affordable – Watchisthis

06May 2020 by Jonathan Kopp No Comments

Interview Marie Boutteçon – Creative Co-founder of her eponymous brand

Interview

These last days we had the chance to speak with Marie Boutteçon, creative co-founder of her eponymous brand. In this interview, the sparkling and energetic French girl will tell us the secret behind her brand. Hey girls, you know what? You will love it !!! - Could you tell us a bit about you and about your story with watches? I was born and raised in an artistic family. My father is a master of wood marquetry and is recognized globally for his precision and unique craftsmanship. He has worked for several luxury watch brands including Cartier and Jaeger Lecoultre, and exclusively for Patek Philippe recently. Through observing my father, watchmaking became a natural interest early in my childhood, as I discovered the refined creations of luxury brands, and the…

11Dec 2019 by Jonathan Kopp No Comments

Wryst – the affordable luxury sports watches

Story

Today I wanted to talk about this really nice brand. WRYST was founded by luxury watch designer Jacques Fournier in 2012 with a vision to create exceptional sports watches featuring leading-edge designs, brutal style, and unique resistant materials Jacques is knowed in the luxury industry thanks to his work for Jacob&Co. Indeed, with his unique and distinctive style, in 2011 Jacques created and developed the entire five timezone G5 collection including the Grand, Global and digital Ghost series for them. Well, let’s come back on Wryst timepieces; In 2012 and after three years of extensive research and development to perfect the design and others details, Jacques launched the Wryst Airborne chronograph. At that time, and remember that we are in 2012, this first collection was like an UFO. A crazy design…

14Jun 2019 by Jonathan Kopp 2 Comments

Venneman Watches – Pure Belgian Design

News

Pure Belgian design from high-quality Swiss components. Belgium is not only known for its chocolate, cycling and famous players in their national football team. There are also some very skilled and passionate independent watchmakers hidden in that small country. One of them is Thomas Venneman the founder of Venneman Watches. Thomas Venneman wants to create unique timepieces in limited editions. 300 copies, more will not be made. Unique and numbered! Thomas received a solid training as a watchmaker and learned the craft from the masters themselves in Switzerland. He completed a number of traineeships with the big brands and at smaller workshops The pursuit of perfection is the guiding principle of his brand. We met in the lobby of the Marriott Hotel in Ghent where he showed me his timepiece…

31May 2019 by Jonathan Kopp 1 Comment

Astbury & Kent Stellaris – A tourbillon for all

News

Those recent days I was lucky enough to try the new Astbury & Kent Stellaris AK735. This new piece that you can still find on kickstarter is quite a success. Finding a tourbillon for less than 2500$ is not usual and of course you can express some reserves about its quality. To be honest I was quite astonished… That’s so great to see this kind of complication into affordable range without being necessarily of low quality. Indeed, that was completely unthinkable some 10 or 15 years. Of course the movement has been produced in Far East but it’s not cheap and in the contratry it’s a fantatisc value for the price. Founded by Terrence Ray Flores and Tom McCulloch, two certified watch nuts, Astbury and Kent was born of a…

15Apr 2019 by Jonathan Kopp 2 Comments

The lovely Terra Cielo Mare Milano San Babila

Magazine

Some weeks ago I had the chance to meet Eric Delicati who is distributor of the Italian brand Terra Cielo Mare. This brand is not really visible today because of a lack of communication but honestly it’s a brand on which you should have a look. For the record, Terra Cielo Mare is a family business that produces watches for enthusiast and collectors since 1999. The interesting thing is that behind everyone of their watches there’s a real story to tell. That means that they try to develop and narrate the history of aviation, naval, mechanical engineering and Italy through Haute Horlogerie. That’s not the most common thing in todays watch industry. Indeed, most of the time, a designer draws a watch and then the marketing director says : “Ok,…

09Apr 2019 by Jonathan Kopp No Comments

Watchbox – Pre-Owned Seiko Astron GPS Solar Dual Time

News

Some of you may ask : “What is Watchbox ? “ Well, WatchBox is the global leader in pre-owned luxury watches. So you can now Buy, Sell, or Trade your luxury watch easily with a trusted partner. WatchBox™ is the global destination for luxury pre-owned timepieces, offering an expertly curated inventory of luxury pre-owned watches for sale, personalized client services, educational opportunities and astute editorial content. Founded in 2017, WatchBox is the result of a game-changing partnership between Danny Govberg, CEO of Govberg Jewelers, Tay Liam Wee, former owner of Sincere Watch, and investor-entrepreneur Justin Reis. This partnership brings together unprecedented watch industry experience, innovative technology, sophisticated data systems and marketing, as well as financial strength and business acumen to positively transform the multi-billion-dollar pre-owned luxury watch industry. In August…

06Apr 2019 by Jonathan Kopp No Comments

Jubileon is back with the Superellipse Chrono

News

In september 2017 Jubileon launched their first Kickstarter campaign with the really cool Superellipse. This piece was really classic but with a nice design. You can find it HERE . Now the independent brand from Singapore is back with an evolution of their first watch. This one, that they just launched on Kickstarter (5 April), is a pretty cool chrono. To be honest I’m quite astonished by the level of quality of this piece. Not just by the design, which is really strong, but also by the whole… Including the movement. Because Yes, powering the Superellipse Chrono is the well known ETA 7750 Valjoux movement. You can find this movement in almost every chrono in the market, but rarely at the price of 799$. Well thanks to Kickstarter you will…

19Feb 2019 by Jonathan Kopp No Comments

EDOX – Official Timing Partner of FIA World Rallycross Championship

News

Edox, the Swiss watch brand, has entered in to a long-term agreement to become the Official Timing Partner of the FIA World Rallycross Championship, presented by Monster Energy. The partnership with the FIA World Rallycross Championship extends Edox's long history of involvement with motorsport. The 135-year old family-owned company combines traditional hand-assembly with innovative materials and functionality at the company headquarters in Les Genevez. The Chronorally collection has been developed to withstand the most extreme racing conditions and will be the assigned watch for World RX. As Official Timing Partner, Edox will have significant trackside branding and put their name to the fastest lap at each round of the championship. "We are delighted that Edox is joining our stable of commercial partners as Official Timing Partner. Edox have a rich…

31Jan 2019 by Jonathan Kopp No Comments

Classicism and Émail Grand-Feu – Focus on Lundis Bleus

Uncategorized

What’s great about independent watchmaking is that you’re not only talking about watches. You’re talking about esthetic choices, technical skills and passion. All mixed together in order for some brands to propose watches made with great creativity, great craftsmanship, recognizable among all thanks to their design. And all that sold for a reasonable price. Lundis Bleus is one of those brands. Initiated by friendship in 1994 when the two founders, Johan Storni and Bastien Vuilliomenet, meet in the watchmaking school of La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland; the brand started to produce watches in 2016. In between, 1998 was the year of their graduation. Then, they both continued their studies and got experiences and skills in several domains such as design, watch restoration or watch construction in manufactures like Renaud & Papi…

25Jan 2019 by Jonathan Kopp No Comments

Armand Nicolet presents the M02 collection

News

Swiss brand Armand Nicolet just launched a new collection under the name of M02. This collection is separate in 3 lines : Date, Chronograph & Date and GMT. The original concept that years ago inspired the first version of this family hasn’t changed, but the Maison this time has focused particularly on comfort and ergonomics. In order to make the watch as comfortable as possible on a man’s wrist the diameter of the case has been reduced a little and time-telling is now easier thanks to a revisited dial where Arabic numbers are displayed alternatively to indexes. The date model is something really classical. It uses the SW-200 movement from Sellita and is priced around 1400 CHF. The most interesting thing about it is the guilloche dial that I find…