It is always a pleasure for me to meet Stepan Sarpaneva. Of course, to discover its new watches and ideas but more important, to listen to him, to enter his specific own world. You may think that Stepan lives in Finland? No, no, you are not right. He lives elsewhere between the Earth and the Moon, on an intriguing territory with a mysterious atmosphere... As you can imagine, his watches are a very realistic image of what occurs in his mind!
Stepan was presenting two new watches at Baselworld + a surprise. I propose you to discover them.
The first watch is maybe the most elegant Stepan's watch ever. Or at least, the one which has the main objective to be elegant without losing its strong character. The K1 "Varjo" is a new version of the K1 but this time, with two hands only. Despite its simplicity, it features several ingredients what make Stepan's watches so special:
- the very specific shape of the case I like to stroke with my fingers...
- the three parts dial inspired by a kind of grating
- the shape of the hands
The K1 "Varjo" is not a thin watch with a case height of 9,8mm but taking into account the diameter of 42mm, it is very slender what enhances its refined style. When I discovered the real name of the watch, I used an online dictionnary to find the meaning of "Varjo". Varjo means shadow in finnish and at first glance, it is not so obvious to understand why Stepan used it. But when you put the watch on the wrist, especially the blue dial version, you quickly get the answer.
The dial of the watch is not disturbed by any moving element above it like a big second hand. Only the minutes and hours hands move slowly. On the other hand, the K1 "Varjo" is not a static dial watch. Thanks to its purety, to the dial design, to its different dial layers, when you move the wrist, a lot of shades of light, shadows appear on it creating a beautiful ballet of the various gradients of the main colour.
There is a funny detail I would like to highlight. As you can see them on the pictures below, there are 4 tiny screws on the dial. The screws, as usual, hold the layer dedicated to the index. But since this part has the same colour than the dial base, the screws become more visible. And they almost look like small stones! They give at the end a precious side to the watch!
Here is the blue dial version of the K1 "Varjo". The two hands are very nice in this pure context.
The watch is, as usual, powered by the Soprod A10. I appreciate a lot the winding rotor design which is inspired by the dial.
The big question with this K1 "Varjo" is to know if it is not a bit mandatory to buy a Sarpaneva's watch with a moonphase indicator. This complication is so linked to Stepan... and... I don't think so. First of all because this K1 has some good assets and because, at the end, you find again the moon... on the winding rotor!
You can see a space between the movement and the case. This space was dedicated to the date disk of the K1: Stepan enlarged the main plate of the movement to welcome it. Obviously, here, the disk is not inserted.
The K1 "Varjo" looks a bit bigger on the wrist than its actual size. It is due to the thin bezel and of course to the purety of the dial.
The bezel is also flattened to get this overall height below 10mm: it is a bit surprising at the beginning but I think it works well with this K1.
It is a watch I appreciate and it could be worn without any problem in any situation.
The K1 "Varjo" is available with a blue or grey dial, with a SS or SS + DLC case. My fav version being the blue dial + the SS case. I think that the bright design suits better the simplicity of the watch.
Believe me or not but the hereafter watch doesn't have any name for the moment. Let's call it the Double Moon for the article...
Of course, Stepan couldn't spend the whole Fair without presenting a watch with a moonphase indicator. And we find again the "two moons" structure with here displays for the southern and northern hemispheres at the same time.
If you are used with the way the Moonshine works, you will understand very quickly this watch. The moonphases indicators work the same way. The big difference is the use of two central hands to tell the time while the Moonshine had a specific time display combined with the moonphases indicator.
I love this concept. When we are at the full moon position, we discover the entire eyes of the moon. I wonder who is watching who? Are we watching the moon or is it watching us?
We are not far from the full moon on this picture:
while we are here on the new moon position. You will notice the small stars which were hollowed inside the moonphases disk:
The finishings of the Soprod A10 are, in my point of view, not superior here than with the K1 "Varjo" but the perceived quality is higher. It is due to the winding rotor which allows to take better advantage of the work done on the movement.
On the wrist, this Double Moon becomes a fascinating watch. I can imagine that the people that try to read the time on this watch would be more than surprised by such double pair of eyes! The cae diameter is similar to the K1 "Varjo": 42mm.
I much prefer this watch to the Moonshine. This Double Moon is more subtle and the idea to use the moonphases disk as a blindfold is great!
I also like the blue and grey combo...
This watch is one of my fav of the Fair.
Let's discover the surprise now!
You already know that the Moonshine is a crazy watch. So could you imagine a Moonshine that would go even further?
This watch is Woodoo and it is a "piece unique"!
Woodoo is a wicked watch but it is also precious at the same time... More than 150 stones were used to set the big Moon!
A very strange watch which likes to play with paradoxes. Again, it is powered by the Soprod A10 modified by Stepan.
A left rotation was made on the time and moonphase displays if you compare Woodoo with the Moonshine:
At the end, I don't know with this watch on the wrist if I will reveal my bright or my dark side...
... like Stepan! Each and every person has different personalities which can emerge when the contexts change...
I would like to thank a lot Stepan Sarpaneva for his warm welcome during the Fair.
Fx
This message has been edited by foversta on 2013-06-07 15:28:27 
