Remontet Introduces the Time Capsule
Located in the town of Renaison, a five-hour drive south of Paris, Horlogerie V Remontet is named after its founder, Valentin Remontet. A young watchmaker who who spent three years at TAG Heuer and then Breguet before striking out on his own, Mr Remontet started his brand with conventional, round watches powered by ETA movements. He has since moved on to watches that are inventive and modern in style and construction. Mr Remontet’s latest is the Time Capsule, a avant-garde watch that has an unorthodox regulator-style display along with unconventional hourstriker. Initial thoughts With the fashion of the day in niche independent watchmaking being classical watchmaking with a heavy Breguet numerals or a “sector” dial, Mr Remontet’s watch is decidedly bold – and also impressive. Its aesthetic is highly technical, and matched by genuinely creative mechanics. The movement is clearly an original construction, even if it does use some components from common calibres. The style is certainly not for everyone – I find it a bit too extreme – but the fresh, bold nature of the Time Capsule is impressive. And the €17,000 price, which is about US$21,000, is fair considering the work in both development and manufacture. Preserving a memory Mr Remontet works along, and fabricates much of the watch himself – including the gaskets for the case – with some components produced by a French micro-machining specialist in micro machining. As a result, Mr Remontet says about 90...