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Lot Essay
A fascinating grande complication whose mechanism is for the first time visible on the dial, combined with a cutting-edge design, Only Watch 2021 vivid colours and the Czapek “Courage every second” unique signature.
Collaboration, openness and creative thinking are at the heart of Czapek’s creative process. The idea of making a timepiece combining the vivid colours of the Only Watch 2021 edition – yellow, orange and red – and the latest mechanical innovation in the Antarctique line, the unique open-work dial side split-second chronograph, came to life step by step. The mechanism concept, a project initiated by Czapek, is the result of a long-term fruitful partnership with Chronode.
For the first time, the ballet of cams, levers and wheels of the split-second mechanism has been positioned on the dial side, a unique feast for the eyes of watch aficionados. The timepiece’s esthetic concept, for its part, took shape after exchanging with Czapek’s manufacturing partners Positive Coating, the CVD “NanoDeCo” technology experts in La Chaux de Fonds. And then the whole design game started, with a vision: creating something crazy… and attractive at the same time: the Antarctique Rattrapante “Sunrise”, a new dawn for the brand, aiming to help find a new dawn in the research on Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
HISTORY OF THE BRAND
François Czapek was a Czech-born Polish watchmaker who fled to Geneva in 1832 after fighting in the Polish uprising. He started his own atelier, and in 1839, entered into a partnership with Antoine Norbert de Patek. In 1845, at the end of their partnership, he created Czapek & Cie, became the official watchmaker of Napoleon III and opened what was most likely the first watch boutique on Place Vendôme in Paris. He wrote a book about watchmaking, but mysteriously vanished before publishing a second one. Czapek & Cie has been revived in 2015. The leading model of the first, exceptional collection won the Public Prize at the GPHG in 2016. A suspended tourbillon with a second time-zone followed one year later, as well as the first Czapek chronograph, were unveiled in 2018. In 2020 the company launched the Antarctique collection, powered by Czapek’s first in-house movement, an automatic microrotor three-hander.
Collaboration, openness and creative thinking are at the heart of Czapek’s creative process. The idea of making a timepiece combining the vivid colours of the Only Watch 2021 edition – yellow, orange and red – and the latest mechanical innovation in the Antarctique line, the unique open-work dial side split-second chronograph, came to life step by step. The mechanism concept, a project initiated by Czapek, is the result of a long-term fruitful partnership with Chronode.
For the first time, the ballet of cams, levers and wheels of the split-second mechanism has been positioned on the dial side, a unique feast for the eyes of watch aficionados. The timepiece’s esthetic concept, for its part, took shape after exchanging with Czapek’s manufacturing partners Positive Coating, the CVD “NanoDeCo” technology experts in La Chaux de Fonds. And then the whole design game started, with a vision: creating something crazy… and attractive at the same time: the Antarctique Rattrapante “Sunrise”, a new dawn for the brand, aiming to help find a new dawn in the research on Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
HISTORY OF THE BRAND
François Czapek was a Czech-born Polish watchmaker who fled to Geneva in 1832 after fighting in the Polish uprising. He started his own atelier, and in 1839, entered into a partnership with Antoine Norbert de Patek. In 1845, at the end of their partnership, he created Czapek & Cie, became the official watchmaker of Napoleon III and opened what was most likely the first watch boutique on Place Vendôme in Paris. He wrote a book about watchmaking, but mysteriously vanished before publishing a second one. Czapek & Cie has been revived in 2015. The leading model of the first, exceptional collection won the Public Prize at the GPHG in 2016. A suspended tourbillon with a second time-zone followed one year later, as well as the first Czapek chronograph, were unveiled in 2018. In 2020 the company launched the Antarctique collection, powered by Czapek’s first in-house movement, an automatic microrotor three-hander.