Tag Archives: Ateliers deMonaco

partnerships

Ateliers deMonaco created a unique timepiece for the FC Barcelona football player Daniel Alves

Posted on by ATELIERS DEMONACO
26
Jan

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To honour an extraordinarily talented man, Ateliers deMonaco created a unique timepiece for the famous Brazilian football player Daniel Alves on the occasion of his nomination at the FIFA/FIFPro World XI Award 2015.

For many years now the exciting game of football has been the inspiration behind some of Haute Horlogerie most complicated and sophisticated timepieces. Playing for FC Barcelona since 2008, Daniel Alves became famous for being one of the best defenders in the world. He earned a place in the FIFA FIFPro World XI for 2015 during the ceremony of the FIFA Ballon d’Or 2015, which took place in Zurich on January, 11th.

Both football player and watchmaker have in common the passion for precision and skill. Ateliers deMonaco admires these qualities in Daniel Alves as a sportsman. He embodies professionalism paired with vitality and team spirit. In honour of his talent and his great career, the independent high-end luxury watch brand Ateliers deMonaco have created a unique timepiece called the Tourbillon Oculus – Dani Alves.

This personalised timepiece was specially designed for Daniel Alves, who’s an enthusiastic person with a creative mind and an adventurous personality.

Handcrafted by our skilled watchmakers and dedicated to the highest level of precision, the Tourbillon Oculus is truly as artful as Daniel Alves is on the field. This watch is powered by its own in-house developed and patented Xtreme Precision Tourbillon movement. This calibre encapsulates a unique hybrid between craftsmanship and innovative technology, delivering one of the most accurate Tourbillon movements in the world today.

This movement is housed in an 18k rose gold case of 44mm that features a beautiful subdial in sapphire. The design of this unique timepiece is underlined by the wonderfully delicate “Côtes de Genève” decoration and the dial aperture at 6 o’clock that shows the hand engraved tourbillon cage held by a sapphire bridge. The case back of the Tourbillon Oculus enables the finesse and sophistication of the details of the movement to be observed, such as the perlage finishing and the hand engraved 22K gold rotor.

The Tourbillon Oculus is finished with a personalized hand-stitched alligator strap and is delivered in a very elegant custom-made box. It’s undeniable that this unique watch will remain a signature piece forever, just as unique as Daniel Alves.

About Ateliers deMonaco:

Ateliers deMonaco was founded in 2008 to permit the next generation of watchmakers create timepieces of exceptional quality, with the latest innovation and the rarest, most exquisite and robust materials; to go far beyond what was considered possible. Our dream is one of relentless reinvention and commitment to bring you the extraordinary. We do this not only by putting something truly exceptional on your wrist but also by ensuring your deMonaco timepiece is more than an object of desire, a true reflection of your individuality. What unites us with our clients is the belief that life is not only about luxury, but luxury sure is life!

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Events, Exhibitions, Fairs & Shows

Pim o’clock

Posted on by ATELIERS DEMONACO
18
Nov

“Pim o’clock” this is how QP Magazine named our master watch maker and co founder of Ateliers deMonaco.
Nice article published in the latest issue of QP Magazine UK.

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innovation

The next innovation……

Posted on by ATELIERS DEMONACO
31
Oct

About a year ago, we re-iterated our commitment to innovation, crisis or not. In Basel, we will launch the latest chapter of the Ateliers deMonaco innovation story….but for those die-hard fans and passionate supporters, we wanted to reveal a huge milestone we passed this weekend…after several proto-types, the first final movement was functioning!!! “I know it sounds funny, but it is always a very emotional moment to see something completely functional after several years of uncertainty if it will ever work…..giving birth is a painful but rewarding process” Pim Koeslag, Master Horlogier and the father of 2 young children smilingly admitted. For those of you that think you know what the next innovation is Pim has been working on for so long, please take a guess…as you came to expect from us, it is something never done before…. !!!

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Background

Company story – episode 2

Posted on by ATELIERS DEMONACO
12
Mar

The dream
As so often in life, the desire to leave a legacy is a great motivation to achieve the unthinkable. And often during the late night and weekend sessions in the ateliers, discussion would focus on what leaving a legacy in the watch industry would mean these days. Was not almost everything already invented and designed? Yes and no was the conclusion. Great inventions had been made, but arguably their functionality was not always as good and consumer friendly as the original intend. For instance, despite the Tourbillon movement was invented to increase accuracy, yet most of these beautiful pieces of mechanical engineering and design, will actually not deliver on its original intend. The principle and functionality of a Perpetual Calendar is already designed, but if for whatever reason you need to adjust the calendar, it will easily cost you a lot of time and frustration to adjust, if at all you will be able to do so without causing damage to the complication. The fact that everything is designed yet does not only hold true for technology, but also goes for branding. When was the last time you’ve seen a brand that is proud to live in the here and now, and not fall into the temptation of abusing heritage as a seal of craftsmanship? And herein lies the nugget of the shared dream – creating a new high-end watch brand, designed for the generation that lives now— using a hybrid between the best of modern technology and traditional craftsmanship. As the nouvelle cuisine was trying to set a new standard and fresh impulse in cooking trends, so should this brand try to give a fresh impulse to Haute Horlogerie: let’s call it the ‘Nouvelle Horlogerie’.

Location & founding
As the intent of the new brand was not to copy the category conventions of the past decades, there were no limitations in the initial search. It needed to be a place that could provide enough inspiration for the people working for the brand, while also carry sufficient aspiration for those that the brand was designing for: Monaco and its surroundings. This place is not only one of the more appealing places on earth at the moment, but it has a long standing heritage of attracting some of the biggest innovators in several fields of expertise: painters like Picasso, Chagall, Matisse (or more recently like the Dutch sculptor Verkade); architects like Le Corbusier; poets and writers like Chekhov and Cocteau; and philosophers like Nietzsche. And importantly, these people did not only reside in this area, but delivered some of their best work while in the region. Of course, the breathtaking scenery of the Mediterranean against the startling rock formation of the Alps, and the warm blanket of the climate makes the combination picture perfect! After the location was determined, over a year went by to incorporate the company in Monaco and find the appropriate location for the Ateliers in the Princedom. It is important to be a genuine Monegasque company that is woven in to the local fabric of life. And all of this culminates in the brand proudly stating its origin on the final time pieces: Made in Monaco!

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Background

Company story – episode 1

Posted on by ATELIERS DEMONACO
08
Mar

AGAINST THE TIDE?
This outlines the story of the 3 musketeers who launched a new and exclusive alternative luxury watch brand at the peak of a global economic crisis. Call them passionate, crazy, brilliant or stupid. At least they are attempting to realize their dream and add a new chapter in the rich history of global watchmaking.

Introduction
Ateliers deMonaco is a new independent luxury watch manufacturer inspired by, designed for and made in Monaco. The brand targets a new generation with Nouvelle Horlogerie by creating iconic timepieces that are derived from their passion to challenge existing conventions to leave a legacy: “We have always dreamt about making a mechanical watch movement that is the most precise in the world and will keep generations of scientists busy trying to figure out how we did it !” All watches and their movements are completely in-house designed and manufactured, an unique capability that only few independent watch manufacturers still have to-date. The collection and innovations can be characterized as the ultimate collision between modern technology and classical craftsmanship, leaving a hybrid time piece that utilizes the best of both. To guarantee every watch gets its own unique character, every individual watch is hand-finished, -polished, -brushed and -engraved, which for some can take over 100 hours each. Each watch will be individually numbered and is only made available in very limited editions. And as a true Monegasque proposition, every watch that leaves our ateliers will have the iconic shield of Monaco hand-engraved in the heart of the movement.

The founders
Be it luck, faith or just mere coincidence, the three founders met through their mutual passion for Haute Horlogerie. Although their Dutch no-nonsense roots allowed them to connect well from the start, they cannot be more diverse in anything else.
Pim Koeslag (1981), the Benjamin of the three, attended watch-making school in Amsterdam after which he did several internships at some of the most renowned watch brands in the world. When offered employment at most of them, he decided to work for a small and lesser known watch company in Geneva that allowed him more freedom to experiment and develop new technologies: Frédérique Constant. With an age of only 28 springs young, there is a lot more we can expect from Pim! Pim is married and has two sons in the age between 0 and 3 years old.
Robert van Pappelendam (1969) finalized his law study at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, after which he changed course and started a marketing career at Procter & Gamble, a leading fast moving consumer goods company, lastly as a Global Brand Franchise Leader in their Haircare division. For this company, he worked in Rotterdam, Brussels, Cincinnati USA, Geneva Switzerland and Singapore. Since 2002 he has been active in the board of advisors of Frédérique Constant SA, Geneva. Robert is married and has 4 children in the ages between 3 and 9 years old.
Peter Stas (1963) studied Economy at the Erasmus University Rotterdam and after several internships, he started his professional career at Philips Electronics in the Netherlands. He moved to Asia to take a commercial leadership role for the consumer electronics division out of Hong Kong. In 1988, he was the initiator and founder of Frédérique Constant, currently one of the leading Swiss watch manufacturers in the affordable luxury segment. Peter is married and has 2 children aged between 10 and 15 years.

To be Continued…..

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Monaco General

From the Master Horlogier

Posted on by ATELIERS DEMONACO
07
Mar

Watchmaking anno 2010 – an art or a science?

Nowadays, a lot of innovation brought to the market are masterful pieces of engineering that do not always work as well. Double Tourbillon, triple axes…It sometimes feels that form has taken over from function. Although we do get excited by these master pieces of engineering, we can also still get very excited by a movement that actually works, and works very well and very precise. Function first! We got a lot of inspiration from Henry Royce that set out with a very similar vision when he created the foundation for the Rolls Royce brand as we know it today.
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So when we are in technical meetings and people get overexcited by the solutions or new technical inventions, I often ask: “So what is the problem we are trying to solve with this new technology?”

Thus, when we were working on our Grand Tourbillon XP1, the issue at hand was clear. The TB is invented to deliver higher precision than a normal mechanical watch. However, the vertical positions have variations of amplitude and precision caused by the TB cage itself. But we felt there was an opportunity to minimize the force used for the escapement in the cage, and if we could eliminate oil or grease in the escapement with the use of modern materials, then this would be a plus as well.

We believe we have made a huge step forward in the precision of the TB movement. Key enablers for the step forward have been our Patented Perfect Balance Cage and the silicium escape wheel and lever with silicium oxide coating to avoid unnecessary power and efficiency loss. We can guarantee all our movements between 0-2 seconds/24hours, and we have already produced one that did much better!
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Can we do better? The aim is to come as close to zero as possible, so we have a mechanical movement that is always accurate. Wouldn’t that be cool? We believe it is possible, and for sure it is a nice aim to pursue. 

Personally, I believe our Ateliers deMonaco watches are pieces of art, that have embraced modern science to make them also functional as perfect as possible. Like the painter who studies his subjects for a long time before he can reach the highest level of perfection, our pieces feel they get better and more perfect with time as well. Let’s talk in 20 years to see how close to our dream we could come.
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GTE

Geneva Time Exhibition 2010 has started!

Posted on by ATELIERS DEMONACO
19
Jan

What do you get if you pack 38 independent watch manufacturers in a venue and you allow them to talk about their watches and passion for the industry all day? Yes, the Geneva Time Exhibition! In a very relaxed atmosphere, the Geneva Time Exhibition has opened its doors since last Sunday to allow independent watchmakers to showcase their fruits of passion, and Ateliers deMonaco is a proud participant too.

Our stand at the GTE 2010

And from the moment the doors opened, we have had a constant stream of international visitors from press to retailers to end-consumers that share our passion, and were willing to listen and appreciate the stories behind the innovations and designs.

If you have the time and are in the neighborhood, it’s worthwhile to stop by.

The new Ronde d'Or Grand Tourbillon XP1 White Gold

During the GTE, we are giving a sneak preview of a big introduction that is planned for April, but you have to go and look for yourself, or keep a close track of our Blog and Facebook Fan page over the next weeks. More to come!

Master Horlogier Pim Koeslag with Passionists

GTE

Ateliers deMonaco starring at the Geneva Time Exhibition 2010

Posted on by ATELIERS DEMONACO

From Jan 17-22 Ateliers deMonaco will be present at the Geneva Time Exhibition 2010 (GTE). Launched for the first time in 2009, the GTE is organized for independent watchmakers to show off their new concepts, cutting-edge technology, up-to-date materials and high-precision movements. This year, 38 independent watch brands will exhibit their precious time pieces. Although watch industry professionals are the target group, passionate watch lovers are more then welcome too!

We hope to see and meet you at the GTE! If you are not able to come, look out for an impression of the fair in our blogs to come.

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The Independent Watchmaker’s Fair

from January 17-22, 2010

at the International Conference Center Geneva

Opening hours:

Sun 17 Jan2:00pm–8:30pm

Mon 18 – Thurs 21 Jan8:30am–8:30pm

Fri 22 Jan8:30am–5:00pm

For more information, visit www.geneva-time-exhibition.com or email [email protected].