Ladoire

I had the pleasure to meet Joanna at the booth of Ladoire at the GTE.  These are unique and exceptional looking timepieces, I do not recall any other watchmaker making anything similar.  The finishing appears to be very high level, and last but not least, there is something about these watches that makes you turn your head. 

Joanna gave me a very nice USB kind of card the size of a creditcard, just abit thicker which contains a lot of pictures and descriptions.  It would be too much to show all pictures, but I am just presenting two watches, the Black Widow Mr. Race and the Red Gold RGT.

 Ladoire features inhouse movements, developed, designed and built inhouse.
The case is rather large of this limited edition of 12 pieces: 50.84mm.

 The Microrotor is quite impressive.  An interesting feature that you do not see very often aside from Patek Philippe watches.

 From the pressrelease:
Endowed with an extraordinarily complex display mode and unusual
dimensions, the innovative concept of the H M S Planetary® complication
is duly protected by a patent.
The entirely offset Hour, Minute and Seconds indications of this Regulatortype
model are displayed by three cages mounted on ceramic micro ball
bearings. The RGT also features a GMT function with a central hand that
can be rapidly adjusted via a dedicated corrector push-button at 2 o’clock.

The asymetric case possesses an interesting integration of the strap.

Visit at Vacheron Constantin manufacture and maison

La Maison Vacheron Constantin:
The workbench is really small, and was used by I think the son or nephew of Vacheron as far as I recall.  I may need to be corrected on this.   It was so small, that he could carry it around on his back and fix watches.

While in Geneva I visited the Vacheron Constantin manufacture.  As luck wanted it, I also had a chance to visit the Maison Vacheron Constantin in the heart of Geneva.  That is where I took the pictures of all the machines to manufacture watches.  I hope you enjoy the impressions.

The visit to the manufacture showed me how hightech the processes are, and the watchmakers are working in a dustfree environment.

The Maison displays largely machines used in the past as well as the oldest Vacheron that they know of and many other beautiful timepieces and pocketwatches.

Video: Bremont MBII

(Source: Youtube)

This is a very interesting video about Bremont.

Heritage watchmanufacture

I met two German gentleman at GTE 2012, who are the founders of Heritage Watchmanufacture.

While master watchmaker Karsten Fraessdorf is the mastermind behind these timepieces of excellence, designer Eric Giroud is responsible for the design of the watches.  It was a pleasure talking with them and seeing how much passion goes into their work.

There are three lines, the Centenus,  the Magnus and the Tensus.

The company was founded in 2010, but they already won some very highly regarding prices of swiss watchmaking.  Well, I will let pictures speak, from their USB stick they handed me.

Demonaco: Quantieme Perpetuelle Perpetual Calendar

 The new Demonaco Perpetual Calendar is unique in that it can control all settings just via the crown at 3 o'clock.  This watch is made in red gold and Titanium.  I had the Titanium timepiece on my wrist, it is light, and feels very well finished and executed.  I really liked it the way it is made.  And the easy adjustments of the perpetual calendar are a great feature that separate this watch from other perpetual calendars.

 The Demonaco is made in Monte Carlo.  Robert van Pappelendam, Peter Stas and Pim Koeslag are the watchmakers at the Ateliers deMonaco which also created the Ateliers deMonaco tourbillon.  It is a very young watch company which was founded in 2009.

 The decoration of the movement looks very interesting.

The illustration shows how time, date, day, month, leapyear are set on this watch:

 
Come and view the Demonaco blog for updates.

(Pictures from GTE and pressrelease, courtesy of Demonaco)