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R3D9
·Last week I received what will likely be the coolest watch I'll ever own.
Some may have seen the news of this release, but as Ressence is a relatively small independent brand, I wouldn't be surprised if most missed it.
Here it is:
What you see above in the Ressence Type 1s Grail Watch edition.
Wei Koh (Revolution Magazine) recently started a new company called Grail Watch. The purpose of the company is to match one watchmaker with one designer and have the two collaborate on a new timepiece.
The first collaboration was between Ressence and Alain Silberstein and the result is what you see here in pictures.
I’ve been waiting to see this watch in the metal ever since spotting Wei wearing one in videos during Watches & Wonders. I instantly recognized the watch on his wrist as a Ressence Type 1 slim, but it had a dial/colourway that I had never seen before.
The design of the dial felt familiar, but I couldn’t quite say why… A closer inspection that involved screen captures and a lot of zooming and I knew what I was seeing… the dial was almost certainly designed by the inimitable Alain Silberstein.
What was most interesting is that while the work was identifiable to anyone who was a fan of Silberstein, in some ways it was quite a departure from his usual work.
To start with, there was that adorable (sorry, I can’t think of a better descriptor) representation of a skull where Ressence normally places the second hand. Then there was the hour hand… a beautifully rendered flower, with one wilting petal.
This type of imagery was not something I was used to seeing in Silberstein’s work.
So in a way, it was an unusual design from him, but the key to what makes Silberstein’s designs so unique is his playfulness. You simply can’t help but grin when you pick up one of his pieces in the metal.
A serious artist who doesn’t take his work too seriously. This, I think, is a good way to describe Mr. Silberstein.
In a video following the watch's release, Silberstein explained the meaning behind the design. He took inspiration from one of his favourite paintings, titled Momento Mori, which was pained in 1671 by a French artist named Phillipe de Champaigne:
Momento Mori, roughly translated, means: remember you will die. The idea the artist was trying to communicate is that life is transitory and we should live each day with that reality in mind.
In the still life painting above, you see a wilting tulip, a human skull and an hourglass used as symbols to remind the viewer that life is both finite and fleeting.
As you can see in his design, Silberstein took the painting’s three objects and interpreted them in his famously whimsical style to what you see here... The wilting flower, the skull and the watch itself acting as the hourglass:
For those not familiar with Ressence as a brand, they received acclaim a number of years back when they released their first watch, the Type 3, which was a regulator that had sub-dials and hands essentially "orbiting" the dial using something they call the Ressence Orbital Convex System (ROCS).
The easiest way to explain how it works is to show you via video. Here is a time-lapse of my watch in action:
https://imgur.com/a/r6ru5s8
The watch is incredible in the metal. The case is titanium and, as the name suggests, extremely slim, so it wears compact and light, particularly for a 42mm (almost all-dial) timepiece.
Things to know if you're considering a Ressence watch:
- All of their watches make use of an ETA movement as a base caliber. Given the price point, this can and does put some people off. The brand itself and it's devotees note that the ETA movement is heavily modified and the modular ROCS system on top is composed of 107 additional parts. Here is an exploded image of the watch and all its parts:
- despite the innovative design and the ETA 2892 inside the Type 1 being heavily modified, the watch makes a good amount of noise. There is more-than-usual (for a luxury brand's watch) rotor noise, and tapping on the watch produces an audible rattle, which I assume is related to the floating dial
- setting the watch is a bit of a pain, but not nearly as difficult as I expected. That said, this is the watch that finally drove me to purchase a watch winder 😉
- like most regulators, reading the dial takes a bit of practice, but after a few days it becomes second nature
- the lume is positively epic:
Anyways, if you got all the way to the end of this, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the post
Some may have seen the news of this release, but as Ressence is a relatively small independent brand, I wouldn't be surprised if most missed it.
Here it is:
What you see above in the Ressence Type 1s Grail Watch edition.
Wei Koh (Revolution Magazine) recently started a new company called Grail Watch. The purpose of the company is to match one watchmaker with one designer and have the two collaborate on a new timepiece.
The first collaboration was between Ressence and Alain Silberstein and the result is what you see here in pictures.
I’ve been waiting to see this watch in the metal ever since spotting Wei wearing one in videos during Watches & Wonders. I instantly recognized the watch on his wrist as a Ressence Type 1 slim, but it had a dial/colourway that I had never seen before.
The design of the dial felt familiar, but I couldn’t quite say why… A closer inspection that involved screen captures and a lot of zooming and I knew what I was seeing… the dial was almost certainly designed by the inimitable Alain Silberstein.
What was most interesting is that while the work was identifiable to anyone who was a fan of Silberstein, in some ways it was quite a departure from his usual work.
To start with, there was that adorable (sorry, I can’t think of a better descriptor) representation of a skull where Ressence normally places the second hand. Then there was the hour hand… a beautifully rendered flower, with one wilting petal.
This type of imagery was not something I was used to seeing in Silberstein’s work.
So in a way, it was an unusual design from him, but the key to what makes Silberstein’s designs so unique is his playfulness. You simply can’t help but grin when you pick up one of his pieces in the metal.
A serious artist who doesn’t take his work too seriously. This, I think, is a good way to describe Mr. Silberstein.
In a video following the watch's release, Silberstein explained the meaning behind the design. He took inspiration from one of his favourite paintings, titled Momento Mori, which was pained in 1671 by a French artist named Phillipe de Champaigne:
Momento Mori, roughly translated, means: remember you will die. The idea the artist was trying to communicate is that life is transitory and we should live each day with that reality in mind.
In the still life painting above, you see a wilting tulip, a human skull and an hourglass used as symbols to remind the viewer that life is both finite and fleeting.
As you can see in his design, Silberstein took the painting’s three objects and interpreted them in his famously whimsical style to what you see here... The wilting flower, the skull and the watch itself acting as the hourglass:
For those not familiar with Ressence as a brand, they received acclaim a number of years back when they released their first watch, the Type 3, which was a regulator that had sub-dials and hands essentially "orbiting" the dial using something they call the Ressence Orbital Convex System (ROCS).
The easiest way to explain how it works is to show you via video. Here is a time-lapse of my watch in action:
https://imgur.com/a/r6ru5s8
The watch is incredible in the metal. The case is titanium and, as the name suggests, extremely slim, so it wears compact and light, particularly for a 42mm (almost all-dial) timepiece.
Things to know if you're considering a Ressence watch:
- All of their watches make use of an ETA movement as a base caliber. Given the price point, this can and does put some people off. The brand itself and it's devotees note that the ETA movement is heavily modified and the modular ROCS system on top is composed of 107 additional parts. Here is an exploded image of the watch and all its parts:
- despite the innovative design and the ETA 2892 inside the Type 1 being heavily modified, the watch makes a good amount of noise. There is more-than-usual (for a luxury brand's watch) rotor noise, and tapping on the watch produces an audible rattle, which I assume is related to the floating dial
- setting the watch is a bit of a pain, but not nearly as difficult as I expected. That said, this is the watch that finally drove me to purchase a watch winder 😉
- like most regulators, reading the dial takes a bit of practice, but after a few days it becomes second nature
- the lume is positively epic:
Anyways, if you got all the way to the end of this, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the post
Edited:
