Exclusive Video: How Akrivia Exquisitely Finishes Their Watches

In today’s watchmaking world, machines play a prominent role, even in the art of decoration. Still, hardcore collectors know how to identify work made by hands. Nothing compares to it. It takes time, precision, and subtlety to master these techniques and obtain the desired result. In today’s video, Akrivia’s founder Rexhep Rexhepi tells us how he sees two crucial finishing tasks: circular graining and Geneva stripes.

This particular technique is for the sheer embellishment of the movement, to erase any traces of machine milling. The gifted watchmaker explains how he sees it, “There are often many levels on a calibre and we aim to decorate all of them. Circular graining offers a wide array of possibilities because we can play with different depths of the structure, the various diameters of the circles. It enables the watchmaker to put his personal artistic touch even inside the movement.” There is the gentleness of the pressure, the precision of the hands, the acuteness of the eye. Circular graining done on a machine cannot convey those kinds of emotions.
 

From his confession, "It took us two years to start mastering this ancient know-how to achieve the level of quality we aim for." Indeed, Geneva stripes by hand are a very delicate operation. The stripes need to be light but bright and of perfect regularity. The speed of the machine has to be controlled. The vertical pressure and horizontal motion have to be precise and synchronized. But the ultimate pressure comes from the fact that there is no margin of error. Indeed, as Rexhep emphasizes, “You might have been working on a bridge for days, and you can annihilate all your previous work by messing up your Côtes de Genève!”
 

True finishing by hand is a complicated adventure. But totally worth it when you admire the final beauty of Akrivia’s timepieces.