Invicta Lupah Swiss Automatic Chronograph, Classic Watches Review

Invicta's Lupah collection is as close as it gets to being a pure fashion line of watches. Art Deco references visible in the tonneau shape, the decorative spherical push buttons, and the large, elegant Arabic numerals, shape the spirit of Lupah: fun, but with a clear sense of taste, playful, yet organized.

The collection can be divided into two main categories: the tonneau and the classic round ones. While they are distinctly different, the above mentioned features act as aesthetically unifying elements.

• Dragon Lupah comprises Dragon Lupah Classic and Sport, all chronographs operated by the distinctive globule push buttons. The collection uses color extensively: the regular Dragon goes for shaded black, brown, blue and white, while Classic and Sport lines splash color on the straps and the dials respectively.

• Dials become a playground of activity – decorated with guilloche, enamel, or carbon fiber – they host the chronograph subdials in a reverse triangle, creating a comic scheme of a face: two eyes and a mouth (in Dragon Classic the mouth, a split second chronograph, turns into a smile). Dragon Sport subdials repeat the tonneau case shape, and the face looks like that of a surprised lemur.

• Baby Lupah brings the playful mood to its logical conclusion, radically reducing the size of the watches. Though intended as a children's watch, a Baby Lupah can also be an expressive, even defiant in its unseriousness ladies' timer. These watches lack the chronograph function, and are the only Quartz offering in this collection.

• Lupah Classic is a more earnest variation of the Dragon Classic: the Roman numerals have less curves and curls, and the subdials were rearranged to literally wipe that happy face off the dial. This line still shows color both on the dials and the Lorica straps – it's just more neutral in mood than it's counterpart.

• Lupah Grand offers very large watches – 51 mm for the case and dial – with the split second chronograph, and Invicta's trademark decoration of gold plating. Less colors here: usually enamel white and black dials, with matching dark leather straps to support the watch.

• Lupah Diver Steel is the official diving watch of the collection (the rest, water resistant up to 100 meters, are unofficial). A round chronograph, it's 200 meters water resistant, has a unidirectional bezel, and an aluminum plate supporting the subdials set on the face. Though it looks different from the tonneau rest, the numerals and the globule pushers disclose that it's Invicta Lupah.