ROMAIN GAUTHIER – Freedom C by Romain Gauthier Titanium

 

ROMAIN GAUTHIER – Freedom C by Romain Gauthier Titanium Edition Bracelet with a Lever de Soleil Color Dial  - 2023

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C by Romain Gauthier
Titanium Edition Bracelet

Lightness and comfort, the first bracelet signed Romain Gauthier

When Romain launched the first edition of C by Romain Gauthier in 2021, it was clearly stated that this new caliber would lead the brand to new horizons. One year later, a new door has been opened with the arrival of the brand's first metal bracelet.

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Sober and contemporary, propitious to variations and adaptations, C by Romain Gauthier was an obvious choice for the creation of a metal bracelet. The desire of modernity, comfort and ergonomic already initiated during the conception of the first edition, reinforced the development of this integral timepiece on a titanium bracelet - light, resistant, modern and sophisticated. 

 

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Aesthetically, it was important to Romain that the bracelet and the watch become one. As he said: "The bracelet is the case, and the case is the bracelet". This desire is reflected in the fusion of these two elements, a timepiece as a whole that cannot be dissociated.

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In keeping with Romain's vision - The Evolution of Tradition - this new technical and contemporary element requires a high level of craftsmanship and hand finishing. Each link is composed of hand-polished and satin-finished surfaces that play with the light and reflect the technical nature of the bracelet and the piece in general.

C BY ROMAIN GAUTHIER IN DETAILS

An integrated design resulting in a harmonious timepiece

 

Romain Gauthier's first metal bracelet is made entirely of natural Grade 5 titanium, light and comfortable. 

This bracelet was designed so that the wearer does not feel it; in addition to being light, it is also very thin thanks to the folding clasp integrated into the bracelet.

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The bracelet itself is integrated into the case by slightly curved lugs following the natural shape of the wrist. In this same objective, the links are articulated and assembled precisely to adapt to all types of wrists.

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Aesthetically, Romain wanted to develop a modern bracelet that would highlight traditional craftmanship. As with the rest of the timepiece, each link has contrasting finishes, with the surface being satin-finished while the connecting element is hand-polished, bringing both character and elegance to the bracelet.

Flow and continuity to the fore on an atypical dial

 

C by Romain Gauthier is all about modernity and continuity, both in terms of its movement architecture and dial design. If the observer looks closely, he will see that the hour-minute hands are off-centred on the horizontal axis and the hour indices taper ever so slightly and are of varying lengths, while the 5-second intervals of the small seconds at 7 o’clock are also marked by tapered colored lines of differing lengths.

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Romain explains this purposeful play on perspective, saying: “Rather than a series of enclosed circles, as we often see in watchmaking, I wanted an open, airy dial on which full or part orthogonal lines form vanishing points with the axes of the hands, reinforcing the notion of continuity.”

For enhanced legibility, the tapering, three-dimensional hands are made from 18k white gold and filled with Super-LumiNova. The numerals and indexes are made entirely of Super-LumiNova, improving visibility, and reinforcing the modern feel of this timepiece.

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The dial plate itself is made from natural titanium that has been sand-blasted and treated with a special coating that protects it against UV rays.

Eye-catching case and bracelet rich in details

 

Framing the dial is a titanium bezel with an eye-catching, geometric profile unlike anything previously seen on a Romain Gauthier timepiece. The bezel is first machined into a round shape featuring a circular bevel before six straight sides are cut into it to create 6 facets. While these facets, which have been polished, reflect the light and bring the bezel to life, the rest of the bezel absorbs light thanks to its satin-finishing. The same facetted design is replicated around the sapphire crystal on the back of the watch.

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In between the bezel and caseback, the one-piece caseband and lugs are geometrically sculpted, with satin and polished finishes as well as aesthetic grooves cleverly deployed to draw out the resulting shapes. Meanwhile, the titanium bracelet with the folding clasp follows the form of the curved lugs, which have been adjusted to fit any wrist, and rounded caseband so it appears as a continuous, organic extension of the case.

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The finishing on the case facets is repeated on each of the bracelet links, a play of light accentuated by satin-finished surfaces and contrasted by hand-polished ones.

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C by Romain Gauthier Titanium Edition Bracelet is a timepiece that should be appreciated as a whole. Each detail is linked to another, each type of finishing is featured on the case, on the movement and on the bracelet.

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As with the other editions of C by Romain Gauthier, the winding and time setting crown has been placed at 2 o'clock, freeing up space for the wrist movement. The fluted crown also allows an easy handling and provides an additional eye-catching aesthetic element to the case.

Clever stop-seconds mechanism that uses a snail cam

 

Romain has endowed C by Romain Gauthier with a stop-seconds – or hacking seconds – mechanism, allowing the wearer to set the time exactly according to a reference time.

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Like many stop-seconds mechanisms, a brake is placed on C by Romain Gauthier’s balance wheel when the crown is pulled out. But instead of using a straight or L-shaped balance stop lever to halt the balance, Romain has opted to employ a snail cam that performs a double function: It touches and stops the balance wheel when the crown is pulled out and, when the crown is pushed back in, the snail cam makes a turn, with its increasingly wide form giving the balance an impulse to help it start beating again.

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Those familiar with the brand will know Romain has used the snail cam’s unique shape in his past creations: It appears on the watchmaker’s acclaimed Logical One.

In-house movement where design and decoration meet modernity

 

The themes of modernity and continuity carry over to the manual-winding, in-house movement, which is gloriously on show through the display back.

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Taking centre stage are a number of finger bridges – historically typical of the Vallée de Joux, Romain’s birthplace – but reinterpreted here in a contemporary way. For starters, these bridges are horizontally configured and feature a ‘stepped’ shape – previously seen on some of Logical One’s bridges – that not only provides volume and depth, but also gives the sense that the bridges are literally flowing over the gears and balance wheel, with no clear end to them.  

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Like the case components and the dial plate, the bridges are made from lightweight, natural Grade 5 titanium and they boast contrasting tones and textures thanks to a variety of finishes. The outer edges of each bridge all feature a double bevel, while the flat bridge surfaces and rubies are each framed by a raised border that has been straight-grained. 

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Within these borders, the hand-finishing specialists at Manufacture Romain Gauthier have used a special hand-engraving technique to create a highly original dimpled texture. The movement mainplate beneath has been hand-frosted.

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The impressive decoration doesn’t stop with the bridges and mainplate: Romain’s trademark gears and ratchet wheel featuring circular, bevelled spokes have been circular-grained, while the click, snail cam and screws with S-slot heads – another signature of Romain – have been highly polished. Finally, the lid of the mainspring barrel has been embellished with a superb snailing decoration.

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C by Romain Gauthier’s regulator features the Romain Gauthier balance wheel with curved arms and calibrated eccentric weights, plus hand-assembled pallet lever that is triangular for maximum rigidity.

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TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Collection  Freedom

Name:  C by Romain Gauthier Titanium - Lever de Soleil color Dial

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Ref.  MON00581

Edition 
Non limited edition in natural Grade 5 titanium.

Features and indications
Off-centred hours and minutes
Small seconds at 7 o’clock
Natural Grade 5 titanium case, dial, movement bridges and mainplate
In-house movement featuring stop-seconds mechanism
Dial and hands
Grey sandblasted or Lever de Soleil color dial in natural Grade 5 titanium with protective layer against UV rays
Off-centred hours and minutes
Small seconds at 7 o’clock with 5-second intervals marked by colored tapered lines
Super-LumiNova-filled 18k white gold hands.
Numerals and index entirely in Super-LumiNova

Movement and finishing 
Manufacture calibre C by Romain Gauthier

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In-house, hand-wound movement
Dimensions: 32.10 mm x 5.50 mm
Power reserve: 60 hours
Number of jewels: 24
Number of components: 154
Balance frequency: 28,800 vph / 4Hz
Components made from: Titanium, steel, stainless steel and German silver
Finishing: Superlative decoration by hand
Treatment: Natural titanium bridges and rhodium-treated gears.
Case
Material: Titanium natural Grade 5
Dimensions: 41mm x 9.55mm, lugs to lugs: 47.8 mm
Water resistance: 50m/5atm/160ft
Crown for winding and time-setting at 2 o’clock
Watch supplied with a fluted crown or surrounded by grey rubber crown rings.
Sapphire crystal with interior anti-reflection coating, front and display back.
Strap and buckle
Natural Grade 5 titanium bracelet

The first metal bracelet of the brand, entirely in Grade 5 titanium, with an integrated folding clasp, also in Grade 5 titanium, is supplied with an additional half-link to perfectly fit all wrists. 

Total weight of the watch: 85 g, including titanium bracelet and folding clasp.


Retail price: 💰

MON00580 – Grey dial: CHF 42,000 without taxes
MON00581 – Lever de Soleil color dial: CHF 42,000 without taxes

 
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Press release - 2023
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F.P.Journe – FFC Platinum Edition

F.P.JOURNE – CLASSIQUE FFC Titanium Hand 42mm Platinum Automatic Edition 2023

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In anticipation of the production of a small series of a timepiece inspired by the FFC Blue prototype, a unique piece for Only Watch 2021, it seems useful to revisit its genesis and its unique way of reading the time, made possible by a hand whose fingers come to life as the hours pass.

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The story of how the FFC Blue was created is like a fairy tale and for this reason deserves to be told again for those who do not know it. It began in 2009 when Mrs. Eleanor Coppola, Francis Ford Coppola’s wife, gave her illustrious filmmaker husband the Chronomètre à Résonance, which she found chic and elegant. Delighted with the gift, he immediately sent an invitation to its creator to come and meet him at his “Inglenook” winery in the Napa Valley. When they met in 2012, they discussed the different principles of representing the passing of time and the filmmaker asked if a watchmaker had ever considered displaying the hours in the way the ancients used to give them, by counting them on their fingers. 

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The idea of ticking the 12 digits of the hours with 5 fingers had appealed to François-Paul who, in 2014, wanted to take up the challenge of inventing an animated hand capable of displaying it in the same way. His motivation led him to start prototyping the FFC Blue watch the same year, which was supposed to go on sale at Only Watch 2021.

History in motion

After having found, with Francis Ford Coppola, how to present the 12 digits of the hours with a single hand and 5 fingers, François-Paul set out to design a mechanism capable of adequately transcribing these digits into digital signs. 

To avoid falling into naturalism, this artist, who is known to have a passion for history, like one of his sons who today is a professional historian, chose to draw his inspiration from a drawing of a prosthesis made by the famous French barber-surgeon Ambroise Paré (1509/1510 -1590).

Click, to see the large size. ▶ BIG FOTO  For those not familiar with him, he is the one to whom we owe, thanks to his competence and understanding of the human body, undeniable progress in medicine. The mechanised hand found on the front of the FFC Blue is inspired by the one developed by this Renaissance physician.

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Initially thought in bronze by its inventor, the final hand for the watch was made of engraved titanium, used to reduce the weight of the moving components so as to not affect the energy consumption of the caliber, the Octa 1300 launched by the Manufacture F.P.Journe in 2001. As François-Paul points out, “The most important thing in watchmaking is what is least visible. In this case, it was a matter of getting five fingers to move with the least amount of effort”.

Managing the available energy

In order to use only the energy coming from the barrel, which ensures a power reserve of 5 days for the piece, the choice was made to install a “remontoir d’égalité” between the primary gear train and the display, as is done in the clocks of buildings when the hands to be moved are long and heavy. 

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Every hour, and for 40 minutes, the “remontoir d’égalité”, formed by a spring blade enclosed in a kind of barrel, a trigger and a sort of anchor mounted on one side on a wheel with an eccentric in its center, is rewound by the movement.

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On the hour, the mechanism described by François-Paul as a sort of escapement acting once an hour, is released so that the energy accumulated from the main barrel can, through the intermediary of this tangentially acting fork, set in motion the series of 10 cams whose purpose is to control the movement of the fingers of the hand. 

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Placed on the left side and visible between the rotating minutes ring mounted on a large extra-flat ball bearing with a fixed cursor placed at noon, they make one revolution in 12 hours, each one activating a series of springs and toggles acting on the rise and fall of the 4 fingers, but also the translation of the thumb. The shape of the cams, associated with the teeth of each one, acts on the fingers which are mounted on a steel sling and which move then, practically without friction, like a loom shuttle.

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Thanks to this ingenious system, the energy required to operate one finger, four fingers between 5 and 6 o’clock as well as between 9 and 10 o’clock, is always the same and calibrated so that it is done in complete safety and, above all, without affecting the chronometry of the regulating group.

Reinventing how time is displayed

By means of miniaturisation work pushed to the extreme and seven years of incessant labor spent making the whole thing reliable, the master, supported by the skills gathered within his manufacture, has managed to integrate all the components of the automatic caliber and this astonishing anthropomorphic mobile into a case measuring 42 mm in diameter and only 10,7 mm thick. 

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As a result, despite the complexity of the whole, this watch is no thicker than another model equipped with the same movement. 

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To achieve this exploit, François-Paul eliminated the dial and replaced the minute hand, which was impossible to use in the traditional way, with a rotating ring mounted on a large extra-flat ball bearing, as he did for the perpetual calendar of the Astronomic Souveraine. This modification made it possible to gain the few millimeters necessary for the placement of the articulated hand sculpted by a master engraver. 

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So, in the end, what does this high-flying timepiece bring to the table besides its original display? It proves that the best way to make a complicated watch is to think about how to save energy in order to make it work without having to add any. As François-Paul says, the watchmaker must have a light hand when designing a movement.

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In the end, the Octa caliber is perfect for this approach because it has a constant and linear force and torque for 5 days. By optimising the friction and using only the smoothest part of the spring, we find a very linear torque that allows adding functions without being afraid that everything will stop. Here’s the proof! 

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TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Collection:  CLASSIQUE

Model:  FFC

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Ref.  FFC

Case
Platinum PT 950, unique case
Dimensions: Ø: 42 mm / Thickness: 10.70 mm.
Number of parts_
Movement without dial: 396
Cased up on leather strap: 436
Jewels: 63
Dial
Instantaneous digital hours indicated by the animated fingers of a Titanium hand
Rotating minutes dial
Mouvement
Calibre Automatic FFC 1300.3 in 18K rose Gold.
Number of components: Movement: 396
Unidirectional oscillating weight in 22K 5N Gold, engraved Ambroise Paré (1509-1590) & F.F.Coppola.
Functions & Complications: 2

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Dimensions of the movement_
Overall diameter: 34.20 mm
Casing-up diameter: 30.40 mm
Overall height: 8.10 mm
Height of winding system: 3.28 mm
Diameter of stem thread: S1.20 mm
Balancier_
Balance with four adjustable inertia weights
Anachron flat balance spring
Mobile stud holder
Free-sprung
Nivatronic laser soldered balance spring
Pinned GE stud
Slipping mainspring
Frequency:  21’600 V/h, 3Hz
Inertia:  10.10 mg*cm2
Angle of lift:  52°
Amplitude:
12h dial up: > 280°
90h dial up: > 220° 
Escapement_
In-line lever escapement, 15-tooth wheel
Main characteristics_
Two position crown:
Winding of the watch in position 1, clockwise
Correction of time in position 2, anti-clockwise
Autonomy: 120 +/- 12 hours
Winding speed on a watch winder: 274 clockwise rotations per 24 hours
Finishing_
High grade
Circular stripes on the bridges
Titanium bridges with Titalyt® coating
Baseplate partly circular grained
Polished screw heads with chamfered slots
Pegs with polished rounded ends
Steelwork with polished chamfers
Bracelet
Alligator strap

Limitation: between 10 and 15 watches per year

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Press release - 2023
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MONTRES JOURNE SA
Brigitte Bocquet-Makhzani - Communication
International PR & Events Manager
17, rue de l’Arquebuse – 1204 Geneva – Switzerland
Tel : +41 (0)22 322 09 09
Fax : +41 (0)22 322 09 19
e-mail: bmakhzani@fpjourne.com
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