You do rather have to start with the name. “Mega Cool” might, to the ears of the seasoned tastemaker, sound more like the utterings of a German tour guide selling the delights of a parochial shopping centre than an £11,000 wristwatch from one of Switzerland’s most sophisticated makers. However, H. Moser & Cie.is a brand that wears its top-tier status famously lightly. After all, this is the same company that made a one-off watch from Swiss cheese (literally) to highlight the emptiness of some brands’ claims to local craft, and had the chutzpah to reimagine Apple’s watch design as an _haute horlogerie_masterpiece (the Swiss Alp series) that became highly collectible.

And according to H. Moser, “Mega Cool” is simply what its staff exclaimed when the watch was unveiled at its Schaffhausen factory for the first time. To which we say: fair play. It’s easy to see why.

The Pioneer Centre Seconds Mega Cool is a timepiece that hits 2021’s horological mood dead-on. It’s a bright and cheerful ticker that flies somewhere – in fact, pretty much everywhere – between sports watch and dress watch, carrying the rarity and finesse of the latter, but with the capability, verve and colour hits of the former.

In other words, it’s fine watchmaking that you can and should pair with your rainbow-toned Nike Dunks. And that, right now, is pretty much the mission statement of every watch brand you could name. But few have nailed it quite as surely as H. Moser.

This is quite the turnaround. It’s not so long ago that H. Moser’s watches were still uniformly pitched at the most formal end of formal, in keeping with its highly cultured approach. We’re talking small volumes (fewer than 1,500 watches per year), fabulous in-house movements, a high level of technique and craft, and a refined aesthetic involving minimalist lines and bewitching fumé dials, in which shimmering lacquered colour blends to an austere, smoky shadow.

All of that still holds true, but the context has changed. In today’s world of luxury street style, office avoidance and digital-first, the sports watch – robust, adaptable, instantly appealing rather than requiring a degree in connoisseurship – has risen mightily in importance. Even Greubel Forsey, a maker whose 100-or-so cosmically complex watches per year could each buy you a house, is now in the sports watch business with its titanium GMT Sport. When H. Moser launched its wonderfully ergonomic Streamliner sports watch in 2019, and promptly took home the chronograph gong at last year’s Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Geneve, it was like the school nerd smashing the 100 metres on sports day, leaving the jocks in his wake.

The Pioneer is H. Moser’s in-between line: a bit sporty, a bit dressy. But in Mega Cool mode, the sporty side is dramatically to the fore. The unusual hands, made from glow-in-the-dark ceramic, are taken from the Streamliner and give the design a particularly modern edge, while a steel bracelet and the option to swap in textile, rubber and leather straps, puts the emphasis firmly on flexibility.

With its screw-down crown, 12 bar (120 metres) water resistance and a gorgeously made in-house automatic movement, the watch is constructed for active pursuits. Indeed, the name the brand has given the dial colour, Blue Lagoon, does rather hint at where it’ll be most at home. And as you’re kicking back in a paradisiacal idyll admiring the deep iridescence of that fumé dial in the sunshine, you’ll notice something else. With sports watches, as with sneakers, the brand logo tends to be brazen. Not here: the historic H. Moser & Cie. script is applied in a transparent lacquer, barely there at all. It’s an extra dash of refinement and class from a brand increasingly confident in translating the qualities of connoisseur watchmaking across formats, styles and audiences. And that is mega cool.