Singing the blues

TCW writer/photographer, Bob Allaby, and I were walking down the Quai des Bergues from the Beau-Rivage when we stopped at Czapek’s new flagship boutique during Geneva Watch Days. We sat down with Aristo Xanthopoulos, who proceeded to show us some seriously interesting watches. Among them was a prototype of the Place Vendôme Complicité Glacier Blue.

Now, let’s be honest. A platinum watch limited to ten pieces, with two independent balance wheels and a price firmly outside my wheelhouse, was never going to follow me home. I was perfectly happy to pull up a chair, though. Some watches deserve your attention regardless of whether ownership will ever enter the conversation. The Complicité is very much one of them.

Czapek Place Vendôme Complicité Glacier Blue @calibre321

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New Czapek Flagship Boutique in Geneva

The new boutique gives Czapek an address at Quai des Bergues 27, close to where François Czapek helped establish his first Genevan company in 1839, at number 29. Having named its inaugural modern collection after the quay when the brand returned in 2015, Czapek has now brought its flagship there, too. The boutique opened in July, with its inauguration held on September 1. There is a satisfying continuity to that, particularly when you arrive on foot along the waterfront.

Inside, the design combines raw stone, American walnut and midnight blue Alcantara. Shared tables and open displays encourage visitors to sit and spend time with the watches; a separate living room provides space for longer conversations. That arrangement makes sense for a brand whose work often benefits from an explanation and a closer look. In our case, the Complicité gave us plenty to discuss.

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Czapek Place Vendôme Complicité Glacier Blue

My attention went straight to the two balance wheels in the lower half of the dial. Their opposing oscillations give the watch an unusually animated face. Above them, the differential occupies the position at twelve, creating a triangular arrangement that helps the eye make sense of everything happening underneath the crystal.

There is a lot going on, but I found myself settling into it surprisingly quickly. You can watch the balances, follow the bridges or take in the whole assembly. The mechanics give you somewhere to look wherever your attention lands.

The underlying idea is easier to grasp than the construction required to achieve it. Each balance has its own escapement, and the differential mechanically averages their rates. The intention is to reduce the effect of variations in either oscillator on the displayed time. A single barrel supplies the system, and the manually wound Calibre 8 offers a 72-hour power reserve, indicated between the balances at six o’clock.

Of course, a short appointment with a prototype tells me very little about its performance over several days. What it does provide is an opportunity to see the idea working. And that is a large part of the appeal here. The relationship between those moving components becomes something you can sit and study.

The Mainplate

The glacier blue mainplate adds another reason to linger. Its grainé texture and light blue PVD treatment provide a cool background for the mechanism. In person, the overall impression is almost icy. The warmer colour of the balance wheels stands out against it, while the polished metal catches the light. Czapek pairs that surface with rhodium-plated indexes and partially skeletonised sword hands.

I particularly like how much room the colour leaves for the machinery. Blue is everywhere in contemporary watchmaking, but here it helps establish the character of the entire watch. It feels at home among the exposed metal and the depth beneath the crystal. Even in photographs, there is plenty to examine. In motion, those two balances hold your attention considerably longer.

Two sapphire bridges help keep the gear train visible. The movement contains 293 components, with six rubies mounted in gold chatons. Hand-bevelled bridges and mainplate surfaces, along with eighteen hand-chamfered inward angles on the reverse, merit a loupe for closer inspection. The transparent supports are especially effective: they allow the structure to do its job while preserving the view that makes this watch so compelling.

The Collaboration

The collaboration behind it also explains why the Complicité sat so well with me. Its architecture grew out of the friendship between Czapek CEO Xavier de Roquemaurel and master watchmaker Bernhard Lederer. That personal connection gave the collection its name, and it feels entirely appropriate for a watch built around two independent regulating organs working together.

I met Lederer almost two years earlier during Watches & wonders, and his GPHG-winning Central Impulse Chronometer remains one of the most beautiful exhibitions of watchmaking I have encountered. That meeting stayed with me because the mechanics themselves were so absorbing. I wanted to keep looking, even after the explanation had finished.

I felt something similar sitting with the Complicité. Lederer’s involvement gave me a point of connection, but the watch held my interest on its own. Across a week filled with extraordinary timepieces, that counts for quite a lot.

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Final Thoughts

The platinum case measures 41.8mm across and 48.22mm from lug to lug. Those are useful dimensions to know if you are actually shopping, although the view beneath the domed sapphire is likely to dominate any first encounter. The Glacier Blue edition comprises ten watches, priced at CHF103,000 before VAT. That puts some fairly decisive numbers behind my earlier admission about taking one home.

Still, ownership has very little bearing on what I enjoyed about that afternoon. Bob and I had the opportunity to sit with someone who knew the watches, ask questions and spend time with a mechanism that made us curious. Czapek’s new flagship proved a very good place to do exactly that.

Way outside my price bracket? Absolutely. Still happy to pull up a chair and spend some time admiring it? You bet.