automatic movement with 38-hour power reserve. It’s not as high spec as their CMM movements but that’s sort of the point. The Superman Swiss Edition is supposed to be an entry level watch and the SW200-1 is the archetypical entry level Swiss movement.

We’ve mentioned price a couple of times so what is the final figure? €1190 (approx. £990). For a 300m diver of any stripe with steel bracelet that’s pretty good value. You can definitely find Sellita equipped tool watches for less but given the cool retro styling of the Superman I think that price is justified here. It’s also positioned perfectly so that the £1k jump to the CMM edition also feels reasonable. Given that the Superman Slim CMM.20 has almost double the power reserve, an exhibition caseback and a micro-rotor, you get a lot of value from upgrading.

Ultimately Yema have completely hit the nail on the head with the launch of the Superman Swiss Edition. Yes, it’s arguably a little less prestigious because it’s assembled by a partner outside of their own workshops, but the value appropriately reflects that. They’re aimed at slightly different types of collectors and that’s ok. If Yema continues to build on this model of having dual collections split between manufacture and Swiss Made with clarity and openness about those manufacturing details, they’re only going to continue building steam for the future.

More details at Yema.

​Oracle Time 

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