Innehållsförteckning för In Time : The Best of 2025 - Issue 58 från REVOLUTION WATCH

What a ride it’s been these past 20 years. On the one hand, I feel like Roy Batty (played by Dutch actor Rutger Hauer) in Blade Runner, speaking his “tears in rain” soliloquy. On the other hand, I’ve never felt more energized. By the time you receive this magazine, we’ll be a few weeks away from the premiere of my show, Man of the Hour, which hits TV screens in 31 countries this November, with a further rollout after that. What compelled me to create and host the first episodic television show on the luxury watch industry? Well, let’s first flashback 20 years to the old-timey days when print was the primary means of transmission for watch journalism. With my freshly printed name cards and newly established title Revolution, I…

New York just got a little more Parisian. On September 10, Dior celebrated the opening of its new House of Dior on 57th Street and Madison Avenue — only a few blocks from where Christian Dior first introduced his vision to America back in 1948. The four-storey space, dreamed up by architect Peter Marino (left), feels like a love letter to both New York and Paris. There’s ready-to-wear, leather goods, watches and jewelry and — for the first time in the U.S. — a Dior Spa. Sunlight pours through 20-foot glass windows, a hidden garden by Peter Wirtz softens the edges, and animatronic butterflies and birds nod to Monsieur Dior’s lifelong fascination with nature. An entire floor is dedicated to watches and fine jewelry, complete with private salons and a…

In the world of fine watchmaking, few manufacturers can boast a heritage as rich as that of L.Leroy, founded in Paris in 1785. For more than two centuries, the maison has accompanied explorers, scientists and statesmen, building a reputation linked to both precision and mechanical beauty. With the Osmior Bal du Temps, L.Leroy reaffirms this historical lineage through a piece that combines technical excellence with poetic design. At first glance, what is striking is the dial’s staging: a single central hand is responsible for indicating the hours. At the same time, the minutes are entrusted to the complicity of memory or the resource of the minute repeater. This decision turns reading time into a ritual. The one-minute flying tourbillon, visible at 6 o’clock on the dial, completes the picture with…

When A. Lange & Söhne unveiled two of its most refined 2025 novelties last month, there were few backdrops that could have been more fitting than the Concours of Elegance at Hampton Court Palace. Set against the Tudor palace’s manicured lawns and surrounded by 60 of the most beautiful automobiles in the world, the annual event is a celebration of craftsmanship and heritage. For Wilhelm Schmid, Lange’s CEO and a lifelong classic car enthusiast, the setting is personal as well as perfect: it embodies the same pursuit of excellence that underpins every watch from the Glashütte manufacture. Just as a concours d’élégance showcases cars that combine engineering wizardry with sculptural beauty, Lange’s new timepieces demonstrate how precision watchmaking can be both a technical tour de force and an aesthetic delight.…

This year, Revolution turns 20. Two decades of chronicling watches, people and ideas have given us a front-row seat to a remarkable story: how an age-old craft has both preserved its soul and reinvented itself for the 21st century. To celebrate, we’ve chosen 100 names and milestones that, for us, define the era so far. This is not a “greatest of all time” hall of fame. It can’t be — there are too many deserving people and pieces to fit. Instead, it’s a snapshot: a reflection of the leaders, watches, innovations and watchmakers who have left an indelible mark on modern horology. We begin with leaders. They are the strategists, entrepreneurs and visionaries who guided watchmaking through turbulent waters and golden runs alike. Some revived heritage names, some reshaped the…

It’s easy to forget if you weren’t there. But in the early 2000s, under Jean-Christophe Babin’s leadership, TAG Heuer was very possibly the most exciting watch brand on the planet. In 2004, Philippe Dufour — yes, that Dufour — rushed to Basel with the prototype of the TAG Heuer Monaco V4, the world’s first belt-driven watch designed by Jean-François Ruchonnet, and unveiled by Babin to what I can only describe as slack-jawed awe and amazement. During the same decade, Babin would also create a 100th-of-a-second chronograph wristwatch, a 1,000th-of-a-second chronograph and the bonkers Carrera Mikropendulum Tourbillon — a tourbillon watch featuring a balance wheel beating at 50Hz regulated by opposing magnets. This last watch came out the year Babin departed but was clearly part of his strategy to create mind-blowing…

To most journalists, Louis Ferla, who has been CEO of Cartier now for just over a year, is something of an enigma, as he clearly prefers to focus on the business dimension of the maisons he leads rather than engage with the media. As I’ve gotten older, I find myself appreciating his rationale for this. For Ferla, time is finite, and as such, he has made the conscious decision to spend his on the things that will impact his brand in the most positive way. At Vacheron Constantin, that meant him identifying a clear step-by-step pathway that would take the maison — for the first time in its 270-year-old history — to a turnover in excess of 1 billion Swiss francs. He focused first on ensuring his business was on…

Georges Kern is a man that needs no introduction. His management style is known for being fiery, but his ability as a leader is irrefutable. In the first phase of his career, Kern continued in the footsteps of Günter Blümlein when, at 36, he became the youngest CEO in Richemont Group as the new leader of IWC. What he brought to the brand was the creation of widespread cultural relevance. Today, every movie star, athlete or musician is a watch fan, and red carpet moments have become instances of conspicuous gawking at horological finery blasting through every form of social media. You can thank Georges Kern for that, as he laid the groundwork of connecting watches with celebrity culture throughout his tenure at IWC and especially from 2005 to 2015.…

If I had to select one person as the greatest innovator of the new millennium, it would have to be Richard Mille. Because he didn’t just create one of the most important brands in watchmaking, or a business that turns over 1.5 billion Swiss francs with just 5,600 watches a year (meaning he has an average price of 275,000 Swiss francs per timepiece), he also completely changed the way watches looked forever. That he did this with nothing more than his imagination and, as legend goes, from a bar of soap that he had carved into his tonneau-shaped case one night and the courage to go where no one else had ever gone, is extraordinary. Mille introduced the concept of modernist watchmaking, based on a design language inspired by Formula…

Major Ernest Schneider stepped away from a successful career in the Swiss military when his father-in-law, the head of watch manufacturing firm Sicura, passed away in the early ’60s. He was in his 40s and entering an all-new world, but Schneider took to watches well. Sicura was one of the few companies that was not severely affected during the Quartz Crisis, thanks to his creativity in the manufacturing of mechanical watches with digital displays and inexpensive but fun sports watches. Schneider was also quick to introduce inexpensive and trendy quartz models to his offer. But mechanical watches had left an imprint on him in the military; he appreciated their purposefulness and their heroic designs. So, in 1979, when one the most famous aviation chronograph brands Breitling came up for sale,…

When Audemars Piguet revealed the Royal Oak RD#2 Perpetual Calendar Ultra-Thin in 2018, it was presented quietly as a research project. By the time the production version appeared in 2019, it was clear that the watch marked one of the most important technical breakthroughs of the past two decades. The Royal Oak had already cemented its place in design history; with the RD#2, it did the same in mechanical innovation. The challenge was simple to state but fiendishly difficult to solve: create the thinnest self-winding perpetual calendar ever made. Perpetual calendars, by nature, are complex machines, layering cams, levers and wheels to track the shifting months and leap years. Traditionally, this complexity came at the cost of thickness. Audemars Piguet’s engineers set out to do the opposite. The solution came…

The Cartier Crash Skeleton, unveiled in 2015, is one of those rare watches that redefined what it means for a timepiece to be both an object of design and a feat of horology. At first glance, it appears to be a surrealist jewel, a melted case pulled from a Dali painting. Look closer, and the achievement becomes clear: Cartier’s watchmakers did not simply place a standard movement into an unconventional shape; they built a caliber that mirrors the distorted geometry of the case itself. The original Crash was born in 1967 at Cartier’s London boutique, under Jean-Jacques Cartier and designer Rupert Emmerson. Its legend often references a deformed watch recovered from a car accident, though the reality was more deliberate. The case was meant to capture the avant-garde energy of…

De Bethune may be a young marque, only a quarter of a century old, yet it has already carved out an enduring place in modern watchmaking. The reasons are clear: a design language that looks forward rather than back, an almost painterly mastery of blued titanium, and a willingness to push mechanical construction into unfamiliar territory. All three came together in 2016 with the DB28 Kind of Blue Tourbillon, a watch that quickly became a dream piece not only for De Bethune’s devoted following, but also for collectors who might never have considered themselves futurists. One glance is usually enough. The entire watch glows in a saturated spectrum of blue, achieved not with steel but with polished Grade 5 titanium that has been carefully heat treated to yield hues shifting…

In 2004, Grand Seiko released the SBGA001. On the surface, it was a pretty simple watch. 41mm, steel case on a utilitarian bracelet, with an unremarkable reference number for a name and a particularly mercurial champagne dial. But on closer examination, there’s one thing on the dial that stands out — the seconds hand. It doesn’t tick like quartz, or move in a stuttering sweep like a conventional automatic — it glides. That gliding motion is the hallmark of Spring Drive — an incredible technology with a long history, that finally reached maturity in 2004, with the Caliber 9R65. The idea behind Spring Drive dates back to the 1970s, and an engineer named Yoshikazu Akahane, who, throughout his long career at Seiko, continued to work towards his dream of a…

When Hublot launched the Big Bang in 2005, it was immediately clear this was not just another sports chronograph. Until then, the brand had been known mainly for pioneering rubber straps in the 1980s. Under Jean-Claude Biver, the Big Bang became both a manifesto and megaphone — a watch that embodied his philosophy of the “Art of Fusion” and announced Hublot as a force in contemporary watchmaking. The Big Bang fused materials in a way few had seen before. Steel with ceramic, titanium with gold, a Kevlar insert with a rubber strap — contrasts that traditional Swiss houses avoided but that Biver turned into a new language. Fusion was not only technical, it was also cultural: a watch that merged luxury with sport, horology with fashion, exclusivity with celebrity. The…

Laurent Ferrier was founded in 2009, making it just over 15 years old today, yet it is already regarded as one of the most respected independent watchmakers. That reputation began from day one: the brand’s very first watch, launched in 2010, immediately won the Men’s Watch Prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève. The man behind the name is Laurent Ferrier himself, a veteran of Geneva watchmaking. He spent nearly four decades at Patek Philippe, rising to Technical Director and mastering the quiet discipline of traditional craft. In 2009, he left that comfortable orbit to build something of his own, and a year later unveiled his first creation, the Classic Tourbillon Double Spiral. That debut set the template for the brand. Its Galet case — galet being French for…

Swiss watchmaker Omega’s best-associated complication is no doubt the chronograph, having produced the Speedmaster that brought mankind to the Moon for the very first time. But little is known about the fact that Omega, in its very early days — even before the Brandt brothers, its founders, began using the Omega name — had already dabbled in high complications. Those early experiments culminated in a minute repeater wristwatch, not a pocket watch, that debuted in 1892. It was based on a pocket watch movement — and the case still looked very much like a pocket watch, with the crown at 12 o’clock — but it was no doubt an unusual debut for the wrist in the 19th century. More than a century later, as the official timekeeper for the Olympic…

The Rexhep Rexhepi Chronomètre Contemporain I (RRCC I), unveiled in 2018, is a horological tour de force that redefines elegance through restraint, cementing its place as one of the most revolutionary watches of the past two decades. Crafted by the Kosovan-born Swiss watchmaker under his Akrivia banner, this time-only masterpiece blends classical serenity with cutting-edge artistry, earning the 2018 GPHG Men’s Watch Prize and a cult following among collectors. At 38mm and a svelte 9.5mm thick, the RRCC I’s case — available in 25 pieces each of pink gold with a black grand feu enamel dial, or platinum with a white dial — marries vintage-inspired teardrop lugs and a concave bezel with surgical modernity. The dial, a nod to mid-century observatory chronometers, balances Roman numerals, a chemin-de-fer minute track, and…

At the 2004 Baselworld fair, TAG Heuer unveiled the Monaco V4 as a concept, before bringing it into production in 2009. Departing from traditional gear-driven mechanisms, it introduced a belt-driven movement that used five notched belts with tension regulated by two turnbuckles. Power came from a linear tungsten mass that moved along a track to wind four barrels, arranged in a V-shape and inclined at 13 degrees. The V4 owes its movement design to Jean-François Ruchonnet, a Swiss watchmaker and engineer who envisioned a layout inspired by racecar engines. This approach not only reduces friction but also allows energy to flow more efficiently, creating a visually striking and mechanically innovative architecture. The Monaco’s square case provided ample room for an open-worked dial, offering a glimpse into the intricate mechanics. By…

How do you celebrate 270 years of continuous watchmaking? If you’re Vacheron Constantin, you unveil a watch that practically contains the cosmos. The Les Cabinotiers Solaria Ultra Grande Complication is a one-of-a-kind, double-faced timepiece packing a record-obliterating 41 complications. It’s not just the quantity — officially the most complicated wristwatch ever — it’s the sheer range of functions packed inside. The Solaria manages civil time, sidereal time, a perpetual calendar, a split seconds chronograph, a tourbillon and a Westminster carillon minute repeater all in one, plus a trove of astronomical indications from sunrise/sunset and star charts to moonphases and even tide schedules. You’ve got no excuse for being late — in any dimension. Despite cramming so much inside, the Solaria is surprisingly wearable. The case is 45mm in diameter and…

Armin Strom’s 2016 Mirrored Force Resonance marked a turning point in the long, scattered history of resonance in watchmaking. Unlike earlier efforts by Antide Janvier, A.-L. Breguet or F.P. Journe that relied on incidental coupling through shared structures, Armin Strom introduced a purpose-built, dynamically articulated spring linking the twin balances. Housed in a 43mm case with dual counter-rotating gear trains to favor anti-phase synchronization, it formalized the phenomenon through what is essentially a compliant mechanism that not only encourages synchronization by regulating energy transfer between them, but also sustains it under real-world conditions. While other modern resonance watches, such as those by Beat Haldimann and Vianney Halter, placed twin balances in a shared tourbillon cage and linked the outer terminals of the hairsprings for coupling, Armin Strom’s solution was a…

The Récital 28 Prowess 1 is a milestone in watchmaking, as it addresses a problem that is neither theoretical, abstract nor aesthetic but stubbornly real, in a complication that has always aspired to be useful. World time watches promise universality, but the fiction on which they rest, that the relationship between a city and its offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is constant, has never survived contact with the messy reality of Daylight Saving Time. Daylight Saving Time (DST) is one of those inventions that seemed innocuous when it was first imposed during World War I, a bureaucratic convenience meant to stretch daylight hours and save energy. A century later, it has become an enduring nuisance for anyone trying to keep track of the correct time across time zones. Some…

When Franck Muller introduced the Aeternitas Mega in 2007, it became, by a wide margin, the most complicated wristwatch ever made, and it would hold the record until this year, when it was finally surpassed by the Vacheron Constantin Solaria. The Aeternitas Mega incorporated a total of 36 complications in a self-winding micro-rotor movement, among them a secular perpetual calendar, a split seconds chronograph, a flying tourbillon, and an equation of time, a grande and petite sonnerie, and minute repeater with Westminster chiming. Apart from its sheer number of complications, each complication was executed with a level of completeness that placed it beyond mere accumulation. The split seconds chronograph, for instance, was constructed in its most sophisticated and elaborate form, with a flyback function, an instantaneously jumping minutes and an…

The Glashütte Original Senator Chronometer Tourbillon, launched in 2019, is one of the most remarkable tourbillons in watchmaking, as it combines a zero-reset function and a hacking seconds in a tourbillon watch with unusual sophistication. While a hacking seconds function might seem essential in any watch that aspires to accuracy, much more in a tourbillon, it remains uncommon, and rarer still when paired with a zero-reset. Moreover, the Senator Chronometer Tourbillon is the only one where the entire flying tourbillon with the seconds hand attached can be reset to zero. Zero-reset is typically implemented with a heart cam rigidly fixed to the arbor that carries the seconds hand. When the crown is pulled, a brake stops the balance and a lever presses against the heart cam, like in a chronograph,…

Among collectors, the Duomètre has become one of those touchstones you can count on to come up in any conversation about Jaeger-LeCoultre. When it debuted in 2007, it had the rare quality of being both immediately intelligible and mechanically original. By giving the going train and complications their own mainsprings and gear trains, yet with a single balance wheel, the Duomètre solved the age-old problem of complications robbing power from the going train and impacting amplitude. It felt like a watchmaker’s solution from a watchmaker’s manufacture, and it remains compelling. While other manufactures have since experimented with dual barrels and trains to isolate complications, they often turn to separate oscillators — a solution that works remarkably, but feels conceptually less satisfying. The true challenge, and the Duomètre’s lasting claim, lies…

Patek Philippe is best known for refining and perpetuating the classical grammar of watchmaking, but since 2005 it has maintained a platform for experimentation through the Advanced Research program. Its purpose has been to test how new materials and technology might be translated into practical gains in precision and long-term reliability. The first four watches in the series, released between 2005 and 2011, chart a steady progression toward a complete silicon regulating organ. The starting point was the 100-piece Annual Calendar Ref. 5250 in 2005, fitted with a Silinvar escape wheel. Silinvar is a proprietary form of silicon, thermally treated to become dimensionally stable across temperature ranges. Two-thirds lighter than steel, harder, non-magnetic and resistant to corrosion, it lowered inertia and dispensed with lubrication. A year later, the 300-piece Ref.…

The Urban Jürgensen UJ-1 is one of a trio of watches that marked the relaunch of the company under the leadership of Kari Voutilainen and the Rosenfield Family, and it is very much a watch that arrives with impact. It is a no-holds-barred attempt to reassert what the Urban Jürgensen name has meant and could still mean in the larger story of horology. The UJ-1 draws a direct line to one of the most remarkable modern horological projects, the Oval pocket watch conceived by Derek Pratt in the 1980s. Pratt, perhaps the most accomplished watchmaker of his generation in terms of classical craft, began the watch but did not live to see it completed. That task fell to Voutilainen, who finished the movement with his characteristically flawless hand. The dial…

“Is watch journalism dead?” It’s the sort of question that gets rolled out at events like Geneva Watch Days, usually on a panel where you’re given ten minutes to solve the industry’s existential crises. I sat on one of those panels recently, alongside collectors and influencers. I didn’t say much, partly because everyone else was eager to speak, partly because I preferred to listen. The familiar criticisms were wheeled out: journalists rely on advertising revenue and we accept brand-sponsored trips, complete with champagne receptions and glossy dinners. The implication being that we’re all either compromised or freeloaders. It’s a neat narrative, but one that flattens nuance. The truth is that no one in that room — not journalists, not collectors, not influencers — is without agenda. Collectors often have close…

When Usain Bolt stepped away from competitive athletics in 2017, he seemed destined for a quieter life. Eight years into retirement, though, it is clear that slowing down was never really in his nature. Instead, his energy has shifted into new arenas — family, music, philanthropy — and, for 15 years now, a partnership with Hublot that mirrors his own disruptive journey. Bolt’s connection with the brand dates to 2010. Over a decade and a half later, while other athletes might have switched allegiances or chased higher offers, Bolt remains steadfast. In the same way that Hublot’s Big Bang exploded onto the watchmaking scene in 2005, Bolt himself rewrote the rules of sprinting. Just as the Big Bang forced the Swiss industry to rethink what a watch could be, Bolt’s…

For a brand that only opened its doors to the public two years ago, Micromilspec is moving with remarkable clarity. The Oslo-based outfit began life building bespoke watches for professionals — military squadrons, NATO personnel, private companies — timepieces made to work rather than to pose. That DNA has never been diluted, and this year’s Geneva Watch Days saw the company extend its reach skyward with the launch of two Worldtimer models in a brand-new Pilot Series. The Worldtimer feels like a natural evolution for Micromilspec. Limited to 75 pieces for each version, the new watch comes in a black or white dial and is housed in Grade 5 titanium with a ceramic bezel insert engraved for instant reference. Proportions are clean, legibility absolute, and details carefully judged: luminous markers…

Earlier this year, Bremont unveiled the hotly anticipated new version of its iconic Martin-Baker collaboration, the Altitude MB Meteor, and an evolved and upscaled version of the iconic MBII, which stayed true to that model’s identity, while losing some of its 2010s-era tool watch chunkiness. At launch, Bremont stuck to the core models, black and silver dials on a range of straps, but clearly the Meteor was going to be a model ripe for innovative executions — and we’ve now had the first look of that with the Altitude MB Meteor Stealth Gray, a smart looking design that really sets the tone for the future of this collection. The Bremont Altitude MB Meteor Stealth Gray is a limited edition of 400 pieces that takes the utilitarian personality of the Meteor…

At Geneva Watch Days 2025, Frederique Constant reminded us that complicated watchmaking doesn’t have to sit on a pedestal. With three new references of its Classic Perpetual Calendar Manufacture, the brand proves once again that the magic of a perpetual calendar can be enjoyed without a stratospheric price tag. The perpetual calendar remains one of the most captivating complications in horology. It tracks not only the date, but also months, leap years and moonphases, all with mechanical memory designed to run correctly for over a century. It’s also notoriously tricky to design, which is why most brands keep it in the upper echelons of their catalogues. Frederique Constant disrupted that hierarchy in 2016 with a perpetual calendar under USD 10,000, and it continues to refine the formula. The latest models…

Born in Nuremberg, Germany, two years before the end of World War II, Blümlein became an engineer to help rebuild his decimated nation. He worked first for Diehl, overseeing its watch division, which included Junghans, before he was headhunted in 1980 to oversee Les Manufactures Horlogères (LMH), the watch division of VDO Schindling A.G., comprising of IWC and Jaeger-LeCoultre. At the time he took over both brands, with the watch industry massively impacted by the Quartz Crisis, they were struggling and on the brink of failure. What he would enact over the next two decades are two of the greatest acts of brand rebuilding in horological history. At IWC, he would identify an all-new masculine audience bristling from the post ’70s disco-era gender fluidity and fully embracing the ’80s alpha…

There is no greater example of resilience in watchmaking than Max Büsser. With his own brand MB&F, Büsser almost went bankrupt three times for reasons beyond his control. Each time, Max Büsser stared into the existential pit of annihilation and, rather than caving into despair, he fought back and came out stronger and more successful than before. When he first took over as the Managing Director of Harry Winston Rare Timepieces in 1998, it seemed like a dream job; he learned shortly afterwards that his division was on the brink of bankruptcy. At the Baselworld fair, his former mentor Günter Blümlein came to visit him and when Max alluded to his challenges, Blümlein replied, “If there is anyone that can turn this brand around, it’s you.” These words would prove…

When discussing the pantheon of our industry’s greatest leaders, there is one individual that even his fiercest competitors have to defer to and that is Nicolas G. Hayek. One could even make the argument that without his actions in the ’80s to save Swiss watchmaking, the industry today would only be a pale shadow of itself. How was Hayek able to compete with watches from Citizen and Seiko? As a master of efficiency, he realized that in that price category, a viable watch could only be made in Switzerland if its labor costs were less than 10 percent. In an interview with Harvard Business School, he explained that SMH had to bring its production costs down to Asian levels. He said, “If we can design a manufacturing process in which…

Iused to joke that you need an IV drip and 48 hours of bed rest to recover from any press junket led by Jérôme Lambert, but it’s not far from the truth. In Argentina for a Reverso launch, we landed after a 30-plus-hour flight and were brought to a polo match for a presentation, then went to the hotel for dinner, and then optional salsa lessons. The next morning, we left the hotel at 6 a.m. to catch a chartered flight to Ushuaia, the southernmost place on the continent. We had lunch on a boat, then a nature hike, then another technical presentation. On the flight back, I was awakened by Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Corporate Communications Director Isabelle Gervais at 2 a.m. to say that Lambert was ready for his interview. We…

Rolf Schynder was such a badass that he could often be found doing one-armed pull-ups from a rafter after accomplishing the Cresta Run, the world’s most dangerous toboggan ride. We use the phrase “testicular fortitude” as a euphemism for bravery and strength, and I kid you not, Rolf used to literally lift sacks of rocks with his testicles as part of his practice of the martial art Tie Dang Gong. He was also both a fearless and creative genius, qualities that he aptly demonstrated in 2001 to me with the single, most important watch creation of the new millennium, the Ulysse Nardin Freak. Rolf had purchased UN but understood that to make a true impact, he could not simply crank out boring marine-chronometer-inspired wristwatches. The ’90s had been an era…

I might get some criticism for saying “Cyrille Vigneron saved Cartier,” but I stand by the statement. When he took over Cartier, which was at one point the luxury world’s second biggest watch brand, it was faltering. It simply didn’t know what it wanted to be. It had tried to become a rugged steel sports watch brand to take on the likes of Rolex and Omega, with models like the Calibre de Cartier and Drive de Cartier. And, at the same time, it decided to combat with the likes of Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and Vacheron Constantin in complicated watchmaking, tapping the brilliance of Carole Forestier-Kasapi. Yet those watches were, to a large extent, not well received by customers. That is not to disparage the talents of Forestier-Kasapi, whom I…

The wristwatches of Breguet have long been associated with fine guilloché dials and the classical details that define traditional watchmaking. Yet one of the brand’s most iconic and groundbreaking creations is an open-worked wristwatch: the La Tradition. When it was first introduced in 2005, the La Tradition was unlike any other Breguet watch. It had no conventional dial. Instead, almost the entire movement, including the barrel and balance wheel, was brought to the front for full display. Its immediate appeal lay not only in the symmetry of the layout, but also in the sheer depth and animation of the dial, with many moving parts constantly at work. The watch was not without historical grounding. Its design drew directly from pieces created two centuries earlier by A.‑L. Breguet himself. In particular,…

It might not be the first, but the Chanel J12 was probably the one that made all the difference. We are talking, of course, about its game-changing gender-neutral appeal that bridged the chasm between his and hers, dressed in an all-black hardwearing, hard-hitting ceramic case. At the time of launch in 2000, it was simply revolutionary in its design and use of ceramic in watchmaking. Twenty-five years on, we can only say that it has grown on us even more. According to Chanel lore, then Artistic Director Jacques Hélleu couldn’t find a watch that he would wear, so — voila! — he designed one, tapping on his love of yachting for inspiration and naming it after the J-Class racing yachts of the 1930s. The J12 was meant to be that…

Who says a watch dial has to follow the rules? In 2003, master watchmaker Franck Muller was on vacation, and increasingly irritated by the rules and regulations of the resort, was inspired to invent a wristwatch that defied standard timekeeping, just because it could. “All the information shown on traditional complications can be read off your computer,” says Muller, who had already created over 30 patents and world premieres in the years leading up to the Crazy Hours. Acknowledging that most complications today serve “no real pragmatic function,” he wanted to create “a type of watch that offered an experience you could not have with an electronic device.” Crazy Hours turned timekeeping on its head — scattering the numbers on the dial in seeming chaos, it looks like the result…

Founded in 2004 by Robert Greubel and Stephen Forsey, Greubel Forsey has quickly climbed to the top tier of independent watchmaking. Its reputation rests not only on finishing of the highest order — now a basic expectation among top independents — but also on an originality that blends modern and classical elements in a way few others have achieved. Among the brand’s finest creations is also its very first: the Double Tourbillon 30˚. Introduced at the brand’s founding, the double inclined tourbillon remains a landmark both for Greubel Forsey and for modern independent watchmaking at large. This watch defined the brand’s DNA from the outset and continues to embody it two decades on. The design is the first surprise. At a glance it feels classical, yet it is neither derivative…

The Astronomia has always been one of Jacob & Co.’s signatures, a watch that blends architecture, spectacle and technical daring. First launched in 2014, it stood out for its vertical movement tower and orbiting arms, which circled the dial once every 20 minutes. The Astronomia Revolution of 2023 takes that idea and turns up the speed. The carrier now makes a full revolution every 60 seconds, so the entire movement on the dial doubles as a sweeping seconds hand. On the wrist, the effect is electric. Components whirl around the dial in constant motion, turning mechanics into pure theater. Driving this performance is a new constant-force system. The Revolution consumes vast energy to spin its one-minute carrier, and without control, the escapement would be hammered by excess torque. A typical…

MB&F’s Legacy Machine Perpetual rewrote the rules for one of watchmaking’s most traditional complications when it was introduced in 2015. Launched as part of Maximilian Büsser’s playful-yet-precise Legacy Machine series, the LM Perpetual didn’t try to out-ornament its peers or cram more subdials into a pageant of indications. Instead, it addressed the perpetual calendar’s perennial weaknesses at the mechanical level and did so with theatrical clarity: a massive, suspended balance on the dial, a clean, three-dimensional display, and beneath it, a fundamentally new way of thinking about the calendar itself. Now in this gathering of Revolution’s Top 100, we’ve also listed another innovation of the perpetual calendar in the 21st century, namely H. Moser & Cie’s. Call it a coincidence but it seems that the age-old complication has been radically…

In October 2014, Patek Philippe celebrated their 175th anniversary; well, really, it was the crowning moment of a year-long marking of the “dodransbicentennial,” full of gala events and celebratory releases. But now, more than a decade later, there’s one watch that ruled them all — the mighty Grandmaster Chime. It shocked and awed when it was released, and it still stands tall as the most important Patek Philippe of the modern era. By every metric, the Grandmaster Chime is an impressive watch. It’s the most complicated watch Patek Philippe has ever created, and perhaps the most complicated chiming watch ever made. The result of over eight years of research and development, it houses 20 complications (including two never seen before) and has a caliber comprising of 1,366 parts. On top…

When it arrived courtside in 2010, the RM 027 was less a timepiece than a manifesto: haute horology for the hardest hitters. It was housed in a highly spec-ed case crafted out of carbon nanofiber, the same as Mille had used in RM 006 for Felipe Massa, and top-grade Plexiglas in place of a sapphire crystal, which would have been too heavy. The back bezel and caseband are monobloc to ensure ultra lightness, and its manual winding Caliber RM 027 was crafted with high-tech materials such as LITAL, which Mille had relied on in RM 009. A high-performance lithium-aluminum alloy, LITAL was developed for the aerospace industry and used in the construction of the Airbus A380, rockets, Formula 1 racing cars and such. Including its ultra light polycarbonate strap, the…

It was the early 2000s. Harry Winston’s magna Opus project was just taking off, but it was still some years before the indie watchmaking movement gained momentum. Urwerk, made up of Felix Baumgartner and Martin Frei, had released their UR-101 and UR-102, which featured an unconventional wandering hours display inspired by a clock made for the Pope in the 17th century. Responses were encouraging, but it was not until UR-103 that the world set up and took notice. UR-103 was revolutionary, disruptive and completely innovative in its presentation of time. It was first launched in 2003 as the UR-103.01, but it was the UR-103.03, which opened up the intricate workings of its wandering hours display, that made a real splash. At a time when other watches were mostly round, flat…

The Van Cleef & Arpels Lady Arpels Pont des Amoureux, introduced in 2010, is one of the rare watches of the last two decades to alter the conversation around complications. Across its dial, a man and a woman cross a Parisian bridge, each figure tracking time — she the hours, he the minutes. Twice a day, at noon and midnight, they meet at the center for a kiss. In later iterations of the watch, a discreet pusher allows the embrace to be replayed at will, pausing time for a brief mechanical interlude. The movement that makes this possible was conceived in collaboration with Agenhor, the Geneva atelier led by Jean-Marc Wiederrecht and his family. Built on Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Caliber 846 (with editions after 2019 using a ValFleurier base), the automaton module…

For most of horological history, grand complications have been a kind of white elephant — enormous, forbiddingly complex and so fragile that every attempt to use it risked catastrophe. Feats of intellectual bravura they may be, but never instruments made for actual owner experience. The Code 11.59 by Audemars Piguet Ultra-Complication Universelle RD#4 launched in 2023 dramatically altered this paradigm. It demonstrated that a grande complication could be compact, robust, coherent in design and intuitive to use, while encompassing the full suite of traditional high complications and more. Measuring 42mm in diameter and only 15.5mm in height including its hinged back, it contains a perpetual calendar accurate for centuries, a grande and petite sonnerie with repeater function, a split seconds flyback chronograph and a flying tourbillon, all integrated into a…

The Breguet Classique Chronométrie 7727 is one of those watches that inevitably surfaces whenever the subject of Breguet arises. Not because it is ornate or complicated but because it was an authentic leap forward in the way A.-L. Breguet himself had occasionally managed in his own time. It was introduced in 2013 and almost immediately recognized as something different. It took the most classical of aesthetics and fused them with innovations that were entirely of the present age. At its heart is a high-frequency movement, the Caliber 574DR, running at 10Hz, or 72,000 vibrations per hour. This was made possible through the use of silicon for the most critical regulating components. The twin balance springs are fashioned from silicon, ensuring concentric breathing and immunity to magnetism, while the lever and…

The Chronomètre Optimum is, in some sense, François-Paul Journe’s most paradoxical creation. It is a watch that shows nothing more than hours, minutes, seconds and the state of wind, yet it is one of the most ambitious time-only watches of the modern era and, arguably, his purest effort in the pursuit of precision. At its heart lies a simple principle — a linear source of power and an escapement that could translate that power with efficiency and stability. The Chronomètre Optimum pursues this ideal with a movement built around twin barrels arranged in parallel, a remontoir d’égalité and Journe’s own vision of the natural escapement. Barrels in series discharge one after the other and are chiefly a means of extending the running time. In parallel, they work in unison, reinforcing…

In 2013, Louis Vuitton introduced the Tambour Twin Chrono, a chronograph capable of recording two distinct elapsed times up to 60 minutes and displaying the difference between them. Four years in the making, the unusual complication was purpose-built for match racing and launched to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Louis Vuitton Cup. Unlike a rattrapante, which relies on one chronograph train with a split seconds mechanism, the Tambour Twin Chrono contained three independent chronograph trains, each with its own barrel and regulating organ. At the start signal, both the first and second chronographs can be activated simultaneously via the pusher at 7 o’clock. When the first boat crosses the finish line, a second press of the same pusher stops the first chronograph while allowing the second to continue running.…

Cheryl Chia One of the greatest technical minds in luxury watch journalism today, Cheryl Chia is a renowned watch writer and Revolution’s Technical Editor with a deep interest in independent watchmaking, movement engineering and decoration. Contrary to popular sentiment, she believes that watches can be assessed objectively in terms of complexity, quality and finishing. Israel Ortega Israel Ortega is the Editor-in-Chief of Revolution’s Mexico and Latin America editions, and has been chronicling the region’s vibrant watch culture since 2016. He is a fan of independent brands and unique complications, but he believes that a classic chronograph is all one truly needs. Music and sports infuse his storytelling. From bold timepieces to eclectic beats, Israel looks to capture the essence of Latin style. Joyceline Tully Joyceline Tully has worked in publishing…

First introduced in 2009, the Longines PrimaLuna collection was conceived as a tribute to femininity, drawing inspiration from the Moon’s soft, rounded form. Its name, meaning “First Moon,” reflects this celestial influence, echoed in its curved cases, moonphase complications and refined gem-setting. Over the years, PrimaLuna has become one of the brand’s signature women’s collections, offering both quartz and automatic movements. The case retains its 34mm size, now with domed surfaces that interplay with light. While earlier PrimaLuna crowns were relatively simple, the latest iteration redesigns the crown with a more bubble-like form, as if to evoke the full moon, emphasizing the watch’s iconic moonphase complication. The watches run on the self-winding L899.5 caliber that was introduced in 2023 for the Longines Flagship Heritage collection. It is constructed with a…

When H. Moser & Cie. launched the Pioneer collection in 2015, it represented the brand’s vision of an everyday watch. With its sizable 42.8mm case and 120-meter water resistance, it was built to be a dependable companion, while the stripped-back dials reinforced Moser’s signature minimalist aesthetic. Over the years, the collection evolved to incorporate sophisticated complications, including the Flying Hours. This complication, in particular, is H. Moser & Cie.’s modern take on the wandering-hours concept. Unlike traditional watches where hour hands sweep around a fixed dial, the Flying Hours system uses rotating disks: three small hour disks orbit a central minutes disk, where each disk rotates on its own axis, aligning the correct hour in a window on the dial, while the central disk tracks the minutes over a 120°…

Louis Vuitton entered watchmaking in 1988 with a confident debut that challenged Swiss orthodoxy. It launched a unique pebble-shaped object designed by one of the star architects of the day. Italian-born Gae Aulenti is best known for transforming Paris’s disused Gare d’Orsay into the world-famous Musée d’Orsay that it remains to this day. She worked with Louis Vuitton to make the LV I and LV II with crown at 12, clean railtrack dial, lug-less case, traveler-ready functions, and, in the LV II, an early foray into ceramic. The message was clear: if Louis Vuitton was going to do watches, it would do them its own way. Fast-forward to today. The Monterey returns as a modern interpretation crafted at La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton, the manufacture Louis Vuitton acquired in…

François took Audemars Piguet’s turnover from 630 million Swiss francs to over 2 billion Swiss francs in 2023. But it was the way he did it that was impressive. From the beginning, he had the desire to transform his timepieces into the Hermès bags of the watch industry, meaning that for every one watch he created, there should be multiple people vying to purchase it. He understood the importance of the secondary market, and that if your watch was truly desirable, it should command a premium, thus ensuring your primary business. Then he set about making it happen. Under his command, the Royal Oak went from being the OG sports-chic watch to a coveted trophy for every hedge funder, finance bro, rapper and athlete in the world. Indeed, it was…

I liked the world much better when Angelo Bonati was alive and at the helm of Panerai, which he had transformed from a military tool watch maker into one of the hottest sports watch brands by the time it debuted at Richemont Group’s Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie (SIHH) in 1998. The universe just made more sense. People didn’t hate each other; there was a clear distinction between right and wrong; and common sense for the better part seemed to prevail. It was a time when people still very much believed in heroes, and a watch brand for heroes was exactly what Angelo Bonati, Giampiero Bodino, Franco Cologni and, of course, Johann Rupert made Panerai into. They didn’t just launch watches, but also ignited a cultural revolution around these…

It would be impossible for Rolex to launch a watch like the groundbreaking and potentially era-defining Land-Dweller without Jean-Frédéric Dufour at the brand’s helm. Think about it from this perspective: Rolex is known for taking small incremental steps, minute yet powerful advances in making the perfect watch that much more perfect. To think so radically out of the box as to create an all-new fully industrialized escapement, something not achieved in Switzerland since 1999, would normally be unheard of at the brand. But that is until you realize that Dufour is not just the current CEO of the brand, but also someone who was, for many years, developing watch movements himself, as he did ably at Chopard L.U.C where I first met him. Understanding this, witnessing his creation of one…

I believe I may have been one of the last people to speak to Luigi Macaluso. I had visited him in October 2010 for a tour of his manufacture, and had the pleasure of a convivial lunch. For those who never knew him, he was, simply speaking, one of the kindest, warmest individuals in our industry. It was always a bit of a surprise to me that he’d won two Italian Rally Car championships, such was his gentile demeanor. On a train back to Geneva the following day, I was shocked to learn of his premature passing. Macaluso was a distributor for Blancpain, Hamilton and Breitling, and is often credited as the champion behind the resurrection and popularity of the Breitling Chronomat in the Italian market in the ’80s. Clearly,…

The A. Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk, launched in 2009, is a horological revolution disguised in Saxon elegance, a watch that redefined mechanical timekeeping with its audacious digital display. Blending futuristic clarity with traditional craftsmanship — yet with the inimitable German flavor—it stands as one of the most fascinating and groundbreaking timepieces of the past two decades, demonstrating that a 165-year-old Glashütte manufacture can still surprise the watch world. The Zeitwerk’s genius lies in its rejection of conventional hands for two large jumping-disk apertures — hours on the left, minutes on the right with dual disks — evoking the look of the five-minute clock of the Dresden Opera House. This digital aesthetic, inspired by Günter Blümlein’s 2005 challenge to create a mechanical watch with digital readability, is powered by the L043.1…

There surely isn’t another watch brand with quite as many record breakers as Bvlgari in the last decade or so. The last we counted, the tally was a perfect 10 in all of 11 years, beginning and ending with the Octo Finissimo Tourbillon — in 2014, when it was launched with the thinnest manual winding tourbillon movement measuring a whisper-thin 1.95mm; and earlier this year, when it wrested back the crown as the world’s thinnest tourbillon watch in its ultra thin incarnation. At 1.85mm thin, the Octo Finissimo Ultra Tourbillon shattered the record previously held by Piaget’s Altiplano. Its pursuit of thin has blazed a record-shattering trail for the brand and pushed the boundaries of watchmaking, redefining the meaning and limits of “slim” in watchmaking. The groundbreaking development of the…

Minute repeaters can be a bit temperamental — traditional, tricky and, sometimes, let’s face it, a bit disappointing when it comes to the sound. Then, in 2016, came Chopard’s L.U.C Full Strike, a minute repeater that broke the mold by ringing on a material no one expected: sapphire crystal. Instead of steel gongs, it uses transparent sapphire gongs fused with the watch’s crystal glass. The clear, bright chime sounded like a tiny fairy glass being clinked on your wrist. Chopard took three years to develop the Full Strike, with multiple patents along the way to perfect the unique feat of sapphire gongs that could ring reliably without shattering. The result was clearly impressive — the Full Strike won the top prize, the Aiguille d’Or, at the 2017 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie…

In an age of digital gimmicks, visionary watchmaker F.P. Journe looked to a 17th century technology to create a revolutionary timepiece with unmatched precision. What’s extraordinary — and brave — about the Chronomètre à Résonance is that, at the time of its launch, it was only the second wristwatch to come from the independent manufacture of F.P. Journe, and over a decade in the making. Journe had been inspired by Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygens, who noticed that two pendulum clocks set on the same surface would, over time, fall into sync. This is the principle of “resonance” — a word used by Journe to describe this phenomenon, though at the time Huygens referred to it as a “double pendulum.” The Chronomètre à Résonance, brought to life in 2000, harnesses the…

The Harry Winston Opus series is a daring horological odyssey, where the storied jeweler handed the creative reins to independent watchmaking visionaries, crafting timepieces that shatter conventions and redefine the art of telling time. It’s been a while since the last one, the Opus 14, from 2015, but their magic remains steady. The Opus 3, first unveiled in 2003 and conceived by independent genius Vianney Halter under the vision of Maximilian Büsser, is a horological insurrection that redefines time as spectacle. This watch achieves the impossible: displaying hours, minutes, seconds and date in six digital windows, without hands, with instant jumps that dance in perfect synchrony. The Opus 3 is a mechanical marvel. Its 10 superimposed disks, driven by a 53-jewel movement with two barrels and more than 250 components,…

If gravity is the ultimate nemesis of timekeeping, then the tourbillon complication is the watchmaking equivalent of a surgical facelift — counteracting the most obvious effects of gravity. But while a tourbillon is undoubtedly beautiful to look at, its effects, unlike a quick trip to your local surgical sculptor, go beyond just a “pretty face.” The tourbillon, invented in 1801 by Abraham-Louis Breguet, is essentially a rotating cage with the escapement and balance wheel mounted inside, averaging out errors caused by gravity. Although it’s not exactly needed in modern watches, it’s still a much sought-after complication thanks to its mechanical complexity and visual appeal. Jaeger-LeCoultre’s Gyrotourbillon decided to defy gravity, but with a twist. Debuting in 2004, the Gyrotourbillon set the watch world spinning (literally) by mounting its balance and…

When H. Moser & Cie. first introduced its Perpetual 1 in 2005, it felt like a small, stubborn act of rebellion. Instead of the usual riot of subdials, pointers and small type that typically crowds calendar watches, Moser pared the complication back to essentials: a clean, open dial, and a single central pointer for months put an insistence on legibility. The effect was immediate: a perpetual calendar that reads like a dress watch but behaves like a grande complication. Historically, perpetual calendars have been busy affairs. A mechanical memory for the Gregorian calendar usually requires displays for day, date, month, leap year and moonphase, each demanding space and visual hierarchy. Moser’s approach flips that convention. By routing complexity under the dial and presenting only what the wearer needs to see,…

When Philippe Dufour introduced the Simplicity in 2000, he offered a quiet counterpoint to an industry chasing spectacle. The late-1990s vogue for stacked tourbillons and chiming showpieces had become a kind of arms race. Dufour — already celebrated for his Grande Sonnerie and the dual-escapement Duality — proposed another measure of greatness: a three-hand watch that would prove how far craft alone could carry an idea. He wasn’t simplifying; he was distilling. The project began with conversations that shaped its purpose. Collectors, particularly in Japan, asked for a simple watch made to the highest traditional standard. Dufour took that brief literally. He set out to build a movement that felt inevitable in its architecture, finished entirely by hand, with nothing disguised by coatings or machine shortcuts. Every bridge had to…

So much ink — digital and actual — has been spilt over Rolex’s iconic chronograph, and its position as one of the horological greats, that you genuinely struggle to find anything new to add to the conversation. Having said that, much of the discourse focuses either on the genesis of the collection in the 1960s or the latest and greatest releases. However, a strong argument can be made that the Daytona Ref. 116250 is not just one of the most significant Daytonas of all time, but also one of the most important Rolex watches in the modern era. If you looked at this watch, which was announced in 2000 and produced until 2016, it looks much like any other Daytona — but it’s what’s inside that truly makes this watch…

The dawn of the new millennium was a time of incredible change and upheaval in watches — an era of new technologies, new aesthetics and a conceptual approach to watchmaking that challenged convention in ways unthinkable a few short decades earlier. One watch that epitomized all this — an undeniable product of its time that is as relevant today as ever — was the Ulysse Nardin Freak. Debuting at Baselworld in 2001, inspired by a prototype from Carole Forestier-Kasapi and brought to production by Dr. Ludwig Oechslin, the Freak lived up to its name. No crown. No hands. No dial. The Freak broke every convention of watchmaking and managed to set new standards all at once. It was the first watch to use silicon components, the first wristwatch with a…

In 2004, Lange did something no one else had attempted. The Double Split took the rattrapante, a complication long confined to the seconds and extended it to the minutes. It was also a flyback, which meant that timing could be reset and restarted instantly, even if one of the hands was held in split. Nothing like it had ever been made, and nothing like it has been made since. Its base architecture starts off with the familiar rattrapante design. The split seconds wheel is set in the tube of the chronograph arbor with the split seconds heart cam rigidly fixed to the tube. Attached to the rim of the split seconds wheel is a drive lever, which is kept in constant contact with the heart cam by the pressure of…

The Blancpain Villeret Tourbillon Carrousel, launched in 2013, is one of those watches that continues to be talked about long after its debut. That has less to do with novelty than with the peculiar fact that it is the only watch to take two of the most elaborate solutions ever proposed to the problem of positional errors, and put them into the same movement in the most intelligible way. It is well known that Breguet received the first patent for the tourbillon in 1801, and its purpose was to mitigate positional errors by carrying the balance in a cage that made one revolution per minute. The principle is straightforward. By mounting the escapement, balance and hairspring on a rotating platform, the errors that arise in the vertical positions are averaged…

There are few names in contemporary watchmaking that pursue the idea of a marine chronometer for the wrist with the single-mindedness of Ferdinand Berthoud. The FB 1, with which a grand name of horology was resurrected by the Chopard Group a decade ago, contains one of the most beautiful tourbillon movements of our time, so earnest in its architecture that it still feels rare today. The Caliber FB-T.FC, at its core, combines a tourbillon with a fusée-and-chain and a Maltese cross stopwork, with every detail from the pillar-and-plate architecture to the cone-and-feeler power reserve device recalling the language of a bygone era. The fusée, in particular, is realized here as a reverse fusée, an idea first explored by Thomas Mudge in his marine timekeepers. In the traditional layout, the fusée…

The idea of a constant-force escapement, in which the properties of constant force are inherent to the design of the escapement, has existed conceptually for centuries. Thomas Mudge devised one based on the verge in the 1770s and employed it in his marine chronometers, while Breguet filed a patent for such an escapement in 1798 and incorporated it into his Sympathique clocks. Yet no true escapement of this type ever entered widespread use — a brilliant idea in principle, but too complex and finicky to be practical. In 2013, Girard-Perregaux revived the concept with the Constant Escapement, a milestone that demonstrated the vast potential of silicon compliant mechanisms. The basis for such an escapement arises from the fundamentals of mechanical watchmaking. A mainspring delivers considerably more torque when fully wound…

A tourbillon and a remontoir make for a natural pairing in the same movement, as they address different problems that nevertheless converge on the same goal. The remontoir was devised to even out the flow of energy, parceling it to the escapement in steady doses, as the mainspring goes from fully wound to an unwound state. The tourbillon, on the other hand, was Breguet’s answer to the vagaries of gravity, averaging out the variations in rate as the watch shifts from one position to another. Each, however, is difficult and costly to execute. Thus, watches with both, while conceptually elegant, are uncommon, and within this small fraternity, the IWC Constant-Force Tourbillon is the most advanced, if also the most obsessively exacting. When the constant-force tourbillon first appeared in the Portugieser…

The Montblanc Metamorphosis is one of the most astonishing ideas in modern horology, a watch that literally changes its face with the slide of a lever. The original Metamorphosis was unveiled in 2010 under its TimeWriter program, a venture incubated at the Minerva manufacture in Villeret to support young talent in realizing revolutionary concepts. The watch was conceived by Johnny Girardin and Franck Orny, the duo behind the independent complication workshop Telos Watch. In fact, the Metamorphosis was the first timepiece developed by Telos. At first glance, it resembles a regulator-style watch with the hours at 12 o’clock, retrograde central minutes, a central seconds hand and a date display at 6 o’clock. However, when the owner slides a lever, the dial undergoes a dramatic metamorphosis. The scales at both 12…

Simon Brette grew up in the Auvergne region of France, the son of a carpenter, where meticulous handiwork was part of daily life. He went on to study engineering in watchmaking in Neuchâtel (graduating in 2011) and built his early career working for some of the most inventive independent marques — Chronode under Jean-François Mojon, then at MCT, and later MB&F. In 2021, inspired in part by concern for the often-invisible artisans in the industry, Brette decided to forge his own path. His first watch, the Chronomètre Artisans Souscription, was launched in 2023 in a limited edition of 12 pieces. The debut was a 39mm timepiece in zirconium, with a hand-engraved “dragon-scale” solid red gold dial, twin barrels giving a three-day power reserve and extraordinary hand finishing on both visible…