Czapek Rings in a 10-Year Renaissance with a New Model Housing a New Calibre
The Maison sets the stage for the next decade of its mechanical identity and design codes with its tenth in-house movement.
By Cait Bazemore
Contributor
On Wednesday evening in Geneva, I gathered with our own Ash Longet and other select members of the watch community for an evening dedicated to celebrating Czapek.
Amid cocktails, dinner, and dancing, the night centered on the anniversary of the brand’s revival in 2015 and the debut of the brand-new Time Jumper limited edition featuring an entirely new in-house movement, the Calibre 10.01.
Let’s dig in.
The Rebirth of a Legacy
Ten years ago, at the 2015 SalonQP event in London, a model called Quai des Bergues was unveiled, marking the resurgence of a watchmaking legacy that had disappeared more than 150 years prior. This was the rebirth of Czapek & Cie.
By the end of the following year, this timepiece had won the Public Prize at the Oscars of watchmaking, the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG). These early moments in the brand’s renaissance have come to define Czapek as we know it today: a brand willing to take risks, experiment, and embrace freedom and playfulness without losing its deep reverence for its past and the traditions of haute horlogerie.
A decade ago, the guiding principle of the brand was clearly defined: to honor its 19th-century predecessor by channeling François Czapek’s design principles and devotion to craft with a dash of rebellious spirit, to reinforce the emotional bond between the watch and its wearer, and to push haute horlogerie forward.
Since then, we’ve seen Czapek develop five core collections – the Promenade, the Quai des Bergues, the Place Vendôme, the Faubourg de Cracovie, and, of course, the Antarctique – each with this tension between balance and imbalance, beauty and strangeness, the familiar and the unorthodox. Moreover, we’ve seen Czapek innovate a total of ten of its own in-house calibres, establishing a technical identity just as strong as its aesthetic identity.
Mechanics and design collide all within the confines of Czapek’s movements themselves.
Counting Calibres
The 19th-century pocket watches of François Czapek lay the foundation for this distinctive aesthetic, which began with the Maison’s first calibre, the SXH1, developed in partnership with Jean-François Mojon of Chronode.
Drawing from the calibre of François Czapek’s pocket watch No. 3430, the SXH1 features a highly unusual indicator, combining day of the week and 7-day power reserve at 4:30, complemented by small seconds at 7:30.
Movement number two, the SXH2, got even more complex, offering a suspended tourbillon and a second time zone. For the third calibre, Czapek kept things complicated, collaborating with Vaucher Manufacture Fleurier for a chronograph based on the high-frequency Vaucher calibre VMF 6710.
At Baselworld 2019, Czapek surprised the watch world with The Sands of
Time hourglass housing the Calibre 4 – a time-measuring device rather than a movement in the true sense, co-created with Moser Glassworks. Next up, number five: the SXH5 featuring a micro-rotor in recycled platinum for improved inertia.
For calibre number six, the SXH6, Czapek revisited its chronographs, this time including a split-seconds function that featured an unprecedented upside-down architecture to reveal all the key elements and their connections – chronograph clutch, reset cams, levers – on the dial side.
With the seventh movement, the brand reengineered the SXH5 to create an openworked design by reversing the escapement to offer a full view of it on the dial side and replacing the central seconds hand with a small seconds sub-dial at 4:30.
The Calibre 8 came in collaboration with master watchmaker Bernhard Lederer, employing a rare and highly technical double escapement. Following the Calibre 8, Czapek once again revisited its SXH5 to create the SXH5.1. Here, the central seconds hand became a small-seconds register in the Maison’s signature 4:30 position, creating a visual anchor on the dial.
Then, earlier this year, Czapek introduced the Calibre 9 inside the Antarctique Tourbillon, which the brand debuted at Watches and Wonders.
Finally, today, we get the first iteration of the Calibre 10 in the all-new Time Jumper novelty.
The Future of Czapek
The Calibre 10 paves the way for the future of Czapek’s in-house movements. Its design has been specifically built to serve as a clay to be molded and shaped with each subsequent variation. It offers a compact build, both in diameter and height, giving it a highly adaptable architecture that can accommodate cases as small as 36mm.
For the first version of the movement, the Calibre 10.01, we get a construction that was not only designed, conceived, and assembled in-house but also machined 75% in-house. Here, a central jumping hour complication displaying 24 hours on two discs (a première with a patent-pending mechanism) is combined with trailing minutes on a peripheral ring. For the final touch, the movement is complete with haute horlogerie finishes.
Once again, Czapek cements its aesthetic and mechanical identities with the new Time Jumper, which houses the brand’s monumental tenth in-house calibre inside its 40.5mm case with a half-hunter cover decorated with guillochage.
This specific pattern, now exclusive to Czapek, was co-created with the Maison’s longstanding partner, Metalem. Flipping open the guilloché cover unveils the entire movement beneath a sapphire crystal. The unique optical pattern is also echoed on the interior of the rubber strap.
Pricing & Availability
The Time Jumper is available in two limited edition variations: one in stainless steel and one in 3N 18-karat yellow gold. Both are produced in small quantities of 100 pieces for the stainless steel and only 30 for the gold. The stainless steel model is priced at CHF 42,000, and the gold model is priced at CHF 64,000. For more information, head over to the Czapek website.