Basel World 2010 – Up Close and Personal With Ateliers deMonaco
Some people might consider starting any new business, especially a watch company, in the middle of a financial crisis just a little bit nuts. The upfront costs associated with watchmaking are formidable, cases, movements, hands all cost money; straps, boxes, literature and wages, the costs mount up. Worst still your suppliers want money upfront, your retailers don’t want to pay for the watches until they’ve sold them, who’d want to be a watchmaker?
Well despite all those barriers actually quite a few people, and one of them is Pim Koeslag, Master Horloger and co-founder of Ateliers deMonaco. As the name suggests they are unusually based in the tiny Principality nestled away on the Southern French coast. Given the weather in the Swiss Jura mountains between November and March and the corresponding climate in Monaco the attraction seems clear.
Monaco might be well known for it’s climate but it isn’t known for being a cheap place to live, even if you can get permission from the government to actually live there in the first place and given that finding skilled workers is hard enough in Switzerland persuading people to come to Monaco can’t be easy, but you can’t fault them for having a market to sell to right on their doorstep.
So far so good, but what about the watches? There are currently two models available, and a third on the way. Firstly an in-house designed one minute tourbillion housed in either a square or round case, and secondly their tourbillon minute repeater. We’ll get to the potential third offering later.
The standard minute tourbillon is quite an impressive looking watch, with the round case being at little bit more successful than the square case. This isn’t the fault of the case per se, rather that it looks perhaps a little too much like some models Roger Dubuis, not a favourite of mine, than is perhaps good for it. Both models have a severe cut away to the bottom third of the dial which exposes the tourbillon and the rotor weight, which we’ll touch on more later.
On a more subtle note the dials, commonly in a very stylish grey-green colour, are engraved with a deep sunray pattern. This not only gives them a very attractive finish, but each beam also indicates one minute on the dial, a nice touch.
The cases are large as you might expect but not as heavy as they might appear. This is due to the composite nature of the case, being made up of 33 individual pieces with an inner case made of titanium and an outer case in gold. This not only limits the overall weight of the watch but allows each part to be decorated differently and this gives the case a very interesting mixture of brushed and polished gold curves and faces.
One innovation that doesn’t stand out, purposefully, is the tourbillon bridge. Rather than try to deal with the intricacies of a metal supporting bridge Ateliiers deMonaco have instead designed a bridge made out of sapphire. While not the most obvious of materials for the job, it is stiff and light and its transparent nature seems to make the tourbillon float in mid-air, a surprisingly effective move.
New for the Baselworld show the movement has been expanded to include a Repeater into the case. A notoriously difficult complication to get right, it is vital to get the tone of the gong loud and sonorous, a weak and feeble sound and you won’t sell a single one. So a brave thing to try and limited to only eight pieces.
Now about that rotor. I’ve seen some very impressive automatic rotors over the last few years. Speake-Marin has a mystery rotor that seems entirely symmetrical; The basket weave pattern on Maitres du Temps is beautiful in it’s execution, but the rotor fitted to Ateliers deMonaco is in a different league. Engraved with the Monaco coat of arms, the figure is cut deep and crisp and even sounds like Christmas!! The cut-away face of the watches allows you to see the rotor swinging freely from the front of the watch.
At beginning I alluded to a third model. Only finished just before the show and not yet released it is what I think will be their most successfully finished watch, a Perpetual Calendar. Now with the complications needed for a perpetual calendar pretty fixed there is only limited scope for how the information can be displayed. The balance between the need to show all the data and ensuring that the dial remains readable is crucial, but I think they have got it just about right. If you have ever wanted to own this particular complication then this might be your chance. Unfortunately there is still work to do, so no pictures yet, hopefully very soon.
Independent watchmaking is a competitive, cut-throat business, but having good watches and support helps the process along. Ateliers deMonaco looks to be off to a flying start, here’s wishing them the best of luck.
Category: Basel World & SIHH
This is a brand which I personally find to be of great interest. Great job guys!
Thanks Thomas, we’re big fans of Ateliers deMonaco too and really appreciate and support the proactive approach they are taking to interacting with on-line publications, which we think is to be applauded!
Wow, impressive. About the rotor, that’s where the word “fine art” finds its real sense !