Hands-On: The Unimatic Modello Cinque U5S-BL Offers A Subtle New Twist Of Dimensionality

By now, you’re probably used to Unimatic’s never-ending onslaught of new variations of their distinctive, brutalist silhouettes. Some of them are crazy, some of them are subtle, but what’s undeniable is that every time you check on the brand, there’s something new on offer. And the brand’s constant limited-edition release strategy works, with the typically 100-300-piece runs selling out and leaving the next batch ready to attract a new buyer.

But recently, Unimatic introduced a few new editions of its compact, 36mm-cased Modello Cinque U5S, featuring a small, but dramatic change: hand-applied “UNILIGHT” 3D luminous markers. As someone who owns a few editions of the Modello Cinque, I find the markers give the dials a sense of newfound depth compared to its printed predecessors, and, while I’m sure it doesn’t eliminate the possibility of future designs with printed markers, the new ones look great.

Two recent additions to Unimatic’s “Italian Alps” series give mechaquartz-powered Modello Cinques these UNILIGHT markers on light blue dials, but the one I just spent a few days with is the more premium black-dialed U5S-BL limited edition, available in either a steel (as pictured) or DLC-coated black case. If you’ve seen or tried on any other Modello Cinque, well then, you’ll know exactly how this one might feel. Specs are compact for smaller wrists that might not accommodate Unimatic’s much larger other designs, with that small diameter of 36mm paired with an unconventionally proportioned lug width of 22mm. The case sits 11.6mm tall, while the overall lug-to-lug is short and wrist-friendly at 43.7mm.

Since everything else is quite familiar, the interest lies all in the dial here. Those solid blocks of lume rest on a deep, glossy black dial, seemingly suspended in a dark expanse. Unimatic calls this a matte dial, but it’s really quite glossy in person and catches interesting reflections of the handset and markers at an angle. For a watch with a deeply sunken dial and pronounced rehaut, three-dimensional indices could not feel more at home. 

Printed and highly textured metallic silver outlines surround the markers, and the dial features a matching seconds track and logo print. The lume performed well during the time I spent with the watch, though visually there was one drawback to the markers—an inconsistent color match between the markers and the lume on the handset, with the handset giving off a colder white than the warmer markers. It is a bit distracting, and I hope that there will be less of a difference on future models.

Unimatic offers quite a few “tiers” of its designs in quartz and mechanical movements, spanning a broad range of price points. These two watches feature the automatic Sellita SW200-1b caliber and are priced accordingly at $1,390 (the two mecaquartz versions I mentioned earlier are around $700). They come with two strap options—an olive drab seatbelt-style NATO strap and a two-piece black leather strap. For me, the olive NATO strap is a winner. Not only is it extremely comfortable with the thicker plushness of that seatbelt weave, but the exaggerated lug width on the 36mm case works quite well with a single-piece strap. 

For smaller wrists, it wears incredibly comfortably, but I think the continuous look of the NATO makes the smaller size of the Modello Cinque much more palatable on larger wrists. In either case, on the NATO, the watch feels like an upscale, modern field watch.

In the two weeks since the U5S-BL’s release, the 300-piece steel version has sold out, while the DLC-coated model still remains in stock. To me, that’s a surprising velocity for this launch, as on paper these watches might not seem that radically different from past designs—it is a black-dial Modello Cinque, after all. But on the flip side, it shows that the appetite for that toolish, distinctly Unimatic aesthetic very much remains, with undoubtedly many more iterations to come.