Monochrome’s Tour de Suisse continues with more visits and meeting with the finest independent watchmakers. Kari Voutilainen, De Bethune, MB&F, Hautlence, URWERK, Ladoire and MCT Watches. And interesting mix of classical watchmaking and steampunk design.

In the following weeks I’ll write much more about these visits, so stay tuned.

Visiting Kari Voutilainen was on my wishlist for a long time. To me his watches are the most perfect classic handmade watches I have seen and his Observatoire is in my opinion the perfect dress watch. Simple yet intriguing. We where shown around in the beautiful house where the workshop and ateliers are as well. There will be news but we just have to wait a bit longer… but it’s well worth waiting for!

After the visit to Kari Voutilainen we drove up into the mountains to visit De Bethune. Maybe this brand is the perfect switch over from the classic design of Voutilainen’s watches to everything we will see the rest of the week. De Bethune started with rather classical designed watches, yet with something special. And that something special has grown to become an integral part of De Bethune’s design and watchmaking art. This for instance is one the De Bethune DB12 RT that’s for sale at a local watch store. Classic with a twist?

The next morning we were meeting with Max Busser of MB&F. MB&F as a young brand has made a progression that is almost impossible in watchmaking. Four entire collections and some special editions with more design change than just a different color of the dial. This very impressive achievement is because of Max Busser’s vision and drive. Of course he couldn’t do all of this alone so he had a little help from his friends (somehow this sentence makes me think of the Beatles). On the photo below I’m wearing the HM4 Thunderbolt… doesn’t it look great!

The tour continued to Neuchâtel to meet with Guillaume Tetu of Hautlence. Hautlence recently launched their HL2.0 which is a magnificent timepiece with equally magnificent looks and technique. Hautlence makes beautiful and extraordinary watches for a longer time already. I can still remember seeing the HL series with tv screen case for the first time, because it was so different from everything else I had seen until than. Here already a wristshot of the HL2.0… later more about this extraordinary timepiece!

I must say my head was spinning after seeing so many beautiful watches and this was not the end of the tour… The next morning we met with Yacine of URWERK to see the recently released CC1 in black.

Than we met with Lionel Ladoire and Richard Piras of Ladoire. Ladoire is a relatively new brand based in Geneva. The Ladoire Roller Guardian Time (RGT) is a bold statement of how traditional watchmaking and funky modern design can be mixed. Just look how the Ladoire RGT Black & Black look on Lionel’s wrist, showing the beautiful RGT buckle V.1 on the other wrist.

And last but definitely not least, we met with MCT Watches. Denis Giguet, founder of MCT Watches talked about the Sequential One, the new All Black and new timepieces that will be released. Again a relatively new watch brand and again a brand with an innovative drive that is just spectacular.

My sincerest thanks to Ian Skellern for organizing the meetings and letting me use some of his photos!

From Saturday 21th of August until Thursday the 26th I’m going to Switzerland visiting many independent watchmakers. And of course you can read all about the meetings and news the watchmakers want to share, here on Monochrome.

Worldwide there are a few dozen of independent watchmakers who really make extraordinary watches, at least in my opinion. This weekend I will visit Thomas Prescher and finally get to see his amazing single axis, double axis and even triple axis tourbillon watches. In the month of August Thomas Prescher welcomes visitors to his atelier in Twann, Switzerland. At his Facebook page he posted this offer, a tour and the possibility to discover yourself how a timepiece is developed, produced, assembled and regulated from scratch. Or from raw pieces of metal to pure horological art. This is an opportunity I couldn’t resist of course!

Ian Skellern, a well known journalist on Haute Horlogerie, was so kind to help me organize this trip and will be joining me for most of the visits. Ian writes for several magazines and websites and is the moderator of several forums at Revolution Online, the former Horomundi forum.

Continue reading “Visiting independent watchmakers” »

Wristshots of the URWERK UR-CC1 Cobra give a good idea of how it looks on the wrist. Just take a look and judge for yourself.

Horomundi’s moderator Ian Skellern recently visited Martin Frei, one of the co-founders of URWERK and chief designer, at his atelier in Zürich. Ian, who’s moderator of the URWERK forum at Horomundi, posted an extensive report of his visit which is well worth reading and viewing, however be warned because it got tons of photos. In an additional post he shows several wristshots of the UR-CC1 (nickname Cobra) on Martin’s wrist. Here are a a few of the photos and if you like to see more, i recommend to check them out at Horomundi’s URWERK forum.

It wasn’t until now, before i realized I never posted photos of this intriguing, retro-style, high-tech wristwatch. I’ll make it up to you in another post!

URWERK reveals the new UR-202 White Shark. A stunning limited edition of only 12 pieces, exclusively available from Chronopassion (Paris), The Hour Glass (Singapore) and of course URWERK.

The first line of the press release sounds just great: “Time is monochrome on the UR-202 White Shark”. With a website called Monochrome and being a fan of the unusual yet beautiful watches created by Martin Frei and Felix Baumgartner, I was delighted to hear about the new URWERK UR-202 White Shark.

The UR-202 White Shark’s monochrome design is the result of no use of any ‘make-up’, it’s only ornament is its technicality. URWERK has a huge reputation of using unordinary materials. The White Shark is made of titanium, steel and ARCAP, a combination of materials new to the 200 series!

The black numbers of the hours on the satellites stand out clearly against the light background. However one number of the 12 hour digits is not black, but red. This exception to the rule identifies the individual piece number in this limited edition of 12.

The way time is displayed is identical to the URWERK UR-203. The telescopic hour hands exist of three orbiting and revolving hour satellites. These hands precisely adjust their length to follow the three vectors marking the minutes: 0 -14, 15 – 44, 45 – 60. Because of the ability to retract, they allow for a very wearable and comfortably sized case. A moonphase and day/night indicator complete the dial.

Two turbines are visible on the back of the UR-202 White Shark and these are coupled to the rotor to regulate the winding system of the watch. The turbines are controlled by a three position selector lever. In mode”FREE”, the two turbines spin freely enabling maximum winding of the mainspring. In mode “Sport”, the two turbines spin with resistance, acting like pneumatic brakes that reduce the winding efficacy wound by 1/3rd. In mode “STOP”, the turbines are locked and block the rotor from winding at all, although the watch can still be manually wound if necessary.

The URWERK UR-202 White Shark is only available through Chronopassion in Paris (France), The Hour Glass (Singapore) and of course URWERK in Geneva.

You can read more about this ‘rare species’ at URWERK’s special website UR-RareSpecies.