Rado and its global brand ambassador Tan Jianci have turned the colour of a Swiss lake into a dial: a 5 mm watch in white high-tech ceramic, limited to 320 pieces.
Some watches begin in a design studio. The new Rado True Square Thinline x Tan Jianci Limited Edition began at a lake. On a journey through Switzerland, the Chinese star and Rado Global Brand Ambassador Tan Jianci came to Lake Lungern, and its water, crystal clear and shifting between emerald and turquoise, is the reason the dial of this watch is the colour it is. Rado presented the piece on 20 October 2026. It is limited to 320 pieces.
From the lake to the lab
The trip through Switzerland ended at Rado’s high-tech ceramic lab, where Tan Jianci saw how the brand’s signature material is made and came away convinced. “I see no other material for our co-created timepiece,” he said. The watch itself took shape in a series of creative exchanges between him, Rado CEO Adrian Bosshard, the brand’s designers and its product specialists. Several ideas were on the table before he settled on the True Square Thinline, won over by its ultra-slim 5 mm profile, its lightness and its rounded square silhouette.
The colour came next. Together with Rado’s experts he went through several directions for the dial before choosing a green-turquoise shade, the one that stayed closest to the calm and the light he had found in the Swiss landscape.
White ceramic, mother of pearl, a touch of yellow
The finished watch pairs lustrous white high-tech ceramic with a luminous mother-of-pearl dial in turquoise. Inside sits the R420 quartz movement, which Rado credits with remarkable accuracy, and the slim ceramic construction keeps the whole thing sleek and light. Rado describes it as refined but versatile, modern but minimal, a watch made to go along on any occasion.
The details carry the collaboration. Yellow appears on the hands and on the Rado logo on the dial, a sharp contrast to the serene turquoise, and again as an accent on the case back. The case back is inscribed “COCREATED BY JCT”, and every watch is individually engraved “ONE OF 320”, a nod to Tan Jianci’s community that, as Rado puts it, makes each owner a member of the family. The clasp carries a third message, “KEEP SHINING”, meant as encouragement to follow your own path and shine in your own way.
Our view
A 5 mm ceramic watch is a different proposition from the steel divers and chronographs that fill most collections, and that is rather the point. It weighs little, it slides under a cuff, and white ceramic with a turquoise dial will not be mistaken for anything else on the street. We have made the case for the other side in Why a Mechanical Watch Is Worth the Trouble; a quartz watch this slim makes its own case on comfort.
What matters more for anyone tempted is the number on the back. There will be 320 of these, and Rado has so far named neither a price nor a date for the shops. Rado and its ambassador call the watch a celebration of creativity and connection; on the wrist it is, above all, light, slim and unmistakable.
