Romain Gauthier Logical One Hands-On

During the recent SIHH week, we were fortunate to have a meeting on short notice with Romain Gauthier, who was kind enough to meet with our small group on a Friday evening.

An oblique view that gives more of a sense of the dimensionality of the movement (a particular weakness of mine, to be sure):

And a really, really oblique view that shows the hollowed lugs and the way this piece sits on the wrist -- quite nicely for a fairly deep piece, I would say!

A view of the reverse of the watch -- we were told by Romain that production pieces will have lighter colored bridges than this prototype; among other reasons, apparently the particular treatment used to create this color cannot be fully quenched, so as a result there is a risk of degradation of the bridges over time.  Too bad, as I really like this particular shade, but I'm sure the final version will also be lovely...

And there will be the opportunity for some custom touches as well -- for instance, dial color as seen on this very pretty blue dial

I was tremendously impressed with both the watch and Romain -- having visited with David Candaux earlier in the day, I began to form a different impression of what the core of high-end 21st Century watchmaking will look like -- a world in which MBA engineer-watchmakers dazzle us with a splendid array of new complications and fascinating variations on the classics.