# The Journey Behind The Creation Of My Own Chinese Watch Brand



## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

Hello everyone! 

I used to post quite frequently in the past on F72, but following a mixup with my credentials I was locked out of my account for a time and became more of WatchUSeek reader than poster. But today, I am back and planning a series of posts about the process of creating a watch brand in China. This is a topic close to my heart and I wish to draw from my personal experience going through this process to present something that I hope you'll all find compelling. Rather than focusing on my watches, the focus of the posts will be on the creative and entrepreneurial journey that underpins the creation of microbrands and my hope is that we can start a lively and enriching discussion around this (and that, too, it can help the ones of you who are contemplating starting your very own venture).

First, some quick background about myself and my interest for Chinese watches. I am from France, have studied in the UK and China and have been watching (terrible pun intended) and collecting Chinese watches since the ripe old age of 14. For the first few years, I grew my knowledge of the field and developed a passion for it. But it was not until 2014 that I can say became a true part of the community. Indeed, as I was studying at Renmin University in the summer of 2014, I chanced upon Ron Good (AlbertaTime) at the Beijing Watch Factory store in Wangfujing as he was on his annual trip to China. Sharing a common interest, we hit it off immediately and Ron was kind enough to spend the days that followed teaching me more about Chinese watches and introducing me to people in the field. That is how I came to meet Li Wei, one of the senior members of the China Horologe Association, who quickly became a mentor and a (very) good friend. A year later, as I came back to Beijing to study at Peking University, Li Wei and I developed a close relationship and he introduced me to a whole world of Chinese watchmaking, Chinese culture and baijiu (rice alcohol that would warm up an Inuit such that they'd think they were in Honolulu)! All these companies whose products I had been craving were suddenly open to me: Seagull, Beijing, Dandong, etc. had no secrets anymore. During that year, I became an official member of the China Horologe Association and learned more about China and Chinese watches than I ever expected.








_ Happy times
_
Whilst the thought had always been at the back of my mind, I started to think seriously about creating my own watches upon returning to the UK. I wanted to make use of all the knowledge and experience I acquired to create a high-quality Chinese watch brand that would draw from the best aspects of Chinese craftsmanship. The core idea, in my mind, is that Chinese watches can be of excellent standards, yet the "Made in China" label is still highly frowned upon in the West. As such, I thought that it would be great to create a product that is fully Chinese, openly Chinese, of great quality, and to sell it in the West to change people's perceptions and start improving the reputation of Chinese products. The opportunity arose at the end of my Bachelor's degree when I was speaking to my classmate and good friend, Wilfried. Wilfried is also from France, an entrepreneur at heart and having been born in Hong Kong and speaking fluent Chinese, an actual "China hand". He was immediately excited about the idea and, like that, we decided to embark on the adventure. Fast-forward one year and here we are :-d I myself am graduating from London Business School and Wilfried from the Schwarzman Scholars programme at Beijing's University of Tsinghua. In the meantime, we have had two greatly-talented Chinese designers join our team and work alongside us to bring this project to fruition. And indeed, prototypes of our year-old brainchild are actually being produced right now. The journey has been fascinating and exhilarating, with some highs and lows, and I look forward to sharing it with you, hearing your comments and reading about your own experiences as well (it does not strictly have to be in the world of watchmaking; if some of you have some experience of manufacturing, designing in other sectors, and that you feel it is relevant... feel free to share and enrich the discussion).








_Wilfried_














_Li Mingliang and Liu Yuguan, our two designers_

In the coming weeks, I will be posting about my experience during this process following a thematic (e.g. design, manufacturing, working in China...) and chronologic approach. I hope that everyone will find the discussions interesting and that we, as an online community, can actively exchange on the topic of microbrand creation. If other microbrand owners wish to contribute, we could even have here some sort of compilation of advice and personal insights, which could prove truly valuable for the wider community

The first theme I will be talking about is manufacturing. It's quite tricky, which makes for interesting stuff. I will be posting about this in the coming days so stay tuned!

Have a nice day.

Robin.


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## williemored (Jul 14, 2015)

That's quite nice! Continue to blog, so we all know what goes in it.


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## HKwatchlover (Jun 2, 2017)

Thanks for sharing your journey! Very curious about your product, and I’d be supportive of a well made Chinese watch. 




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## AlbertaTime (Dec 27, 2008)

That photo brought back great memories, Robin!! Meeting you in Beijing and being able to make introductions for you was a real high point in that year's visit for me. Things have turned out so well, my CHA colleague 

Looking forward to this series of articles!


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

AlbertaTime said:


> That photo brought back great memories, Robin!! Meeting you in Beijing and being able to make introductions for you was a real high point in that year's visit for me. Things have turned out so well, my CHA colleague
> 
> Looking forward to this series of articles!


Thanks, Ron! It was a real high point in my whole life so far  I'm sad we couldn't see each other this year in Beijing, but I am happy though that you got to meet Wilfried. And hopefully, from next year on, I should spend way more time in the Middle Kingdom, so meeting will be far easier!  Thank you, I hope you will like them!



williemored said:


> That's quite nice! Continue to blog, so we all know what goes in it.


Thanks a lot! I, for sure, will; the next post is coming very soon, just a few tweaks here and there and then I will upload it. I hope you'll enjoy reading it, and hopefully it will give you a good insight on the world of watch manufacturing in China.



HKwatchlover said:


> Thanks for sharing your journey! Very curious about your product, and I'd be supportive of a well made Chinese watch.


Thank you for the nice words. I really hope you will like it; it took us more than a year, two designers, and extensive travels across China to design our watches (and to ensure a quality level that will be super, super high) 

Have a nice day.

Robin.


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## LCheapo (Jul 14, 2010)

Looking forward to reading more on this!


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## Disneydave (Jan 17, 2016)

I'm excited to read and I'm sure I'm in for a purchase. 

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk


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## monsieurxu (Jun 2, 2012)

Congrats Robin! I'm looking forward to owning one (or more) of your watches


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

LCheapo said:


> Looking forward to reading more on this!


Thank you! Hope you'll find it interesting 



Disneydave said:


> I'm excited to read and I'm sure I'm in for a purchase.


Thank you! I really hope the watches will live up to your expectations. Hope that you will enjoy the read too ;-)



Monsieurxu said:


> Congrats Robin! I'm looking forward to owning one (or more) of your watches


Thank you Ben! Your praises means a lot to me ;-)

So... today, I will talk about manufacturing!

This post will be more like a general introduction to the world of manufacturing, presenting some of the key points it is necessary to take into account and think about when one wants to get watches manufactured in China. I hope you will like it. In the next post, I will talk more about our actual experience, the main difficulties we faced, how we overcame them&#8230; etc.

Despite having had a strong exposure to the industry, I had quite a flawed vision of it. I thought that the most accurate way to "structure" it was according to whether a player was a "true" manufacture or not. How wrong was I. There are only 2, possibly 3, truly, fully vertically-integrated watch manufacturers in China. So, the way it works instead, is that you have movement manufacturers on the one hand (Seagull, Shanghai, Dandong, etc.) - and they are spread all across the country - and other components producers, mainly located around the Shenzhen area. You would be surprised to know that huge companies, such as the Liaoning Dandong Watch Factory, which offer full OEM services, still only manufacture movements and subcontract all the other components to companies located around Shenzhen/Guangdong Province.

Another truly important dichotomy relates to the approach you wish to adopt in regard to manufacturing. Roughly speaking, there are two possibilities offered to you. You can either go to a "one-stop-shop" in HK/Shenzhen (Full Swing, for instance, is a famous one) or you can choose to build your supply chain from scratch. The first option is easier somehow, you just go to the company with your designs, and then, they will take care of pretty much everything for you. Some of them do a lot of activities in-house (case, dials and assembly), others will just do assembly but have their supply chains "ready at hand". The second option allows for more flexibility, since you, basically, individually choose all of your suppliers (i.e. you decide who will be your case supplier, dial supplier, hands supplier, crystal supplier, etc.). The reverse of the medal nevertheless is that it is fairly time-consuming to build your own supply chain, and that speaking fluent Chinese is a requirement. Not only you have to, in the first place, find some companies that match your quality standards, but you also need to invest some time in order to build solid business relationships with these entities. This often involves travelling to their site, but I will talk about this in more details later on, when I bring up the topic of "working in China". Because of the very unique and novel nature of our watches, having very high quality is core to our offering. As such, we have decided to pursue the second option; we believed that is was the only way to ensure that all our components were truly matching our high quality standards. If I remember correctly, I think that Orange Watch Company was also proceeding that way.

I should state, as well, that there is a third "route" for manufacturing, albeit a very minor one: going to one of the few, truly vertically-integrated manufactures. The issue though is that Seagull tends to have high MOQ, and that the Beijing Watch Factory, which has a very high quality standard, is now owned by Fiyta, which makes it tough to get to work with them. Ben from Maison Celadon was quite lucky and smart in the sense that he started his collaboration with them before they got acquired ;-)

Something very important, I believe, is to be flexible and able to "shop around". I cannot stress that enough. It is truly key to talk to different suppliers at the same time, to ask for quotes and to ask for samples. Not only will it give you a sense of true market price (if there is any such thing hahaha) and feasibility for a component, but the way, as well, your interlocutor interacts with you, his/her promptness, flexibility&#8230; are all substantially important. It may sound like a fairly basic business advice, but, still, I am aware that, sometimes, it may be tempting to settle with the first manufacturer that seems roughly adequate. If you feel like it is not truly what you envisioned for your product, that it is unreasonably expensive, that the person is taking way too long to reply&#8230; Just move on, and look for someone else. The watch industry in the Shenzhen area is tremendous, so you will definitely find a more suitable party.

The last point I want to mention today relates to one key limiting factors: feasibility. Usually, pretty much anything is doable in China, yet, the more "exotic" your components, the more complex and time-consuming it will be to find suppliers TRULY able to do what you desire. You therefore have to balance the additional attractiveness stemming from your rarely-seen-on-the-market components with the associated search costs. These search costs take the form, of course, of monetary costs (because you need to fly here and there to visit factories, to establish good bonds with their owners, etc.), but as well of potential delays, less time available to deal with other issues, higher likelihood of gentle screw-up during production stage, and stronger risk of disappointing customers. So, when you are still at the planning stage, think about this point carefully, and integrate a generous buffer in your overall planning. Our watches make use of porcelain dials and (true) heat-blued hands, and, God forbids, it was truly arduous to find suppliers actually able to deliver what we wanted, at a very high quality level. We finally did, but it took us a lot of time. I will touch more upon this in the next post.

I hope you enjoyed this introduction to the world of manufacturing! *Any questions, additional points, anecdotes&#8230; are all welcome. * :-d

In my next post, I will detail how we ACTUALLY dealt with manufacturing, and will touch upon our main difficulties and challenges, and how we solved them. Spoiler: it will include some pictures of the Dandong Watch Factory. Stay tuned!

Have a nice day.

Robin.


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

Hello everyone,

In this post, I will tell you how we dealt with manufacturing, and how we moved from literally nothing back in September 2017, to a complete supply chain and a final prototype that will soon be ready as I am writing these lines. In the next post, I will eventually unveil the watches and explain our design philosophy and approach.

First thing first, a bit of context. Back in September, Wilfried and myself have both graduated from undergrad, and we are about to embark onto our next academic journey: Schwarzman Scholars at Tsinghua in Beijing for Wilfried, and London Business School for myself. The concept behind our brand is somewhat fixed; we know that we want to produce premium watches that are openly Chinese, and which have a strong Chinese design influence. So far so good. 

At this time, there are two big questions looming ahead of us: a. how are we going to take care of our products' design, in a professional manner? And b. how are we going to get our watches made? At first, I candidly believed that we would go to Seagull or Beijing WF, but, as outlined in my previous post, things are not that easy. So, what did we do? :think:

I expected a linear progression, but actually, it was not the case at all. Very quickly, though, we identified that we needed to start the process by choosing a movement, as this would then influence everything else. One of the fixed design feature was the presence of a small second at 6 O'clock, and given that I wanted an automatic movement, there were actually very little options available. There was, on one hand, the venerable Seagull ST16, and despite being of high quality, I did not want it because of its relatively low frequency (21,600 BPH). The other alternative was to go to Dandong Peacock, which supplied the movement of the last forum project and of the dual crown one. A tear-down of the Peacock SL3000 by Christian Danneman ( Comparison: Sea-Gull ST2130, ETA 2824-2, Peacock SL3000 | Watch Guy ) as well as various praises from industry insiders in Beijing and Shanghai convinced me to pursue that route. Hence, we settled on the Peacock SL3006, an ETA 2824-2 clone with an added platter to allow for a small second at 6 O'clock. It counts 32 jewels, and beats at 28,800 BPH. We ordered one straight away from Dandong, and handed it to a watchmaker friend of mine so as to test its accuracy and reliability. His verdict was excellent, and he had no issues fine-tuning it to a very narrow deviation range. So, the SL3006, it is! ;-)

















































We then took the approach that it was more sensible to dedicate most of our times to sourcing the components that are the toughest to find. In our case, there were two of them: the heat-blued hands and the porcelain dials.

We contacted many factories specialised in the production of either hands or dials, but in pretty much all cases, the results were deeply unsatisfactory. All the factories which advertised their capacity to produce porcelain dials did, in fact, simply apply a layer of polish on a brass/plastic base so as to imitate the look of porcelain - truly not what we were looking for. We wanted the genuine thing, the one that is actually cooked in an oven at 1400°C. We even went to Jingdezhen, China's capital of porcelain making. There, we met many factories producing actual porcelain, yet none of them had experience in the watch industry. One was willing to take up the challenge, and the price they were offering, around RMB300 per dial (or USD 45) was somehow adequate. Bear in mind, that this is A LOT for a watch dial. If you want some comparisons, most Omega and Zenith dials have a unit cost that is much smaller than that (this comes from a friend who had access for a long time to the two brands' supply chain). The quality of the product, though, was really good, and there was a lot of manual work involved. However, after some tests, we realised that it was way too fragile for the purpose of a watch dial&#8230; Back to square one. o|o|

To be frank with you, at this point, we were starting to feel a bit lost. I was adamant on the fact that I wanted a high-quality porcelain dial, but it was just so hard to find. In February, the Dandong Peacock Watch Factory invited us for a facility tour, as we have some good and friendly relationships with them. I was in London and very busy with exams, so I could not go. But Wilfried and the designers did (and I have to say that I was a bit jealous :roll::roll: ). Here are some pictures:








_Everything starts at Beijing Station!_








_The beginning of a 14-hour-long journey..._








_Nice view from the train. We are getting very close to Dandong._








_Some last details to sort out before the visit..._
















_We discovered Li Mingliang's taste for sleep! :-d_








_The manufacture's reception desk. Unfortunately, we are not allowed to post pictures taken on the production lines and assembly rooms._
























_The whole site is of substantial size..._
















_They even have a small museum!_








_A large-scale reproduction of one of their tourbillon movements_








_Here, you can see some double tourbillons._








_Dandong is otherwise quite a modern city._
















_It has a certain "revolutionary" heritage..._








_Here's the reason. Obviously, we will not go to the other side of the bridge..._
















_Treasure from the past._








_Diner with some of the manufacture managers._
















_Everyone is completely exhausted and worn-out. These were two very intense days. Unfortunately, they will only have seats for the return journey!_

The company was very kind to us, and appeared very reassuring as well. The directors told us that most of what we aim to do should be doable, and promised to leverage on some of their network in order to find us some adequate suppliers. Very kind of them  b-)|>

A month later, they came back to us and told us that they found a solution for the heat-blued hands. I forgot to mention, but all the hands factories we had talked to beforehand would only provide ion-plated blue hands, or, even worse, painted ones. Again, truly not what we wanted. The prices of our newly-found hand supplier were high, around 20 times the one of "normal" hands. Still, we are here to create a premium Chinese watch (at an affordable price though) with high-end features, not to cut corners and bring a sub-par product. Thus, we agreed, and proceeded with them. One challenge cleared! :-d:-d

In Easter, I had a lengthy school break, so I headed to Beijing in order to speed-up some work (working long distance between London and Beijing was sometimes not truly convenient). The dial issue was still not solved, and after discussing with Wilfried, we agreed that the best was to send him to Shenzhen so that he could meet some of our suppliers, and ask them for help in locating an adequate porcelain dial maker. We decided to do so, because sorting out issues in person instead of over the phone/emails is much more efficient in China.








_Food, food, food :-d_
















_While in Beijing, we also started shooting our Kickstarter video  _









_Some more touristic views:_








































_This is in the former foreign legation area of Beijing. Very quiet, and perfect for an afternoon stroll._

There, he embarked into a factory visit marathon, and, when touring our assembler facilities (which is no other than&#8230; Fiyta!), the director advised him that they were, too, trying to launch a porcelain dial line under their own brand. Given their power and size (Fiyta belongs to AVIC, and as such, they have no liquidity issues), they had no trouble convincing a factory to produce what they required. They kindly offered us to use their exclusive supplier, which we, of course, accepted. Another challenge cleared! 








































_This is NOT our case, but just something that the factory happened to be producing when Wilfried was there._

At this point, our supply chain was finally ready, and we could thus commence producing prototypes. Before giving the go-ahead, we still had some tiny issues to solve with technical drawings, but as soon as these were sorted out, we happily launched the process. And right now, I am pleased to say that they should be completed in less than three weeks  Can't wait!

I'll end this post with a picture of something that we have received recently... The caseback mould! 









Have a nice day, everyone!

Robin.


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## Chascomm (Feb 13, 2006)

Did you say that Fiyta is your assembler? You surely are very well connected!

Thank you for the unique insights into the process, and also the tourist photos :-!


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## AlbertaTime (Dec 27, 2008)

Robin, besides being painfully jealous of the Liaoning factory visit and the plainly delicious food you're showing--and Hi! to Li Wei!--this is a truly spectacular post. Very broadly informative, and you really captured the magic that can happen when business in China is done face-to-face and with respect and passion to accomplish something. All that and a bunch of cool location shots!


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## manchette (May 7, 2017)

Hello ;=)
This looks like a really fun and great journey, thank you for sharing this


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## JohnBPittsburgh (Jun 18, 2017)

This is awesome!!! Thank you for sharing your journey!! Will continue to follow and see the final production piece


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## Toothbras (Apr 19, 2010)

Awesome photos and congratulations on figuring out some of the logistics involved with this process. Kudos to you on not compromising on your mission to find true blued hands and porcelain dials. 

Add the link to your kickstarter when it’s ready, would love to participate and support your endeavors


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## Daniel Hunt (Sep 21, 2016)

Very very informative and interesting. Thank you for sharing, and please, keep posting!


Daniel


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## atxdivebezel (Apr 21, 2018)

This is easily the most captivating thread on this forum currently!


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

Chascomm said:


> Did you say that Fiyta is your assembler? You surely are very well connected!
> 
> Thank you for the unique insights into the process, and also the tourist photos :-!


Glad that you enjoyed it. I think there was also quite a bit of luck involved in the process  And I have to say that Wilfried is excellent at pitching his ideas, so he sure made an excellent job when talking to them.



AlbertaTime said:


> Robin, besides being painfully jealous of the Liaoning factory visit and the plainly delicious food you're showing--and Hi! to Li Wei!--this is a truly spectacular post. Very broadly informative, and you really captured the magic that can happen when business in China is done face-to-face and with respect and passion to accomplish something. All that and a bunch of cool location shots!


Thank you so much, Ron! Well, I am quite jealous too of all the wonderful places, people and food that you show in your posts  What I really love about watches is that it is highly unifying... It allows for very different people to find a common ground, something that they all equally enjoy and care about. And that's truly amazing, how it can bridge some otherwise large cultural gaps. When I think about it, I find it impressive how I can hang out with Li Wei, someone who is, objectively, radically different from myself. But still, because of that common passion, there is a reason and... that's so cool.



manchette said:


> Hello ;=)
> This looks like a really fun and great journey, thank you for sharing this


Well, thank you for taking the time to read it  Yes, definitely. It was a bit scary at the beginning, but then it's really wonderful to learn lots of new skills, to develop some very strong friendships, and to see your watches coming to life.



JohnBPittsburgh said:


> This is awesome!!! Thank you for sharing your journey!! Will continue to follow and see the final production piece


Thank you!! Yayyy, I'm glad! The next post, about the design process, will come soon. Stay tuned!



Toothbras said:


> Awesome photos and congratulations on figuring out some of the logistics involved with this process. Kudos to you on not compromising on your mission to find true blued hands and porcelain dials.
> 
> Add the link to your kickstarter when it's ready, would love to participate and support your endeavors


Thank you, that's really kind of you. It's tough sometimes not to compromise, because you literally spend a very large amount of time and some great efforts, but still see no results. Then I believe that if you compromise, even only once, it can be the beginning of a negative spiral, leading to, in the end, something that is not what you had envisioned. So we stick to our vision, even when it's painful to do it.



Daniel Hunt said:


> Very very informative and interesting. Thank you for sharing, and please, keep posting!
> 
> Daniel


Thank you! Glad you liked it, and, of course, I will 



atxdivebezel said:


> This is easily the most captivating thread on this forum currently!


Wow, that's kind  Thank you very much! Stay tuned for the next post, coming up soon


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## Clandestine-Camel (Dec 5, 2016)

Great thread! Very informative and well written. Funny enough I have spent a bit of time in the Middle East and had the chance to link up with my uncle as he traveled back and forth between China and the States. My uncle is head of international QC for a major beverage brand and is always working to find new suppliers in China and India for vending machines, refrigerators, etc for his brand. We have had many lengthy discussions of managing QC for vending machines and the like. Based on some of his stories I can only imagine some of the struggles you've had with manufacturing a fine quality time piece. Kudos and best of luck.


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## dwczinmb (May 28, 2018)

Subscribed and very interested 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk


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## manchette (May 7, 2017)

I'd be interested also to learn how you decided to position your watches,: is luxury the only way to be distinguished amongst others products ? Were you not afraid of a too high price ?
A low margin (amongst other things) allows a low price, and (maybe) more sales, i guess that it might be hard to find the right price for a new product.


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## Illyria (Jan 28, 2012)

The case back is fantastic.


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## Wilfried (Aug 2, 2018)

Hi everyone!

My name is Wilfried, I am Robin's partner who's been coordinating design and production from China. I hope you all enjoy and benefit from the small exposes we're communicating and I will be happy to answer any questions relating to designing, producing or, just generally, starting a watch project in China.

Looking forward to the development of this thread 

Wilfried


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## Wilfried (Aug 2, 2018)

Quick bonus picture! My Zuanshi watch that Robin and I found in Beijing's Panjiayuan market the other day... wears nicely and has some very pleasing volume on the dial with the applied indexes and logo!


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## AlbertaTime (Dec 27, 2008)

Wilfried said:


> Quick bonus picture! My Zuanshi watch that Robin and I found in Beijing's Panjiayuan market the other day... wears nicely and has some very pleasing volume on the dial with the applied indexes and logo!


I have never seen a red diamond Zuanshi before. It looks _great_.


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## Sergei T. (May 30, 2018)

Just subscribed to this thread, very interesting! keep us updated


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

Clandestine-Camel said:


> Great thread! Very informative and well written. Funny enough I have spent a bit of time in the Middle East and had the chance to link up with my uncle as he traveled back and forth between China and the States. My uncle is head of international QC for a major beverage brand and is always working to find new suppliers in China and India for vending machines, refrigerators, etc for his brand. We have had many lengthy discussions of managing QC for vending machines and the like. Based on some of his stories I can only imagine some of the struggles you've had with manufacturing a fine quality time piece. Kudos and best of luck.


Hey, thanks for the kind words and for recounting a bit of your personal experience. QC is actually quite tough to manage, especially since we have to deal with nine different suppliers. I guess, though, that there are two, maybe three things that can be done. The first one is having very, very precise requirements and specifications. I felt that the more we specified exactly what we wanted, the less there was room for interpretation, and, thus, disappointment. The second one is having an excellent final assembler who is also experienced with international companies QC policies. That's why we were so delighted when Fiyta accepted to work with us: they have very strict standards; everything is detailed in lengthy documents with all the different points to check and narrow associated ranges of tolerance. The last thing is to build some honest business relationships with your counterparts. Most people I have encountered or dealt with in China were honest, and wanted to do their jobs very well. It is just that, sometimes, to do what you personally want, there may be some cheaper/faster ways... If nevertheless you know your business partners well, and the opposite is true too, they will know your preferences, understand what kinds of things you want, etc.  But this takes time, and it involves lots of "socialising times" in order to make the relationships stronger.



dwczinmb said:


> Subscribed and very interested
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk


Thank you  Hope you'll like today's post 



manchette said:


> I'd be interested also to learn how you decided to position your watches,: is luxury the only way to be distinguished amongst others products ? Were you not afraid of a too high price ?
> A low margin (amongst other things) allows a low price, and (maybe) more sales, i guess that it might be hard to find the right price for a new product.


Interesting question  I'm not sure luxury would work just yet; while perceptions and attitudes towards Made in China goods are improving, I still think that it is quite early for a Kering-like priced openly Chinese watch. I mean, I'm sure there would be some sales, but it would be quite slow... One of our targeted segments is the "watch aficionados" one, and you may, at first, feel that they would appreciate a product in an "objective" way, i.e. for its characteristics and specifications. This is what I thought, too. Recently, Tan Zehua, one of China's greatest independent watchmakers, a candidate to join the AHCI, and the inventor of his very own kind of escapement (di-axial), submitted one of his creations for the GPHG. I made a small thread about it on a leading French watch forum, and, when I disclosed that it was selling for slightly more than 30,000 CHF, people started being quite negative. So yes, there is still a strong emotional bias linked with Chinese products. I would love to be proved wrong though.

Hence, we decided to position ourselves more in the "premium" price-segment, i.e. between $500 and $1000. There are a few reasons why we can't really go below $500. The first one, I believe, has to do with price as a signalling mechanism. In a nutshell, it is tough, very much so, to credibly sell ourselves as premium while being below $500. People wouldn't believe it, and would put us in the same league as some cheaper watches. This is not a place where we want to be, because I feel that watches there are somehow being "commoditized"; people look mainly at the specifications and then compare them on a like for like basis. There, branding, design effort, research... bear very little importance. The second reason is simpler, and it is linked to costs. Having genuine porcelain dials, heat-blued hands... all of these are super costly, and, at our price, the margins are already tiny. So below, we just wouldn't be able to break-even.



Illyria said:


> The case back is fantastic.


Thank you! Wait for the final pictures; it looks even better 



Sergei T. said:


> Just subscribed to this thread, very interesting! keep us updated


Thank you very much for your support! I will show some of our prototype pictures very soon 

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Hello everyone!

Last time, I explained you how we dealt with manufacturing and detailed some of the challenges we faced. Today, I will mainly talk about design. It may, at the onset, seem like a much simpler and straightforward activity, but, trust me, it is not.

Before we even started sketching in the most draft-like way, a few months elapsed. Did we just stay idle for so long? Not at all! We brainstormed quite heavily, because I deemed that our designs needed to be both *coherent* and *relevant*. Coherent with our brand identity, and relevant to the market. What do these mean? *Coherence*, for me, was about creating a product that is the execution, the realisation of the brand's ethos. We thought quite substantially about our purpose, about the reasons why we were doing all this, and, quite simply, I wanted our watches to be the embodiment of such mission. *Relevance* is about creating an object that will fit the market's tastes and needs. For me, this was to be achieved through a perfect, high-level manufacturing execution (i.e. making a flawless watch with a high-end finish), through a common "killer feature", and finally, through the presence of a "magic touch" (i.e. something small that will add some sparkle to the end product). I am separating the two axes of thinking here for explanation purpose, but, of course, in the real course of things, they occurred simultaneously.

I will thus start with our brand identity and what we stand for. We defined our mission as "_redefining Chinese chic_" and our purpose as "i_mproving perceptions of Chinese products in the West_". So, one of the key governing principle behind our products is to provide responses to the question of _what a modern Chinese design is_. We envision it in a way where each of our watches is actually one possible answer to the aforementioned interrogation. The good thing, though, with the question of what constitutes a modern Chinese design is that it is an open-ended one, with no preconceived answer, and, as such, a very wide creative freedom.

So, for this first collection, we told ourselves: "_what if we could go back to the roots of modern Chinese watchmaking, but do things differently?_". Like many of you already know, the very first Chinese wristwatch was made in 1955 in Tianjin, and it was a copy of a Swiss 15-jewels Simca. If you have a look at early Chinese wristwatches, you will notice a very strong European influence on the designs. Many of the elements that were ubiquitous on timepieces from the Old Continent in the 1950s found their way to the dials of the first series of watches that the nascent watch industry of the Middle Kingdom was churning out. Guilloché dials, applied indices and markers, railroad tracks (sometimes), printed concentric circles, etc. &#8230; they were all there!

Thus, the first thing we decided our watches ought to have was elements from Swiss and French watches from the 1950s. Two particularly stood out in our minds, mainly for personal taste reasons: applied markers and railroad track on the outer of the dial. I'm a big sucker for applied markers, especially the so-called "hour dots". They used to be very present in the 1950s, but now they are truly hard to find. One of my biggest regrets in my "watch collector life" was to never get a Beijing Zhufeng first generation; the dozen-or-so of applied hour dots has an hypnotic-like effect on me. As for the railroad track, we did not want to use it "as is"; no, there was a need to re-explore it through the lenses of our brand, and to make it ours. We did this by using a style of patterns called Huiwen (回纹). Though they were originally used as an omen of wealth and good fortune, with time, their purpose became mainly decorative. As a quick anecdote, the actual pattern that we ended up using on the dial is the adaptation of a particularly elegant one that Wilfried spotted on a mother-of-pearl box in the Chinese art section of National Seoul Museum!








_The Wuxing, the very first wristwatch fully made in China_








_Huiwen pattern_








_The box that Wilfried spotted_

We then wondered about how to make the design more Chinese, without being caricature-like, cluttered and unbalanced. The first feedbacks that we got from our earliest sketches was that that the designs were "too" Chinese, too much "in your face". We, back then, had Chinese characters as indexes, but given this feedback, we realised that it was not adequate. We therefore opted for a subtler way to incorporate this Chinese aspect, which was to have a small second subdial at 6 O'clock with Chinese characters.








_One of our earliest sketches. You may notice the Huiwen pattern on the outer of the dial as well as the small second subdial with Chinese characters._








_One of our earliest computer 3D render. At this time, our logo wasn't even ready yet!_

As we were wondering about the design of this subdial, we progressively came to the realisation that having just one model in our first collection may be a bit limiting. What if people don't like the colour (blue)? The dial layout? We cannot expect everyone to like it, and it would be such a shame to encounter individuals who fancy our brand concept but dislike our design. Hence, we believed that having a model with a more conventional dial colour (i.e. white) would be wise. The idea behind this model was to give centre stage to a fine Chinese craft, appreciated worldwide and practiced in China for over a thousand years - you've guessed it, porcelains. Here, we've used a blue and white colour scheme following the style of the most famous works of Chinese porcelain, the so-called Qinghua ci 青花瓷. From a structural perspective, we looked at « chronomètre » dials for inspiration - also quite popular and widespread in the 1940s/1950s. The result is a model with a strong personality - harking back to a millenary art and combining a solid structure with subtle aesthetics.








_Example of Qinghua ci kind of porcelain_








_One of the first render of the white model... Ouch, it wasn't very sexy back then!_

But then, if we are using porcelain for this model&#8230; why not using it for the first one as well? What is more, it would reinforce its Chinese aspect. So, we agreed that our first collection would be revolving around porcelain dials. We even named it "Porcelain Odyssey".

*The Blue Model*

Back to the design of the subdials, how did we deal with it? For the blue dial, the subdial is made up of different Chinese symbols and characters. These actually come from an old concept named Bagua (八卦) or « Eight Trigrams » which offers a structure, a canvas through which to interpret reality and has applications in numerous fields, ranging from Daoism to medicine and astronomy. If interested, you can find more details here! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagua. In our context, each symbol represents a direction (North, North-East&#8230 and each character a cardinal point. These directions reflect the sun's position in the sky and are thus also meant as indicators of the passage of time.

The characters in the central part are (starting from the bottom and going clockwise):
-坤 (Kun): Earth and North
-离 (Li): Fire and East
-乾 (Qian): Sky and South
-坎 (Kan): Water and West

This subdial therefore embodies a traditional representation of time that is linked to the sun's movements. It rises in the East, reaches its zenith up in the sky and eventually fades away towards the West, disappearing into the ground. You will also notice that the cardinal points are inverted as we use here an older version of Bagua named Bagua "Fuxi" where cardinal points are thus represented.

This subdial therefore displays an interesting aspect of traditional Chinese culture and thinking. Its value is for now more aesthetic than practical (we cannot yet do like Blancpain with its Chinese Calendar, though we'd like to get there!), but it serves as an acknowledgement of an interesting and quite fundamental cultural concept (it is actually used throughout the region in such places as Korea for example). All of the characters have been stylized by our designers and are also therefore, importantly, pretty nice to look at!









*The White Model*

On the white model, you will find again here a subdial using Chinese patterns, but this time, with a gripping asymmetry. What you can see are the traditional versions of the characters You酉 (top left) and Mao 卯 (bottom right), which represent the hours between 5PM and 7PM and between 5AM and 7AM respectively. These are used in an ancient time-measurement system called the "12 Earthly Branches" within which each branch represents a two-hour segment. Each character also corresponds to a different zodiac animal, a direction/cardinal point, a season and a month. You may find more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthly_Branches In addition, it looks pretty good!









For the hands, we went for a "leaf" design - simple, aesthetic, elegant.

*What about the final designs?*

There you go!

















































You now know about the relevance bit; what about the coherence one? Let's go back to the framework I explained earlier on.

High-level manufacturing execution: I already talked about this in my previous post; it was about building, from scratch, a supply chain that would be an embodiment of what finest can be manufactured in China.

Common killer feature: The porcelain dials! You can't find them below $1000&#8230; but our watches will cost less than that.

Magic touch: For the white model, it is the use of (genuine) heat-blued hands. Again, watches in our price range don't usually have such feature; it just costs too much to make. For the blue model, it is hand-applied markers and hour dots. Each of them is also silver-plated in order to reinforce the polished aspect. They have a nice and adequate volume; they are not flimsy and tiny.

The strap we use is made of high quality, premium calf leather (top grain and vegetable-tanned). We use a custom buckle, which we designed ourselves.

We now have the prototypes with us ;-) I will post some pictures here very soon, but, in the meantime, here are a few shots of our porcelain dials in the wild!

























Have a nice rest of the day, and see you very soon for the actual prototype pictures!

Robin.


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## andrea__81 (Jul 27, 2016)

Just found your thread and read it all! Very interesting, and lovely end result!
To be completely honest, though, I would find it difficult to choose between the two models, mostly due to the mutually exclusive "magic touches".
From one end, after reading about your epic journey to find heat-blued ends, it would be almost sad to revert to "simple" silver ones. On the other, however, those applied dots are so attractive! I'm wondering if many customers will have similar dilemmas. Maybe they will just buy both!
Good luck with the launch, I wish you a great success!

- - - Updated - - -

Just found your thread and read it all! Very interesting, and lovely end result!
To be completely honest, though, I would find it difficult to choose between the two models, mostly due to the mutually exclusive "magic touches".
From one end, after reading about your epic journey to find heat-blued ends, it would be almost sad to revert to "simple" silver ones. On the other, however, those applied dots are so attractive! I'm wondering if many customers will have similar dilemmas. Maybe they will just buy both!
Good luck with the launch, I wish you a great success!


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## mythless (Feb 21, 2016)

Beautiful design though, the Chinese aspect is quite subtle upon first glance. I've always preferred a full second hand over a sub second hand. 

I think it is good but, but I wished the Chinese aspect was more prominent.


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## time-lord (Jun 29, 2016)

welcome back and good luck


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## datou (Aug 2, 2017)

The white dial has an unique Chinese porcelain design and the blue one somehow reminds me of the 30s sector dial watches- hard to pick one! 

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk


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## datou (Aug 2, 2017)

May I ask what's the thought process you guys had while selecting the hands? I'm just curious to know if you guys had other options in mind before coming to this. 

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk


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## Chascomm (Feb 13, 2006)

Thank you for yet another insightful and informative post. You have opened my eyes to some of the more subtle aspects of the design process.


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## woodville63 (Dec 28, 2011)

Very nice! If I may, I'm finding the font of Atelier Wen too distracting. It's too much of a focus point for me. I have to make an issue of moving my eye from the brand-name to appreciate the beauty of the dial. I would prefer it smaller and lighter. Sorry, I have never been creative, I need things put in front of me to choose what I like so can't be more specific. Culturally, I also think it's wrong. I have plenty of Chinese friends from all over Asia and the one thing that has always endeared me to them is that they are happy not to be the centre of attention. Group trumps individuality. 

Maybe a font favoured by Swiss watches but smaller and lighter is my suggestion? I also find Atelier too pretentious for a Chinese-designed/manufactured watch. You go on .........s (Hint - fast train site) and see all sorts of names trying to add value to a cheap, throwaway watch. Your watch isn't a cheap throwaway so you don't need to embellish it to become tawdry by association. How about Workshop Wen to reflect China's position as the world's manufacturer?

I hope you see this as constructive suggestions. I'm a sample of one, so interested to see what others think.


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## 24h (Nov 11, 2017)

Great post, I'm loving the detailed info you're giving us along the way. Just subscribed!
I'd be very interested in seeing any details you have about the heat blued hands. Some images or the process to manufacture them :-! :-! :-!


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## mythless (Feb 21, 2016)

woodville63 said:


> Very nice! If I may, I'm finding the font of Atelier Wen too distracting. It's too much of a focus point for me. I have to make an issue of moving my eye from the brand-name to appreciate the beauty of the dial. I would prefer it smaller and lighter. Sorry, I have never been creative, I need things put in front of me to choose what I like so can't be more specific. Culturally, I also think it's wrong. I have plenty of Chinese friends from all over Asia and the one thing that has always endeared me to them is that they are happy not to be the centre of attention. Group trumps individuality.
> 
> Maybe a font favoured by Swiss watches but smaller and lighter is my suggestion? I also find Atelier too pretentious for a Chinese-designed/manufactured watch. You go on .........s (Hint - fast train site) and see all sorts of names trying to add value to a cheap, throwaway watch. Your watch isn't a cheap throwaway so you don't need to embellish it to become tawdry by association. How about Workshop Wen to reflect China's position as the world's manufacturer?
> 
> I hope you see this as constructive suggestions. I'm a sample of one, so interested to see what others think.


I kind of agree, using atelier is not to best to promote a Chinese watch. I think Wen or it's Chinese character would work. Or choosing a completely different name.


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

Chascomm said:


> Thank you for yet another insightful and informative post. You have opened my eyes to some of the more subtle aspects of the design process.


Thank you very much, Chascom! 



andrea__81 said:


> Just found your thread and read it all! Very interesting, and lovely end result!
> To be completely honest, though, I would find it difficult to choose between the two models, mostly due to the mutually exclusive "magic touches".
> From one end, after reading about your epic journey to find heat-blued ends, it would be almost sad to revert to "simple" silver ones. On the other, however, those applied dots are so attractive! I'm wondering if many customers will have similar dilemmas. Maybe they will just buy both!
> Good luck with the launch, I wish you a great success!


I'm glad that you enjoyed the read; I hope you will like the future "episodes" equally! Hahah yes, that's a dilemma that some other people are facing as well. We talked about the project to some French watch collectors, and we observed the following behavioural pattern happen. It's quite funny, because it would be either they very clearly know, straight from the beginning which one they want, or, like you, they are, roughly equally, split between the two of them and struggling (but it's a nice struggle to have, isn't it?). And a few of them indeed were talking about getting both; that's what I would have done as well, but I am not in the most objective and neutral position, dare I say it. Kidding aside, my personal preference goes for the blue model; as much as I like the heat-blued hands (and as much as I have struggled to find them), from a purely aesthetical standpoint, the applied hour dots win my heart. And I'm a sucker for blue dials.



mythless said:


> Beautiful design though, the Chinese aspect is quite subtle upon first glance. I've always preferred a full second hand over a sub second hand.
> 
> I think it is good but, but I wished the Chinese aspect was more prominent.


Thank you for your message and feedback! In our earliest sketches, the Chinese aspect was more preeminent (think applied characters as hour markers), but the feedback that we unanimously got was that it was too much. I feel that the perceptions towards Made in China are evolving, but still, lots of people do not want something that looks "too" Chinese. Maybe as well it is simply about design equilibrium and balance? i.e. people are not attracted to "excessive" things? One of the positive aspects I see in our designs, though, is that once you know about the cultural reference, it can somehow still feel very Chinese to the wearer... and a bit more subtle to the outside audience.



time-lord said:


> welcome back and good luck


Thank you very much 



datou said:


> The white dial has an unique Chinese porcelain design and the blue one somehow reminds me of the 30s sector dial watches- hard to pick one!
> 
> Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk





datou said:


> May I ask what's the thought process you guys had while selecting the hands? I'm just curious to know if you guys had other options in mind before coming to this.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk


Thank you! Yes, that was part of the inspiration. Here is an earlier sketch:









As for the hands, yes, let me tell you more. To keep up with the kind of aesthetic we wanted, we very quickly noticed that only two kinds of hands would work well with such design: dauphine and leaf. Why not others? Our dials are not that busy, hence having thinner hands would have given rise to a kind of "emptiness" impression. Larger ones, on the other hand, would not have fit well with our dressy aesthetic. Why leaf over dauphine? A few reasons, again. The first one has to do with personal tastes; I prefer the former over the latter. The second one is that, currently, there is only one other brand making quality, openly Chinese watches: Maison Céladon. And they use dauphine hands; thus, I thought that it wouldn't be fair to them, if in our first models we used them as well. Lastly, our dial aesthetic is fairly smooth, and thus I thought that having something too angular would be too much of a contrast. So, we went for the equally smooth leaf hands. They are coherent, simple and elegant.



woodville63 said:


> Very nice! If I may, I'm finding the font of Atelier Wen too distracting. It's too much of a focus point for me. I have to make an issue of moving my eye from the brand-name to appreciate the beauty of the dial. I would prefer it smaller and lighter. Sorry, I have never been creative, I need things put in front of me to choose what I like so can't be more specific. Culturally, I also think it's wrong. I have plenty of Chinese friends from all over Asia and the one thing that has always endeared me to them is that they are happy not to be the centre of attention. Group trumps individuality.
> 
> Maybe a font favoured by Swiss watches but smaller and lighter is my suggestion? I also find Atelier too pretentious for a Chinese-designed/manufactured watch. You go on .........s (Hint - fast train site) and see all sorts of names trying to add value to a cheap, throwaway watch. Your watch isn't a cheap throwaway so you don't need to embellish it to become tawdry by association. How about Workshop Wen to reflect China's position as the world's manufacturer?
> 
> I hope you see this as constructive suggestions. I'm a sample of one, so interested to see what others think.


Thank you for your nice words and feedbacks. We never take them badly, and are always interested in getting some - so thank you for that. I feel like I ow everyone here an explanation regarding our brand name and logo.

As I explained before, this is who we are and what we do:
_Goal_: Define/Create modern Chinese chic; provide answers to the question of what modern Chinese design is
_How?_: By re-exploring traditional Chinese design and craftsmanship through watches
_Why?: (purpose):_ To improve the perceptions of Chinese products in the West.

Why are we doing all this (the purpose behind the purpose)? This is, in a way, a reflection of our personalities - two French guys passionate about China, with a keen eye for modern fashion and art.

We wanted our brand name to reflect the brand's dual identity (this is a project led by both French and Chinese designers)- enter Atelier Wen. "Atelier" is French for "workshop" and "Wen" corresponds to the Chinese character for "culture": 文. Indeed, Wilfried and I both have a strong passion for China and its culture and thus we wanted this to be brand for exploring China's rich heritage and displaying it in a modern and novel form that everyone can enjoy. From there, the name formed organically into our current brand: Atelier Wen.

As an analogy, we want to follow in the footsteps of the Qipao - this iconic Chinese dress born at the intersection of Chinese tradition and Western design - but in the world of watches. Professor Xiangyang Bian, a scholar on Qipao, claims that it is a hybrid of traditional Chinese costumes and western costumes such as the waistcoat and one-piece dress, and which was born during the Republican period of China, when people were open to the western cultures.

To say that creating our logo was laborious would be an understatement. It had to be Chinese, yet subtle and tasteful rather than ostentatious and "in your face". It also could not simply be the character "Wen" as that would too simplistic and lacking in meaning. We wanted something refined, elegant, stylistically coherent, meaningful and most importantly, that reflected at a glance our entire brand identity. Tall order&#8230;

In the end, we found what we needed in the myth of Kunpeng (鲲鹏). This myth first appeared in Zhangzhou's Zhuangzi (4th Century BC), which along with the Daodejing is one of the two founding pillars of Daoism. It consists of a collection of fables, parables, allegories and anecdotes. Kunpeng 鲲鹏 is one of these.

Indeed, it is said that Kunpeng (鲲鹏) was a colossal bird with the ability to turn into a fish. The name of the fish was Kun鲲 (the radical of this character is Yu 鱼, for fish), while the name of the bird was Peng 鹏(similarly, the radical of this character is Niao 鸟, for bird), hence Kunpeng 鲲鹏. But more than by the colourful story, we were attracted by the symbolism of the myth.

















Kunpeng 鲲鹏 is used as an allegory of the concept of Yin Yang 阴阳 as Kun is said to come from the cold waters of the North, symbol of Yin 阴, whereas Peng 鹏 resides in the skies of the South, symbol of Yang 阳. Indeed, what Zhangzhou suggests is that dichotomies between good and evil, life and death, big and small, human and natural are in fact just the result of our perceptions rather than of fundamental difference. Rather than being separate entities, Kun 鲲 and Peng 鹏 are just two elements of one greater whole. Similarly, our goal with Atelier Wen is to break down these false perceptions and combine the experiences of East and West to form a greater whole.

We therefore stylised the character "Wen" 文 (those of you with a keen eye for calligraphy will be able to make it out!) so that its top part would be reminiscent of a bird and its lower part resemble a fish. We then reworked the shape of the outline and overall style to look like a traditional Chinese seal, albeit with a decisively modern feel and clean design. Encapsulated within this logo is therefore not only the defining character of our brand, Wen "文", but also the brand's mission to re-explore Chinese designs through diverse lenses told through the age-old myth of Kunpeng.

The result is below:











24h said:


> Great post, I'm loving the detailed info you're giving us along the way. Just subscribed!
> I'd be very interested in seeing any details you have about the heat blued hands. Some images or the process to manufacture them :-! :-! :-!


Thank you! I really like recounting our adventure as well, so it is a pleasure to see that you're enjoying reading it  As for more details regarding the heat-blued hands, sadly, I won't be able to give much more info... We did actually ask our supplier how they were doing it, but our question was answered by a flat yet polite: "business secret". The thing with heat blued hands is that, while everyone knows that you need to heat them in order to get them blued (you can even find online at which temperature exactly they turn blue), the big difficulty is to achieve a consistent shade of blue. Our supplier spent quite some time in R&D in order to develop this capability, and they don't want this to be replicated by one of their competitors... So they tend to be quite silent. They did though invite us to visit their production facilities, so when I'll do so in late October/early November, I'll take some pictures and post them here. Sorry for any disappointment (and I have to say that I'd be keen to know more, myself, as well) :-(

Here's a picture while you're waiting for the prototype ones:









Have a nice day, everyone!

Robin.


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## 24h (Nov 11, 2017)

Fandegrue said:


> Thank you! I really like recounting our adventure as well, so it is a pleasure to see that you're enjoying reading it  As for more details regarding the heat-blued hands, sadly, I won't be able to give much more info... We did actually ask our supplier how they were doing it, but our question was answered by a flat yet polite: "business secret". The thing with heat blued hands is that, while everyone knows that you need to heat them in order to get them blued (you can even find online at which temperature exactly they turn blue), the big difficulty is to achieve a consistent shade of blue. Our supplier spent quite some time in R&D in order to develop this capability, and they don't want this to be replicated by one of their competitors... So they tend to be quite silent. They did though invite us to visit their production facilities, so when I'll do so in late October/early November, I'll take some pictures and post them here. Sorry for any disappointment (and I have to say that I'd be keen to know more, myself, as well) :-(


Thanks for the reply, I understand the fact that they want to keep it secret.

Just thinking out loud:
I wonder if for large scale manufacturing like this, they simply have a very precise temperature controlled oven.
They could place all the perfectly cleaned/polished steel parts into the oven and slowly bring up the temperature. Once it reaches the specific temperature for the correct shade of blue, leave the parts in for a while so that a uniform temperature and color can be achieved.


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## laurens.leurs (May 8, 2018)

Best and most informative forum threat I’ve read in a long time! 
Cool idea to do this on the forum instead of linking to a blog on a company site.
With so much thought going into the design I am a bit surprised by the choice of a narrow and rather bland font for the numerals of the white dial. Narrow characters are fine when a lot of type needs to fit in a limited space. That is not the case here and the character’s shapes clash a bit with the many circles on the round dial. I’m interested in the thinking behind the choice of typeface.


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## andrea__81 (Jul 27, 2016)

One thing I am noticing upon closer inspection is that the railroad track of the white dial, while being attractive and unique, also allows to correctly identify the current minute. The one on the blue dial appear to be only ornamental. That would be a point in favor of the former. I always prefer my watches to combine function and aesthetics whenever possible.


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

andrea__81 said:


> One thing I am noticing upon closer inspection is that the railroad track of the white dial, while being attractive and unique, also allows to correctly identify the current minute. The one on the blue dial appear to be only ornamental. That would be a point in favor of the former. I always prefer my watches to combine function and aesthetics whenever possible.


I'll reply to the rest later (when I get back to my computer), but just a quick note regarding the Huiwen track on the blue dial: it is not only ornamental, but also functional  See the following illustration (excuse the crap quality - quick edit made on my phone): there are exactly five "portions" of equal size between each markers. Like you, I don't really like when things are solely ornamental.

I'm not trying to make choice tougher, of course, no 

Robin.









Envoyé de mon VTR-L09 en utilisant Tapatalk


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## woodville63 (Dec 28, 2011)

Love the logo - even more so with your explanation. I definitely don't like Atelier, sorry. Your logo and WEN coupled with the narrative behind it is excellent. Atelier gets in the way. I just bought mattresses from zzz atelier on ebay. He uses atelier to jazz up his name, you don't have to. Google shows a lot of businesses using it. Apologies for being a pain but it would be a deal-breaker for me, assuming I could afford one in the first place.

Forgot to say thank you for being so gracious.


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## andrea__81 (Jul 27, 2016)

Fandegrue said:


> I'll reply to the rest later (when I get back to my computer), but just a quick note regarding the Huiwen track on the blue dial: it is not only ornamental, but also functional  See the following illustration (excuse the crap quality - quick edit made on my phone): there are exactly five "portions" of equal size between each markers. Like you, I don't really like when things are solely ornamental.
> 
> I'm not trying to make choice tougher, of course, no
> 
> ...


Oh, ok, I see it now; each upper "bracket" surrounds two minutes. A bit less clear than the other, but it works


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## taipanbg (Apr 13, 2012)

Thanks for sharing. It was inspiration to read all


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## datou (Aug 2, 2017)

laurens.leurs said:


> Best and most informative forum threat I've read in a long time!
> Cool idea to do this on the forum instead of linking to a blog on a company site.
> With so much thought going into the design I am a bit surprised by the choice of a narrow and rather bland font for the numerals of the white dial. Narrow characters are fine when a lot of type needs to fit in a limited space. That is not the case here and the character's shapes clash a bit with the many circles on the round dial. I'm interested in the thinking behind the choice of typeface.


While I understand it might be difficult to introduce any Chinese or Eastern elements into the font selection, I do have to agree and feel as curious with laurens.leurs on the font selection.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

Excuse this Frenchman here: "Atelier" sounds weird to me in this context, though it's a French word. Or Swiss. Even from them, Oris new "Artelier" brand sounds bizarre, and a rather arrogant neologism!

On porcelain, it looks like French would-be China... from Limoges or even Sèvres Manufacture. Pretences on French roots, when the origin of high fire ceramic is Asia?

Isn't there a Mandarin, or Cantonese word to express the same idea of artsy workshop, or just Fire (the kilns for dials, and hands!), transliterated in Pidgin or any other system? We'd learn it fast!

From this here lover of Asian Celadon, please...


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## mythless (Feb 21, 2016)

PanKorop said:


> Excuse this Frenchman here: "Atelier" sounds weird to me in this context, though it's a French word. Or Swiss. Even from them, Oris new "Artelier" brand sounds bizarre, and a rather arrogant neologism!
> 
> On porcelain, it looks like French would-be China... from Limoges or even Sèvres Manufacture. Pretences on French roots, when the origin of high fire ceramic is Asia?
> 
> ...


There are characters to describe workshops, artist, etc. But, they are quite the mouthful and I think Robin is trying to find a name that is easy to pronounce while maintaining the Chinese image. Atelier Wen is not bad, I think Wen by it self (from my Chinese-ish perspective) is better.

If I can be completely honest. I think the best way to break the ceiling of stigma is to be proud of the Chinese aspect. Quality will always peak for itself. But, again, a tough bridge to cross.


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## Toothbras (Apr 19, 2010)

I think they are all gorgeous, especially the blue


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## Kromag (Nov 27, 2012)

This is a fascinating thread. Thanks for blogging about your whole process. 

I would like to ask about how you handled the concerns for durability. Since you are targeting high-quality (as opposed to luxury), I think that goes hand-in-hand with durability. The Germans are known for this; the Chinese (for exports at least) not so much. For example, Rolex recently switched case materials to a more durable alloy for Submariner. It would undermine your mission if this was not clearly part of the design. If I bought a high quality watch and it looked worn like current 90s Tags or worse for example, I would not carry forward the impression you are aiming to develop in Western consumers. 

As to the name and logo, I’d like to share my opinion, which you may disregard as you have sunk costs to consider. I mostly agree with others about the use of Atelier. I appreciate the authenticity of the backstory and the desire to connect with the West. I appreciate more the use of the term “culture” or Wen or both. It is simpler and leaves more to the imagination. Another criticism is the logo: again it’s poetic or inspired but should translate better into a simpler iconic statement. To me the logo is indistinctive or immemorable, especially without the backstory (to us Westerners at least).

It’s a wonderful exciting project, and a worthy endeavor. 

To your success,

Tony


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

24h said:


> Thanks for the reply, I understand the fact that they want to keep it secret.
> 
> Just thinking out loud:
> I wonder if for large scale manufacturing like this, they simply have a very precise temperature controlled oven.
> They could place all the perfectly cleaned/polished steel parts into the oven and slowly bring up the temperature. Once it reaches the specific temperature for the correct shade of blue, leave the parts in for a while so that a uniform temperature and color can be achieved.


This could be something like that. But then, I'm wondering as well, how do they "treat" each hands before they go to the oven? Are they simply polished, or is anything else done? Also, how do they do to achieve a very consistent shade of the blue throughout the hand? How is the heat distributed? The hands positioned? Still quite some mysteries left to be solved :-d I'll make sure though to update you with any findings I encounter when I visit my suppliers later in the year.



laurens.leurs said:


> Best and most informative forum threat I've read in a long time!
> Cool idea to do this on the forum instead of linking to a blog on a company site.
> With so much thought going into the design I am a bit surprised by the choice of a narrow and rather bland font for the numerals of the white dial. Narrow characters are fine when a lot of type needs to fit in a limited space. That is not the case here and the character's shapes clash a bit with the many circles on the round dial. I'm interested in the thinking behind the choice of typeface.


Hey, that's quite a compliment, Laurens! That's a legitimate question that you and @datou had, so let me explain you guys a little bit more  There are several reasons for the narrow characters. The first one is that I want them to balance with the outer track; if they were more substantial, then they wouldn't really be of the same size "standard". Now, you may ask me: "But, wait, Robin... Your watch is 39mm without crown, how come your dial is not larger?" This goes down to our movement. The Peacock SL3006 is basically a Peacock SL3000 (ETA 2824-2 clone) with an added platter in order to allow for a small second at 6 O'clock (this actually adds a lot of components; the jewel count jumps to 32 and the component one to 228)... As such, the movement is fairly thick. We did everything in our power to reduce the overall thickness of the watch, trimming every tenth of millimetre wherever it was possible. As a result, our watch is neither slim (below 9mm) or thick (above 12mm)... It stands in the middle, a bit like a Seiko Cocktail Time. In order to compensate for that, and to not convey a feeling of imbalance, it was necessary to reduce the dial aperture (by making the space occupied by the rehault greater)... hence the smaller dial!

The second reason is that I don't want the attention to be centred on the numerals, but rather on two other things: the small second subdial and the heat-blued hands.

Lastly, but that is maybe personal, to me, Chinese porcelain feels very delicate, subtle, frail, one could even say. In a way, when I see some, it somehow reminds me, all things considered, of some very gracious ballerina. I thought that having some narrow characters would reinforce that sentiment.



datou said:


> While I understand it might be difficult to introduce any Chinese or Eastern elements into the font selection, I do have to agree and feel as curious with laurens.leurs on the font selection.
> 
> Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk





woodville63 said:


> Love the logo - even more so with your explanation. I definitely don't like Atelier, sorry. Your logo and WEN coupled with the narrative behind it is excellent. Atelier gets in the way. I just bought mattresses from zzz atelier on ebay. He uses atelier to jazz up his name, you don't have to. Google shows a lot of businesses using it. Apologies for being a pain but it would be a deal-breaker for me, assuming I could afford one in the first place.
> 
> Forgot to say thank you for being so gracious.


Thank you! Hahah don't worry, your comment was funny (and I have checked ZZZ Atelier :-d ) I understand that feeling though that we can have regarding brandnames; it happens to me with some other brands too. Hmmmm, maybe if I show you lots and lots of prototype pictures, then you will get used to it (and you may become more merciful towards "Atelier" if your new mattress allows you to sleep well? hahah)?



andrea__81 said:


> Oh, ok, I see it now; each upper "bracket" surrounds two minutes. A bit less clear than the other, but it works


Could be a conversation starter? 



taipanbg said:


> Thanks for sharing. It was inspiration to read all


Thank you!!



PanKorop said:


> Excuse this Frenchman here: "Atelier" sounds weird to me in this context, though it's a French word. Or Swiss. Even from them, Oris new "Artelier" brand sounds bizarre, and a rather arrogant neologism!
> On porcelain, it looks like French would-be China... from Limoges or even Sèvres Manufacture. Pretences on French roots, when the origin of high fire ceramic is Asia?
> Isn't there a Mandarin, or Cantonese word to express the same idea of artsy workshop, or just Fire (the kilns for dials, and hands!), transliterated in Pidgin or any other system? We'd learn it fast!
> From this here lover of Asian Celadon, please...


A fellow Frenchman? Thank you for your message! I understand your point, but the thing is that, we can't have a fully Chinese name because, well, we're not fully Chinese! We are two French guys, collaborating with some Chinese designers to make watches in the Middle Kingdom. That is quite different from some nationals making watches in their own country. Our identity is fairly unique, we want it to be reflected in our brandname, and we want it to be understandable fairly quickly. What is more, I won't lie to you, but amongst non-WIS crowds, non-French speaking ones, the word "Atelier" has a positive connotation. Even in French, it is better seen than a Maison. The atelier works or is owned by the maison; it solely focuses on the crafts, on making the goods. All the selling, marketing activities are of the resort of the Maison. The atelier is just that humble little place where the emphasis is laid solely on craftsmanship, without any overly mercantilist preoccupation  That's quite personal, but I don't like much "deceiving" brandnames... A good example is Prêt in the UK; a fully French name but a completely British company. I felt that if we had a fully Chinese name it could have conveyed that we are a Chinese company, when in actual facts it is run by two French guys. I would have found that a bit...dishonest. ;-)



mythless said:


> There are characters to describe workshops, artist, etc. But, they are quite the mouthful and I think Robin is trying to find a name that is easy to pronounce while maintaining the Chinese image. Atelier Wen is not bad, I think Wen by it self (from my Chinese-ish perspective) is better.
> 
> If I can be completely honest. I think the best way to break the ceiling of stigma is to be proud of the Chinese aspect. Quality will always peak for itself. But, again, a tough bridge to cross.


Thanks for your comment, and you're quite right regarding the name  We are proud though of our Chinese aspect; it is right here on the dial and in our brandname 



Toothbras said:


> I think they are all gorgeous, especially the blue


Thank you!



Kromag said:


> This is a fascinating thread. Thanks for blogging about your whole process.
> 
> I would like to ask about how you handled the concerns for durability. Since you are targeting high-quality (as opposed to luxury), I think that goes hand-in-hand with durability. The Germans are known for this; the Chinese (for exports at least) not so much. For example, Rolex recently switched case materials to a more durable alloy for Submariner. It would undermine your mission if this was not clearly part of the design. If I bought a high quality watch and it looked worn like current 90s Tags or worse for example, I would not carry forward the impression you are aiming to develop in Western consumers.
> 
> ...


Thank you very much, Tony, for your kind message. We handled it by doing several things:
-Selecting excellent suppliers, who have been in the business for years, and who are known for making high-quality outputs;
-Choosing a serious company that is used to international standards for QC (Fiyta);
-Having a final assembler that will carry out our after-sales services and who is in a very steady shape. Fiyta is owned by AVIC, a company with a turnover of more than $70 billion. They are very well funded, and therefore the probability that they go out of business is pretty low, meaning that there will always be a company to carry out after-sales services.

And I'm glad that you shared your opinion; every feedback is useful and interesting to us. While indeed, as you have guessed it, changing the name and logo is a bit tough now, your concerns can help us improve the way we present ourselves, our identity, etc. So thank you!


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

Fellow countrymen, thanks for all these explanations, which give a lively insight in your project genesis.

Thanks also for reminding me French words morph into very different concepts when used abroad. So Atelier, Entrée, Boutique... Or Dame: I agree with avoiding the word Maison, an euphemism reminding those _maisons_ of Nice before Marthe Richard, Casinos of Naples, or the Shanghai Gesture. More _à taulier_ than ateliers.

What first interested me in your project was the white porcelain dial. Well, the blue too. Then only I started reading...

I like also the small second. Now, you explain the extensive customization it implied for the stock mechanism. Here goes my questioning: why on (middle) Earth go for an automatic movement, if you regret it's pretty thick?
Couldn't you either get rid of the rotor, for, slimness sake, or just source a good 17j hand-wound mechanism? Hand winding feels... organic, and it reminds me of _impermanence_ as much as a dial.

I don't care much for date windows, though if I was to buy a calendar watch symbolizing Asia to me, it would need moon phases. Maybe your next project?

Btw, I just chipped in for a successful (1000% fulfilled) Kickstarter watch, also French-Asian. So 2017 was really the year of the (gallic) Roosters to start projects! So - all my wishes of success!


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## 24h (Nov 11, 2017)

Fandegrue said:


> This could be something like that. But then, I'm wondering as well, how do they "treat" each hands before they go to the oven? Are they simply polished, or is anything else done? Also, how do they do to achieve a very consistent shade of the blue throughout the hand? How is the heat distributed? The hands positioned? Still quite some mysteries left to be solved :-d I'll make sure though to update you with any findings I encounter when I visit my suppliers later in the year.


Well, they can blue the parts with a variety of finishes (for example: polished and brushed). I believe the key to bluing successfully is to make sure the part is EXTREMELY clean. All residue from polishing/dust/oils should be absent. Next matter of importance is distributing the heat uniformly. Something like a screw head would be easier than an hour hand with varying width or thicknesses as certain parts would heat up faster. I've tried bluing by hand but the results were inconsistent (also the fact that I have nowhere near a professional setup :-d). This is why I'm curious about having a precise temperature controlled oven. It might be possible to SLOWLY bring the parts to the exact temperature needed and hold them at that temperature until the perfect shade of blue is achieved.


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

PanKorop said:


> Fellow countrymen, thanks for all these explanations, which give a lively insight in your project genesis.
> Thanks also for reminding me French words morph into very different concepts when used abroad. So Atelier, Entrée, Boutique... Or Dame: I agree with avoiding the word Maison, an euphemism reminding those _maisons_ of Nice before Marthe Richard, Casinos of Naples, or the Shanghai Gesture. More _à taulier_ than ateliers.
> What first interested me in your project was the white porcelain dial. Well, the blue too. Then only I started reading...
> I like also the small second. Now, you explain the extensive customization it implied for the stock mechanism. Here goes my questioning: why on (middle) Earth go for an automatic movement, if you regret it's pretty thick?
> ...


Hehehe, these were some fairly particular _maisons_, and the whole era one in which I tend to see a form of lost charm. Maybe because I am way, way too young to have ever witnessed it, I tend to idealise it a little bit.

There are a few reasons for that. There is, actually, a good, thin, hand-wound movement available in China: the Beijing B18. However, upon starting the design development stage, I went to talk to some non-WIS, and, what came out of that, was that they saw hand-winding as a chore, a drawback. Hence, an automatic movement quickly became necessary. The second reason is that, removing the auto-winding module from our movement is...how to say? Slightly too ambitious for a young brand with no track-record whatsoever. We have never made a watch, hence I think that it is more reasonable, at the beginning at least, to start with something "easier". This also reduces the likelihood of operational issues, which, from the end-customer side, also means that there is less risk of strong delays in production, and, ultimately, delivery.

Out of curiosity, what is that project that you backed? And second "out of curiosity" question, do you still live in France?



24h said:


> Well, they can blue the parts with a variety of finishes (for example: polished and brushed). I believe the key to bluing successfully is to make sure the part is EXTREMELY clean. All residue from polishing/dust/oils should be absent. Next matter of importance is distributing the heat uniformly. Something like a screw head would be easier than an hour hand with varying width or thicknesses as certain parts would heat up faster. I've tried bluing by hand but the results were inconsistent (also the fact that I have nowhere near a professional setup :-d). This is why I'm curious about having a precise temperature controlled oven. It might be possible to SLOWLY bring the parts to the exact temperature needed and hold them at that temperature until the perfect shade of blue is achieved.


I have also tried on a knife blade, but, like you, the result was inconsistent... I have found this article on SJX which discusses blued screws; maybe you'll find it interesting: httphttp://watchesbysjx.com/2015/02/explained-how-to-blue-steel-screws-the-traditional-way-with-a-flame-and-lots-of-patience.html

I have a question for you today: what do you guys think about veal straps with rubber "core" (like Hirsch Performance)? e.g.:









Thank you,

Robin.


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

Fandegrue said:


> Hehehe, these were some fairly particular _maisons_, and the whole era one in which I tend to see a form of lost charm. Maybe because I am way, way too young to have ever witnessed it, I tend to idealise it a little bit.
> 
> There are a few reasons for that. There is, actually, a good, thin, hand-wound movement available in China: the Beijing B18. However, upon starting the design development stage, I went to talk to some non-WIS, and, what came out of that, was that they saw hand-winding as a chore, a drawback. Hence, an automatic movement quickly became necessary. The second reason is that, removing the auto-winding module from our movement is...how to say? Slightly too ambitious for a young brand with no track-record whatsoever. We have never made a watch, hence I think that it is more reasonable, at the beginning at least, to start with something "easier". This also reduces the likelihood of operational issues, which, from the end-customer side, also means that there is less risk of strong delays in production, and, ultimately, delivery.
> 
> ...


1) https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1164873408/the-most-sustainable-watch-ever-made
Not for the green pitch o| but for the green dial. Also the case sizes choice.
2) Yes. Rather, now I do.

3) Hirsch hybrid? You might fall back in your WIS vs std consumer dilemma. The latter may like it. The former, not sure: looks like leather, but wears like plastic. Certainly more durable than fine but fragile lining leather in hot (sweaty) climate. For its price, I'd rather get a good "tropical" latex or silicon strap for summer, plus a trad dressy one. If fitted with easy change springbars, of course.

Now for porcelain dials, I'd prefer just one braided silk strap (what Japanese call _kumihimo_ but must exist in China). I think this guy has it right - at least for straps, I mean: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/684948526/musha-one-of-a-kind-wristwatch-made-of-japanese-sw. Silk is right, so is _galuchat_ polished or raw (shagreen - yes that one leather which _"rétrécit comme une peau de chagrin"_). Hard to find in a durable quality, that.
Else? really good fabric. Affordable, original, "vegan", dressy or sport at will. Some, like Barton Watch Bands, do it truly ok in the sports genre.


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## andrea__81 (Jul 27, 2016)

I have no experience with this type of strap, but rubber seems wrong with your watch.


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## HoustonReal (Dec 29, 2013)

andrea__81 said:


> I have no experience with this type of strap, but rubber seems wrong with your watch.


I just don't get using an obviously synthetic material (rubber, resin, PU) on a $500-$1000 watch, unless it's a diver, or at least very sporty. There are so many exotic leather choices available. Silk would certainly be interesting, but I have no idea how well it would hold up to sweat and skin oils. I have heard of some high-tech silk variants, that are protected with Teflon, or some new attempts at synthetic silk.

My two cents on the brand name, since "Atelier" seems non-negotiable, is that the name should be stacked, with Atelier above Wen, and Atelier should be subdued, in a smaller and/or lighter weight font than Wen. Wen is the more important aspect of the name, and should be more prominent. Currently the Atelier overwhelms Wen.

Please forgive my language skills, since it's been over 25 years since I studied French, but isn't *Atelier de Wen* more appropriate if you want to emphasize your brand's Gallic heritage?


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## MichealChang (Mar 28, 2016)

Fandegrue said:


> *The Blue Model*
> 
> This subdial therefore displays an interesting aspect of traditional Chinese culture and thinking. Its value is for now more aesthetic than practical (we cannot yet do like Blancpain with its Chinese Calendar, though we'd like to get there!), but it serves as an acknowledgement of an interesting and quite fundamental cultural concept (it is actually used throughout the region in such places as Korea for example). All of the characters have been stylized by our designers and are also therefore, importantly, *pretty nice to look at*!
> 
> ...


You're just being modest on just being "pretty nice" and "pretty good" to look at.

I mean just look at them. They are [email protected] awesome to look at. A very sweet and slick design. The porcelain dial itself already separate you from us microbrand "normies" :-d

This already has a "Stamp of Awesomeness" on f72 b-)|>

Already subscribed and looking forward to more episodes.


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## Chascomm (Feb 13, 2006)

I agree with this:


HoustonReal said:


> ... the name should be stacked, with Atelier above Wen, and Atelier should be subdued, in a smaller and/or lighter weight font than Wen. Wen is the more important aspect of the name, and should be more prominent. Currently the Atelier overwhelms Wen.


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## woodville63 (Dec 28, 2011)

Fandegrue said:


> I have a question for you today: what do you guys think about veal straps with rubber "core" (like Hirsch Performance)? e.g.:


I prefer perlon nowadays, especially since I went veggie.

I think simple is best. I used to have a Casio GPW-1000 with a carbon fibre resin strap. It started cracking and flaking (not just mine) and Casio didn't want to know. I flogged it. No way again will I spend more than $150 on a Casio. As a new brand you don't want any issues, particularly ones not watch related. How about supplying two straps: nylon and leather. People like to swap between steel, leather or nylon. Personally, I'm more impressed by the buckle design/quality than the strap. It could be a $500 strap and I wouldn't know, but show me a nice buckle and I'll equate high quality to high price.


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## woodville63 (Dec 28, 2011)

Chascomm said:


> I agree with this:


Me, too. I think HoustonReal's suggestion would work for us Atelier detractors.


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

HoustonReal said:


> I just
> 
> My two cents on the brand name, since "Atelier" seems non-negotiable, is that the name should be stacked, with Atelier above Wen, and Atelier should be subdued, in a smaller and/or lighter weight font than Wen. Wen is the more important aspect of the name, and should be more prominent. Currently the Atelier overwhelms Wen.
> 
> Please forgive my language skills, since it's been over 25 years since I studied French, but isn't *Atelier de Wen* more appropriate if you want to emphasize your brand's Gallic heritage?


I second the first :-s option: 
• hierarchizes the message;
• restores symmetry.

As for the second (small second, down), here cocky rooster says you are perfectly correct, mon cher - both on grammar and intent. |>


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

woodville63 said:


> I prefer perlon nowadays, especially since I went veggie.


Kumihimo style braided silk is a bit like perlon, i.e. no drilled holes, so you really get the same micro-adjustment comfort.
Now, it is thicker, looks more dressy, and doesn't scratch/irritate like some perlon do (f.i. the new Eulit line, since they heat/melt the underside for stability).

Of course, it can be weaved with faux-silk, if you prefer processed dead fish goo to caterpillar poo ;-)


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## mythless (Feb 21, 2016)

You could flip the two around, "Wen Atelier" but, it's not grammatically correct. Other than that I do agree with HoustonReal's, smaller font might be the way to go.


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

mythless said:


> You could flip the two around, "Wen Atelier" but, it's not grammatically correct. Other than that I do agree with HoustonReal's, smaller font might be the way to go.


If it's to go French, here's my two _centimes_:

Atelier
Wen​
signs a brand: Wen's workshop

While:

Wen
atelier​
is a statement: Wen. 
(a) workshop.
(Please note "atelier" is all smallcase, for that intent)

I prefer the latter.
Slightly understated, more modest.
Graphically more stable, if on the top half of a watch.

(also gives room to state in a few years: Wen - manufacture, then Wen - industries... ;-) )


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## andrea__81 (Jul 27, 2016)

personally, I prefer the current name and typography to all the suggested ones


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## Letter T (Apr 29, 2018)

I think Atelier is perfectly fine. 

I can share Eastern European perspective (I understand it might not be he primary market) for the word Atelier. Primary, or should I say traditional, meaning is the fine art painter's studio where he creates his art. Over time it has been used for other form of art like sculpture and in the past few decades people have started using it for all kinds of art, craft and even graphic design. In part, as someone already mentioned, to boost their credibility and try to elevate what they to to higher level, at least what it sounds like.

In the sense of fine art studio the name is perfectly fine.

I also feel like Atelier de Wen sounds better, as a Western reinterpretation of a Chinese watch it deserves a fully Western/French name.

On to strap: keep in mind that straps are as decisive topic as taste in watches. You could offer 2 different straps with the watch. I have seen it in watches for much less $$$ and it is nice to have an option to choose and switch from box opening. Other option would be to focus on the buckle. Even when changing the strap I try to keep the original buckle if it is part of the watch design wise.


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

Letter T said:


> I think Atelier is perfectly fine.
> 
> *I can share Eastern European perspective (I understand it might not be he primary market) for the word Atelier. *Primary, or should I say traditional, meaning is the fine art painter's studio where he create his art. Over time it has been used for other form of art like sculpture and in the past few decades people have started using it for all kinds of art, craft and even graphic design. In part, as someone already mentioned, to boost their credibility and try to elevate what they to to higher level, at least what it sounds like.
> 
> ...


I may dig Eastern European perspective, too. Now beware not be fooled by forum avatars and nicks. Suppose I'm French, born such, French resident (if Brittany still counts), reserves' soldier, taxpayer and official subscriber to the state gas network, as Alphone Allais put it. Also, some forty years editorial career, but we might agree this has little to do with horology. Now, layout...
All in all, as much of a "Western/French" as you can get. Vintage, too. Talking of geezers, "Atelier de Wen" reminds me of "Atelier de Marie-Claire". Passé reference, the time of paper printed press - ok. Yet great women's magazine it was, to flip at the dentist's - in the sixties... As to how it sounds to foreign ears, I may be at loss, as I hear as plain old-fashioned - not trendy rétro.

Finally, please do not get me wrong: I did come to terms with that name Atelier. Just dared suggestions on how to implement it best...

PS: _On a hunch, I checked Google Translate. For Wen's Workshop, it does return Atelier de Wen, right. I mean wrong. One just doesn't say Maison de Hermès, nor "de Chanel", no more than "usine de Renault"._


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## Sergei T. (May 30, 2018)

I'm curious to know if there will be some sign of 'Made in China'?
The reason I'm asking this is because I personally liked the Maison Céladon slogan - 'Made in China with Pride'...


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## MichealChang (Mar 28, 2016)

Curious about the porcelain dials. They are tough but because of that - they tend to be brittle as well. Hence they are subjected to chips, nicking and the like when they are exposed to sudden impacts.

Seeing that they are that thin, I am assuming that they are more likely to break than our average porcelain cup, bowls etc (which are thicker and more robust, most probably)

How do you combat that if that's the case? Any watch wearer will always experience some sort of bump on their watches, its just a matter of the difference in intensity.

And then there's about inking on the dials. Will the inking on the dials stay? How will they fair in access to UV exposure? 
Will the ink 'spread' around the dial after a long time? - i.e. will still hold its shape but will not be as crisp as when it was first produced. (Does that make sense to you?)
Are there special inking techniques or are they just *printed* on it like other watch dials?

These are just from personal experience, although somewhat limited, on handling porcelain. I am aware that there are porcelain dials produced before but they are from more notable big brands. Does the Chinese porcelain factory have some sort of track record on producing porcelain dials?


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## woodville63 (Dec 28, 2011)

Sergei T. said:


> I'm curious to know if there will be some sign of 'Made in China'?
> The reason I'm asking this is because I personally liked the Maison Céladon slogan - 'Made in China with Pride'...


 Just a simple 'Made in China', please.


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

woodville63 said:


> Just a simple 'Made in China', please.


« Créé en Chine » ?

(to avoid a tri-lingual dial...)


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## Sergei T. (May 30, 2018)

Not sure a simple 'Made in China' will mark the idea of high standards for an average person...

Unless the item is addressed for enthusiast who will dig deep and read all the info about the watch.


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## Letter T (Apr 29, 2018)

Make sure every watch comes with a booklet explaining the main points you shared with us, else all what you have said will mean nothing to an average person, quite possibly even to an average watch lover.


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## andrea__81 (Jul 27, 2016)

Letter T said:


> Make sure every watch comes with a booklet explaining the main points you shared with us, else all what you have said will mean nothing to an average person, quite possibly even to an average watch lover.


These watches are aimed at enthusiasts that get informed online... it's unlikely someone will spend from 500 to 1k on a "chinese" watch and - only then - discover why it is special by reading the included booklet... I am sure they will have an informative website.


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## Letter T (Apr 29, 2018)

Well, I guess I am old enough to prefer reading from paper but I guess new generations have their own way about it.


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## monsieurxu (Jun 2, 2012)

Was initially just in for the Blue dial, but I'm starting to fall in love with the White dial and its references to traditional Qinghua ci porcelain. Might just have to get both...

Enjoying following your journey Robin!


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

Hello everyone,

Thank you very much to all of your for your messages.

First, let's talk about the name :-d Regarding the "Atelier de Wen" suggestion (thank you btw HoustonReal for chiming in; I enjoy reading your F71 threads), this is something that we had thought about a few months ago but we finally decided not to pursue it for a few reasons. The first one is the meaning; what would it imply? Would it be the Wen's atelier (which is not what we want our name to convey; there's no person or entity named "Wen")? Would it be the atelier of wen (in the sense of atelier of culture. But in that case, it would be quite clumsy... and, I don't know, it just sounds weird)? Or would it be a kind of homage to the French tradition of _particules_ (in which case, most of the French people would find it very odd)? So, either way, it didn't very much sound alright to us ;-)

To be fair, the name is not going to change; we are quite attached to it, it fairly well conveys who we are, and the pronunciation flow is very good (it doesn't feel aggressive, it is smooth and quite "fluid". I think, too, that there is a matter of getting used to it. Any new name, as a standalone, can feel a little odd. But then, after you've seen it a few times, after you've pronounced it a few times... It starts feeling familiar, and therefore alright.

I do like the idea of having Atelier and Wen not of the same size, yet, again, it will not happen with these models. Changing the dial design is, honestly, super expensive, and, in all fairness, on the prototypes, it looks quite good. We've shown it around to quite a few people, and the feedbacks were truly positive. I will post them here as well very soon; just need to finish writing-up the accompanying description.

Regarding having Atelier and Wen on two different lines, it wouldn't, at least aesthetically, work really well. This is because the dials also include the graphical part of our logo, and then it would make, all in all, three lines... which is too much.

Thank you PanKorop for all your posts and for your involvement; I find their tones very flowery and it is always a delight for me to read them. I quite like the Awake dials and phénix strap. They posted a bit on FAM as well, and I enjoyed reading the discussion. Oh, and as I am typing these words, I have just arrived in Vannes (you are from Britany, right?).

Regarding having a booklet accompanying the watches, there will be one. It will include details about the brand rationale, the design process, some of the difficulties we encountered (and how we dealt with them) and about the manufacturing (and our stand towards sustainability and ethics (because we are not inactive on this front)). Maybe it is just me, but despite being "just" 23 years-old, whenever I buy something expensive I am not truly satisfied with either a .pdf to download or an A4 sheet of instructions that looks like it was printed from my good ol' Epson printer. I truly enjoy these kinds of "small attentions", so, of course, being, in a way, my product, I want these to be here.

Thanks for your very kind words MichealChang, I will pass them to the designers. They are even younger than us, and this their very first, "true", assignment. I am very proud of them, and of the dedication they were able to show, needless to say.

Woodville63, regarding perlon, I have a little qualm with it. As you may know, it has the tendency to have a fairly abrasive effect on casebacks, and I would find it a bit sad to see the detailed Kunpeng all covered chequered scratches :--( We are working, at the moment, on a very unique veggie alternative. It will not be available by the time we start our Kickstarter (nobody has used it in the world of watches beforehand, so it takes some time to actually develop the product), but a little bit after. If there is some sufficient interest, I will try to provide an immediate vegan alternative (as for a lot of things, it pretty much boils down to MOQ).

How do we ensure the resistance and durability of our porcelain dials? Good question  At the beginning, we went to Jingdezhen, which is the Chinese porcelain capital. Most of the workshops we talked to had no experience with the watch industry, and were not willing to take up the job given how small our volumes would be. One factory was interested, and despite producing some beautiful porcelains, we quickly discovered, as it was hinted out at, that the material was too brittle and fragile. We eventually found our current dial supplier through Fiyta, our assembler (and one of the largest and most prestigious watch company of China). They, too, are interested in making porcelain-dial watches, but given their size, scale and power (again, they belong to AVIC, which a $70billion turnover company), they had no trouble convincing a dial manufacturer to work for them and spend the required investment. They solved the fragility issue by adding some zirconium oxide powder to the mix of clay (and pigments, for the blue one) before cooking (on a thin copper disk). Once the porcelain bases are done, they are sent to another atelier which is specialised in dial surfaces. There, they print the different patterns and elements on the dials, and apply (by hand) the markers on the blue model. Yes, our dials are printed and not painted&#8230; but the latter option is tremendously expensive; we're launching a $500-1000 watch, not a Credor  But in the future, if there is sufficient interest, I would love to make a more expensive product with hand-painted dial. 

Regarding the straps, we got similar feedbacks elsewhere as well, so there won't be leather with rubber core or calf with embossed croco pattern. Here is the situation thus far: the watch will come with a high-quality, top-grain and vegetable tanned calf leather strap of navy colour. There won't be any pattern on it; just a nice-looking navy calf strap. There will be the possibility to get a grey suede one as an add-on as well as an "exotic" one. More details on this later. That way, the offering is fairly versatile: the blue calf leather can be used every day and in formal settings, the suede one looks more youthful and hipster-ish (but still classy enough), and the exotic one will be&#8230;unique! :-d

I need to ask for your help regarding one point: our watches' individual names. The whole collection will be named "Porcelain Odyssey", because we felt that the porcelain dial was really the centrepiece of our watches. But, then, we're struggling with the individual model names. We want them to encompass two things: the colour and the point of difference between each other (e.g. subdial at 6). For the blue one, we thought about "Nanking Trigrams" (Nanking-blue and "trigrams" from the 6 O'clock subdial), but for the white one&#8230; the inspiration has gone dry! The characters come from the Earthly branches, and this concept comes from the observation of Jupiter. So, maybe, something that would be linked with the notions of "astral"? You guys all showed lot of creative energy when discussing the brand-name and logo, thus I am sure you can help us nail the models' names  Thank you! 

Have a nice day everyone,

Robin.


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## Letter T (Apr 29, 2018)

The only thing that comes to my mind is Rice Paper. It's white and gives a nod to the Chinese invention of printing press and paper.


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## andrea__81 (Jul 27, 2016)

Astral, white... milky way? Ok, that probably quite stupid


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

Letter T said:


> The only thing that comes to my mind is Rice Paper. It's white and gives a nod to the Chinese invention of printing press and paper.


|> Now this is a brilliant idea! That |- cross pattern, this white just as subtle as porcelain, and that beautiful idea of folk artisanship vs luxury. This Saigon-born Frenchie approves with both hands. I just love it.

You nail it. This is what stops me from fully endorsing the project. Blue is beautiful; now I wish it was silkscreen-blown blue (I don't know how this style, cloudy blue, is named). Same with white: a childhood passion for cracked eggshell white decorum. This irregularity, this art of thoughtful randomness which Asia is to me, as opposed to our symmetrical Versailles rigour...

Rice paper background? I'd have to buy a dozen. Roll it up in some veggies, maybe fish, dip it in nuoc-mam - nirvana! Just make it a diver's watch!


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## HoustonReal (Dec 29, 2013)

Fandegrue said:


> I need to ask for your help regarding one point: our watches' individual names. The whole collection will be named "Porcelain Odyssey", because we felt that the porcelain dial was really the centrepiece of our watches. But, then, we're struggling with the individual model names. We want them to encompass two things: the colour and the point of difference between each other (e.g. subdial at 6). For the blue one, we thought about "Nanking Trigrams" (Nanking-blue and "trigrams" from the 6 O'clock subdial), but for the white one&#8230; the inspiration has gone dry! The characters come from the Earthly branches, and this concept comes from the observation of Jupiter. So, maybe, something that would be linked with the notions of "astral"? You guys all showed lot of creative energy when discussing the brand-name and logo, thus I am sure you can help us nail the models' names  Thank you!
> 
> Have a nice day everyone,
> 
> Robin.


After a little research, "Jingdezhen", named after the 14th century birthplace of blue and white Chinese porcelain? In keeping with your blue model name, how about "Jingdezhen Jupiter"? Personally, I prefer single word model names, and might just go with _Nanking_ and _Jingdezhen_, or _Trigrams_ and _Jupiter_. Often, the hardest thing to add is simplicity.


"Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains." ~ Steve Jobs

"Simplicity is the most difficult thing to secure in this world; it is the last limit of experience and the last effort of genius." ~ George Sand​


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## AlbertaTime (Dec 27, 2008)

HoustonReal said:


> After a little research, "Jingdezhen", named after the 14th century birthplace of blue and white Chinese porcelain?...just go with _Nanking_ and _Jingdezhen_...


(I know that edit doesn't reflect the original's emphasis, at all  )

There's nothing I don't like about that idea.


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## MichealChang (Mar 28, 2016)

Fandegrue said:


> How do we ensure the resistance and durability of our porcelain dials? Good question  At the beginning, we went to Jingdezhen, which is the Chinese porcelain capital. Most of the workshops we talked to had no experience with the watch industry, and were not willing to take up the job given how small our volumes would be. One factory was interested, and despite producing some beautiful porcelains, we quickly discovered, as it was hinted out at, that the material was too brittle and fragile. We eventually found our current dial supplier through Fiyta, our assembler (and one of the largest and most prestigious watch company of China). They, too, are interested in making porcelain-dial watches, but given their size, scale and power (again, they belong to AVIC, which a $70billion turnover company), they had no trouble convincing a dial manufacturer to work for them and spend the required investment. They solved the fragility issue by adding some zirconium oxide powder to the mix of clay (and pigments, for the blue one) before cooking (on a thin copper disk). Once the porcelain bases are done, they are sent to another atelier which is specialised in dial surfaces. There, they print the different patterns and elements on the dials, and apply (by hand) the markers on the blue model. Yes, our dials are printed and not painted&#8230; but the latter option is tremendously expensive; we're launching a $500-1000 watch, not a Credor  But in the future, if there is sufficient interest, I would love to make a more expensive product with hand-painted dial.


That's some cool stuff right there. Love the blue however the white one does have its own charm. I too hope that one day we will see a hand-painted dial from you (but that might probably be out of my budget )


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

Fandegrue said:


> I need to ask for your help regarding one point: our watches' individual names. The whole collection will be named "Porcelain Odyssey", because we felt that the porcelain dial was really the centrepiece of our watches. But, then, we're struggling with the individual model names. We want them to encompass two things: the colour and the point of difference between each other (e.g. subdial at 6). For the blue one, we thought about "Nanking Trigrams" (Nanking-blue and "trigrams" from the 6 O'clock subdial), but for the white one&#8230; the inspiration has gone dry! The characters come from the Earthly branches, and this concept comes from the observation of Jupiter. So, maybe, something that would be linked with the notions of "astral"? You guys all showed lot of creative energy when discussing the brand-name and logo, thus I am sure you can help us nail the models' names


Nanking alone would be better * if* *only* the city council or someone else didn't copyright the name as a brand. I know Paris is, for instance.

Now my suggestions. Since you think Porcelain Odyssey, do not divert nor mix the metaphors. Talk porcelain, not astrology, nor I-Chin:

White - simply *KAOLIN*
It is the base... and it sounds "oriental" enough, Shaolin-like, to us barbarian long noses (you may even call me Cyrano!)

For consistency then the blue face should go by its main glaze component.
Which I don't know, but suspect cobalt ore.
If I'm right, then - *COBALT* or KOBALT (by contagion from Kaolin).

And if you ever dare a 3rd version (my dream) in that subtle pale, almond green glaze, then CELADON of course


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

Hello everyone!

I am very happy, today, to finally present you some pictures of our prototypes! Allow me to apologise for the time it took; I hope that their beauty will somehow compensate for it haha  During the 13-hour-long shooting, they were unassembled and re-assembled (a watchmaker was with us for the whole of the day) a few times, hence they were quite extensively "handled", and I will thus ask you not to mind shall you see any tiny finger mark or speck of dust. The pictures are now being post-processed to correct these minuscule issues and be commercially-usable, therefore the ones that I am showing you today are "raw" and come straight from the shooting. They did not undergo any improvement, correction, software-based-enhancement&#8230; Nothing. That being said, these are still some nice pics. The straps will change, so please don't pay too much attention to them.

I will start with the blue model. The dial tends to show very different shades of blue based on the luminosity and exposition; the "range" is quite wide. The first picture is the one that is the most representative of the appearance it has most of the time. The other pictures show you the watch under different expositions and light settings, allowing you to witness the evolution of the shades of blue.

























































Let's now have a look at the white one. The first picture is, once again, the one that is the most representative of the dial's appearance most of the time. The second one has been voluntarily over-exposed in order to showcase the very blue tint that the hands can display (because they are (genuinely) heat-blued, their shade of blue also tends to vary a lot). On the last picture, there is a light over-exposure, but it is much less substantial than the one of the previous picture.



























































monsieurxu said:


> Was initially just in for the Blue dial, but I'm starting to fall in love with the White dial and its references to traditional Qinghua ci porcelain. Might just have to get both...
> 
> Enjoying following your journey Robin!


Thank you so much, Ben! That's so kind of you. I'm somehow feeling the same; at first the blue one was my clear favourite, but, then, after having had its sister on my wrist for a bit... I'm beginning to shift! :-d



MichealChang said:


> That's some cool stuff right there. Love the blue however the white one does have its own charm. I too hope that one day we will see a hand-painted dial from you (but that might probably be out of my budget )


Thanks for your message, Micheal! Does seeing the pictures affect your preference? Just curious. I would very much love to be able to make one as well, especially since there are just so many talented craftsmen and women in the country who would *deserve* to have their work showcased to a wider audience...



PanKorop said:


> |> Now this is a brilliant idea! That |- cross pattern, this white just as subtle as porcelain, and that beautiful idea of folk artisanship vs luxury. This Saigon-born Frenchie approves with both hands. I just love it.
> 
> You nail it. This is what stops me from fully endorsing the project. Blue is beautiful; now I wish it was silkscreen-blown blue (I don't know how this style, cloudy blue, is named). Same with white: a childhood passion for cracked eggshell white decorum. This irregularity, this art of thoughtful randomness which Asia is to me, as opposed to our symmetrical Versailles rigour...
> 
> Rice paper background? I'd have to buy a dozen. Roll it up in some veggies, maybe fish, dip it in nuoc-mam - nirvana! Just make it a diver's watch!





HoustonReal said:


> After a little research, "Jingdezhen", named after the 14th century birthplace of blue and white Chinese porcelain? In keeping with your blue model name, how about "Jingdezhen Jupiter"? Personally, I prefer single word model names, and might just go with _Nanking_ and _Jingdezhen_, or _Trigrams_ and _Jupiter_. Often, the hardest thing to add is simplicity.
> 
> 
> "Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains." ~ Steve Jobs
> ...





PanKorop said:


> Nanking alone would be better * if* *only* the city council or someone else didn't copyright the name as a brand. I know Paris is, for instance.
> 
> Now my suggestions. Since you think Porcelain Odyssey, do not divert nor mix the metaphors. Talk porcelain, not astrology, nor I-Chin:
> 
> ...


Thank you everyone for your your suggestions, tips and ideas regarding our models names (and nice prose, as usual, PanKorop ;-) ). Very much appreciated. I agree with all of you that simplicity is ideal... As you mentioned it, Houston Real, it is nevertheless tough to reach. After quite some brainstorming, here are our latest ideas. We thought that it would be nice to name each with only one character; it would add some sense, would be more in line with our positioning, and would be rememberable by both our Western and Eastern audience. For the white one, we selected the character "hao":









It means a very luminous, radiant and pure white. One without any imperfections at all.

For the blue model, we settled for "ji":









It refers to a blue that was, centuries ago, made out of lapis lazuli, and thus very hard to obtain. Often dubbed "the most beautiful blue", it is supposed to look like the sky colour after a thunderstorm. Very rare, it was used on porcelain ware:









Have a nice day!

Robin.


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## AlbertaTime (Dec 27, 2008)

Fandegrue said:


> After quite some brainstorming, here are our latest ideas. We thought that it would be nice to name each with only one character; it would add some sense, would be more in line with our positioning, and would be rememberable by both our Western and Eastern audience. For the white one, we selected the character "hao":
> 
> View attachment 13433589
> 
> ...


Excellent.


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## andrea__81 (Jul 27, 2016)

The heat blued hands are really something.


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## azamantes (Oct 6, 2017)

How do you plan to sell them? Dedicated online shop? Crowdfunding?

The price? Luxury or affordable? I love the name of the models.


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## MarkieB (Feb 25, 2017)

Wow, I want one, absolutely gorgeous and I wish you all the best for the future, great job.


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## MichealChang (Mar 28, 2016)

Fandegrue said:


> Hello everyone!
> 
> Thanks for your message, Micheal! Does seeing the pictures affect your preference? Just curious. I would very much love to be able to make one as well, especially since there are just so many talented craftsmen and women in the country who would *deserve* to have their work showcased to a wider audience...
> 
> Robin.


Now I've seen the blue more. It's just makes me favour it more. The blue is so soft on the eye. Something like sky blue? It's really hard to describe the feeling it gives out. It's like a mixture of mesmerising and relaxing  Maybe I'm more of a blue-colour-person than a clean-white-person.

But don't take it too heart what I said. It's a realllllllyyyyyyy subjective comment and it varies from person to person.


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## MichealChang (Mar 28, 2016)

EDIT - Double posted


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## Endie (Apr 14, 2017)

andrea__81 said:


> The heat blued hands are really something.


Indeed. Very well done. Captured it well in this pic.

Add in that clean dial design, with its nice blend of different stylistic influences, and it's a lovely piece of work. b-)


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## MichaelKG (Apr 18, 2013)

Great topic.

I skipped a few pages because I got anxious to see some pictures. Absolutely LOVE the blue dial one. That dial is stunning.


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

AlbertaTime said:


> Excellent.


Thank you, Ron! I thought that the name was a good compromise; definitely Chinese, of course, yet not too far-fetched for a Western audience to accept it ;-)



andrea__81 said:


> The heat blued hands are really something.


I'm glad that you like them. Actually, I think that I have fallen under their spell myself, so much that I can't stop looking at my wrist and tilting it to place the hands directly under some sunrays... :-d Here's a pic for you; maybe you'll then start displaying the same symptoms as me?











azamantes said:


> How do you plan to sell them? Dedicated online shop? Crowdfunding?
> 
> The price? Luxury or affordable? I love the name of the models.


They will be sold through crowdfunding, starting early October (very soon therefore!). I'm glad that you like the name. Here's an interesting anecdote on how we managed to find it: Early this year, we wondered, with Wilfried, about how to increase the brand visibility and general awareness in China. Mind you, at first we want to focus on a Western audience, because we believe that, while the segments we're targeting here also exist in the Middle Kingdom, their price sensitivities are nevertheless different (more skewed towards the right-hand side of the curve), making our current pricing scheme inadequate for the local Chinese market. But still, we have a fairly long-term view, so we thought it would be useful to actually start brainstorming about that matter. The conclusion stemming from this effort was to... send Wilfried to a reality TV show. He knew someone that could help him getting there, and we believed that free TV air time + strong social media profiles was worth it. So the decision was taken, Wilfried would go on Hubei TV for a full season of a popular talk show. Fast forward, he now has a few dozen of thousands of followers on Weibo, and when we asked them for name ideas that would be relevant to our two models, many interesting suggestions sprung, including the two aforementioned characters!

As for the pice, it will be affordable for the level of offering... How much, you may ask me? :-d It will be around $500, maybe slightly, slightly more (the margins are... small).



MarkieB said:


> Wow, I want one, absolutely gorgeous and I wish you all the best for the future, great job.


Wow, thank you very much for your kind words! Keep on reading the thread; I'll post many other interesting (at least I hope so haha :-d ) updates and pictures! And if you want, share with some friends 



MichealChang said:


> Now I've seen the blue more. It's just makes me favour it more. The blue is so soft on the eye. Something like sky blue? It's really hard to describe the feeling it gives out. It's like a mixture of mesmerising and relaxing  Maybe I'm more of a blue-colour-person than a clean-white-person.
> 
> But don't take it too heart what I said. It's a realllllllyyyyyyy subjective comment and it varies from person to person.


I'm also more of a blue colour, and this model is my favourite. What I really like about it is the very wide range of shades that the blue can display; sometimes, it can get very, very dark (imagine the sea in the evening, when the sun is fading), while in some other instances, it can become more saturated, more electric. And the applied markers are a bonus :-d That being said, I've been wearing the white more and more lately, and the blued hands are quite... hypnotising. I'll try to make some videos rather soon; maybe that way you guys can get a better impression of how the watches feel like in person? Thanks for your message!



Endie said:


> Indeed. Very well done. Captured it well in this pic.
> 
> Add in that clean dial design, with its nice blend of different stylistic influences, and it's a lovely piece of work. b-)


Appreciated  And I'm very glad that you can see the different influences in the design; it took us more than a year to finally create it.



MichaelKG said:


> Great topic.
> 
> I skipped a few pages because I got anxious to see some pictures. Absolutely LOVE the blue dial one. That dial is stunning.


Hahhaha, I also do that way when I am eagerly awaiting to finally see what a watch I have been anticipating will look like! I remember when Manchester Watch Works was talking about their Ascent diver, I was checking the thread every day in hope of even a tiny hint...

Here are some more pics, in less studio-like settings:


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## 24h (Nov 11, 2017)

Fandegrue said:


> I'm glad that you like them. Actually, I think that I have fallen under their spell myself, so much that I can't stop looking at my wrist and tilting it to place the hands directly under some sunrays... :-d Here's a pic for you; maybe you'll then start displaying the same symptoms as me?
> 
> View attachment 13437477


Hands look great!


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

The false (as in misleading) simplicity of this white watch starts to grow up on me. Hands, "railroad track" - don't call it plain white.
In one word - China.

_Btw, could someone remind me what those two signs on the subdial mean?_


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## MarkieB (Feb 25, 2017)

PanKorop said:


> The false (as in misleading) simplicity of this white watch starts to grow up on me. Hands, "railroad track" - don't call it plain white.
> In one word - China.[/I]


Totally agree - the white with blue numerals screams Chinese, harking back to fine Chinese porcelain. Great to see someone building a brand on China's centuries of innovation and quality rather than cheap labour.


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## MichealChang (Mar 28, 2016)

Fandegrue said:


> &#8230;. Mind you, at first we want to focus on a Western audience, because we believe that, while the segments we're targeting here also exist in *the Middle Kingdom*, their price sensitivities are nevertheless different....


HAH! The first time I've seen someone address China as The Middle Kingdom in a very long time. 

Anyways keep them photos coming! |>


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## Chascomm (Feb 13, 2006)

Fantastic natural lighting photos! :-! They really bring out the character of the watch in three dimensions.

(By the way, when you said "reality TV show" my first thought was If You Are The One :-d)


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## atxdivebezel (Apr 21, 2018)

Both are obviously beautiful but that blue face is a certified stunner. Looking forward to the next chapter.


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## clee1982 (Jul 1, 2014)

didn't realize you post here and styleforum, sub here as well!


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## Endie (Apr 14, 2017)

Fandegrue said:


> Appreciated  And I'm very glad that you can see the different influences in the design; it took us more than a year to finally create it.


Having played around with a simple dial & hand design just for fun (and only in a basic 2D drawing package), I have no doubt it took you that long, and a lot of sweating the details.

I particularly like how with the cream dial the hour markers project outward from the inner ring and interrupt the outer railway track. Having the railway tracks plus the extra inner ring could have easily been visually overpowering if they had all been solid. But that little break in the railway track at the hour marker, plus not taking the hour marker all the way to the edge of the dial, really opens it up and balances it all out nicely. Subtle but distinct, and very Middle Kingdom!

P.S. I like the blue dial one too. Just have a preference for light colour dials (cream, white, silver, etc), in part because they show off heat blued hands better, and I love heat blued hands. 

All the best with it.


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

24h said:


> Hands look great!


Thank you very much! I'm glad the "struggle" to find them was worth it.



PanKorop said:


> The false (as in misleading) simplicity of this white watch starts to grow up on me. Hands, "railroad track" - don't call it plain white.
> In one word - China.
> 
> _Btw, could someone remind me what those two signs on the subdial mean?_


I'm super glad that you like it. What I particularly enjoy with the white dial is its "innocent" and nearly "slender" look (not sure that this is the most adequate word to translate _gracile_). It is very hard to properly describe it, but the porcelain genuinely conveys a fragile (albeit not in a pejorative way) and delicate look. The blue of the rest of the dial and of the hands somehow accentuates it, and the whole makes me melt a little bit every time I glance at the dial. You'd have to see it in person to properly feel what I am (poorly) trying to describe. ;-) As for the characters:

_On the white model, you will find again here a subdial using Chinese patterns, but this time, with a gripping asymmetry. What you can see are the traditional versions of the characters You酉 (top left) and Mao 卯 (bottom right), which represent the hours between 5PM and 7PM and between 5AM and 7AM respectively. These are used in an ancient time-measurement system called the "12 Earthly Branches" within which each branch represents a two-hour segment. Each character also corresponds to a different zodiac animal, a direction/cardinal point, a season and a month. You may find more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthly_Branches _



MarkieB said:


> Totally agree - the white with blue numerals screams Chinese, harking back to fine Chinese porcelain. Great to see someone building a brand on China's centuries of innovation and quality rather than cheap labour.


Thanks for your kind words ;-) Even if this is just a very small project, I really hope that it will have a positive impact on people's perceptions of Chinese goods, and, more generally, of China in the West. That's all I can wish for.



MichealChang said:


> HAH! The first time I've seen someone address China as The Middle Kingdom in a very long time.
> 
> Anyways keep them photos coming! |>


Hahah! Let me tell you the reason: in France, in French Literature classes (both middle-school and high-school), we are told to avoid like plague repetitions (unless you're composing poetry and the repetition is purposely there to generate some particular effects)... That's a habit that I kept, even when writing in English. Unfortunately, though, I don't have that many synonyms for China (and sometimes may be too lazy to look for new ones)... I have just two: _the country_ when I used _China_ a few words before, and _the Middle Kingdom_ for all the other situations... Now you know! :-d And thanks for the encouragements; a new post is actually coming today 



Chascomm said:


> Fantastic natural lighting photos! :-! They really bring out the character of the watch in three dimensions.
> 
> (By the way, when you said "reality TV show" my first thought was If You Are The One :-d)


Thank you! Hahahah, I'm not sure his girlfriend would have appreciated :-d It was a kind of talkshow about foreigners living in China, and who speak fluent Chinese. It also included some kinds of "games" from what I reckon... I'll actually ask him for the show's exact name! I remember when I first watched "If You Are The One"... It was actually during the summer when I met Ron. I was studying at Renmin University, and one of my classes was about marriage in China (one of the most interesting classes I have ever taken in my whole life tbf). On the day of the first session, instead of going through the usual slides, the professor played one full episode as an intro. Fascinating show.



atxdivebezel said:


> Both are obviously beautiful but that blue face is a certified stunner. Looking forward to the next chapter.


Thanks! Here's a picture for you, since you prefer the blue one:











clee1982 said:


> didn't realize you post here and styleforum, sub here as well!


Hehehe, yes, I do  The unfortunate thing, though, is that you will have already read today's story!



Endie said:


> Having played around with a simple dial & hand design just for fun (and only in a basic 2D drawing package), I have no doubt it took you that long, and a lot of sweating the details.
> 
> I particularly like how with the cream dial the hour markers project outward from the inner ring and interrupt the outer railway track. Having the railway tracks plus the extra inner ring could have easily been visually overpowering if they had all been solid. But that little break in the railway track at the hour marker, plus not taking the hour marker all the way to the edge of the dial, really opens it up and balances it all out nicely. Subtle but distinct, and very Middle Kingdom!
> 
> ...


Hey, thanks a lot for your kind words! I'm actually very happy that you can see some of these seemingly tiny details that caused us headaches and hours of back-and-forth on the phone... ;-) Having the right opening for the dial was key in order to balance well with the case height. I think that if it were any different, the watch would have either looked too thick or just plain weird... :think: I'd be curious to see your dial and hand design (send them to me by PM if you wish). Thanks! ;-)

Okay, so here we go for today's update:

I will start with the straps. We were not satisfied with the current strap, and decided to spend quite a lot of attention to improve our "strap game". There will be three available straps:

-A navy, smooth, calf one. It will come with the watch by default. No fake crocodile embossing, and a simple, high quality calf. Normal stitching.

-A light grey suede strap. This one will be available as an add-on. I believe that it can give the watch a more youthful and playful look, so, somehow, it complements the default strap quite well.

-An exotic strap. The materials we are using is a rarely-seen one, so before giving some more details, I am waiting to see the prototypes and to assess their quality. Yet, if things go smoothly, this would provide for a really unique strap, and one with a strong Chinese character what's more.

We should receive some prototypes during the HK Watch and Clock Fair (starting tomorrow!), so hopefully not too long before I am able to post some pictures here. Btw, if some of you are going to attend... do let me know!

In other news, Wilfried recently went to Shenzhen and Guangzhou in order to speed-up on some remaining pressing matters, and quite some progress has been achieved there.

We were not 100% satisfied with the crown; it is nice, of course, but I found it to be a tiny bit too small, and the engraving was too rugged to my tastes. After talking about this with a rather famous watchmaker in Beijing (Liu Shiu Li), he advised us to meet with what he deemed to be the "Rolls of crown manufacturing in China". Located in Shenzhen suburbs, he has been in activity since 1991, and works with many famous Swiss brands. After talking extensively with him, we have decided to make the crown 0.5mm larger and to improve the "crenelation" in order to make the handling, the manipulation of the crown more straightforward, convenient and comfortable. The logo is now embossed in a way that is quite similar to a traditional Chinese seal, which, I like to think, adds a little bit more character and authenticity to the watches. It may not seem very significant at the onset, but I do genuinely care about these small details.








_The new crown_
















_They are going over the watches with a fine-tooth comb_








_The director finally abandons his Cartier and tries one of ours_








_Getting more technical  _

Here's an amusing anecdote: at the end of the day, Wilfried was invited to a dinner with the company's owners and directors. Amongst the many dishes served there, bull testicles were present&#8230; Of course, he could not say no (that would have been rude), and therefore had to taste some! A true effort for the team!
















_According to him, it didn't taste very much special actually_

Since he was in Shenzhen, we thought that it was a good idea to send him to our case manufacturer. But what was initially supposed to be only a courtesy call quickly turned into a great advance. A few days before, Wilfried was in a watch accessories shop in HK, and, noticing the two watches strapped to his wrist, a man goes to him and initiates a conversation. After being presented the brand, the whole "journey", etc., he asks a slightly unsettling question: "what kind of 316L do you use in your watches?". Wilfried doesn't very much know what to answer because, thus far, for us, 316L was 316L. The man, who is an industry veteran, goes on and explains that 316L does not correspond to identical chemical compositions in every country. Of course, these "different" 316Ls are broadly similar, yet, there are some slight differences in terms of chrome, nickel, molybdenum, etc. quantities and concentrations. This, in turn, has some impact on the steel's corrosion resistance and on its brightness. According to our man, the two very best 316L in this planet are the Finnish and Japanese ones. Some of you may have noticed it already, but we are quite obsessed with details. It may not add a lot directly to the watches, but if there are some - even tiny - things that we can do to make our products better, then we will do all of them. Hence, as soon as we knew these two alloys' superiority, we wanted them in our products. Back at the case manufacturer, we ask the director about the provenance of his 316L. As we were expecting it, the one he uses is of Chinese origin. We thus enquire about the possibility to use a Japanese one instead, and, quite luckily for us, he has some personal good ties with a Japanese foundry, and is therefore able to provide us with the much sought-after alloy!

Afterwards, he headed to Guangzhou to work on the packaging. It is quite interesting, there is in the city an area where a fair share of the box manufacturers of the country gather&#8230; a sort of packaging neighbourhood if I may! We had been working with a company there to produce a navy-blue leather pouch, and things are coming up pretty neatly! It is of high quality (top grain leather, suede lining inside) and not made of cheap plastic + leather debris blend&#8230; I'm posting a picture of a prototype here, but please note that it isn't fully finished yet ;-)








_On the road (hello Mr Kerouac :-d )_








_Rainy Guangzhou_








_Crowded subway_








_In the packaging district!_








_A prototype ;-) _

In other news, tomorrow is the start of the HK Watch & Clock Fair, which Wil will attend! He will also meet with a few fellow micro-brands owners (including the legendary Christopher Vail!), so there will be some nice stories - alongside with a lot of pictures - to post here!

Have a nice rest of the day,

Robin.


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## mythless (Feb 21, 2016)

Wow good stuff!


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## LCheapo (Jul 14, 2010)

The white porcelain dial looks very nice. The blued hands seem to go ok with it; it might be nice to see how silver (stainless, or rhodium plated) hands of this shape look with this dial.
I don't think the bezel works well. Are there alternatives?


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## Sergei T. (May 30, 2018)

Great stuff!
I'm cheering on the pics not only related to the watch production itself (Rain & Subway), since it provide some atmosphere of China...


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## Qidamin (Dec 3, 2015)

Lucky to have had the chance to meet Wilfried from Atelier Wen today in Beijing and see the prototypes, after having met Robin some months ago. The story of their project and the experience they gain is just amazing. The watches look very good, porcelain dials have something special. The case back is splendid too.














































Wilfried is on the right!


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## Wilfried (Aug 2, 2018)

@Qidamin, was awesome to meet up with you and show you the pieces - hope you enjoyed  Looking forward to meet up any one of you guys if you're around HK in the near future


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## John Price (Feb 21, 2011)

It's funny how things work around here. I admit that while I've been a member of WUS for years I've never really browsed the Chinese Forum much. In fact, I came across this thread/topic purely by accident. Having a fondness for Credor (don't own one yet but may some day - perhaps a Phoenix chrono) I searched WUS for Credor and this thread came up. After reading nearly all of the posts I'm now quite taken by your watches. Both are beautiful and I've very much enjoyed reading about your journey and the progress you've made. 

While I love blued hands I also love blue dials. And it's your blue dial (Ji?) model that draws me the most. Love the details such as the applied markers, the hints of Chinese culture... Admittedly I know very little about China but do know there's a wealth of culture, history, art... It's neat to see you tapping into this instead of the more typical reasons. 

My watch budget is pretty much blown for this year (have an order in for Seiko's new Shippo enamel dialed watch in and that'll be it for the rest of the year) I'm hoping you'll produce sufficient quantities (of the blue one anyway!) that I can purchase one early next year.

Looking forward to more photos and updates.


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## John Price (Feb 21, 2011)

It's funny how things work around here. I admit that while I've been a member of WUS for years I've never really browsed the Chinese Forum much. In fact, I came across this thread/topic purely by accident. Having a fondness for Credor (don't own one yet but may some day - perhaps a Phoenix chrono) I searched WUS for Credor and this thread came up. After reading nearly all of the posts I'm now quite taken by your watches. Both are beautiful and I've very much enjoyed reading about your journey and the progress you've made. 

While I love blued hands I also love blue dials. And it's your blue dial (Ji?) model that draws me the most. Love the details such as the applied markers, the hints of Chinese culture... Admittedly I know very little about China but do know there's a wealth of culture, history, art... It's neat to see you tapping into this instead of the more typical reasons. 

My watch budget is pretty much blown for this year (have an order in for Seiko's new Shippo enamel dialed watch in and that'll be it for the rest of the year) I'm hoping you'll produce sufficient quantities (of the blue one anyway!) that I can purchase one early next year.

Looking forward to more photos and updates.


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

mythless said:


> Wow good stuff!


Thank you! 



LCheapo said:


> The white porcelain dial looks very nice. The blued hands seem to go ok with it; it might be nice to see how silver (stainless, or rhodium plated) hands of this shape look with this dial.
> I don't think the bezel works well. Are there alternatives?


Thank you, I'm glad that you like the white porcelain dial. Because the hands on the blue and white models (ji and hao) are actually of the same dimensions, we did try briefly to fit the silver ones on the white model, yet it didn't look good; the watch conveyed a very cold sentiment. Because the dial is white, the printing navy blue... you need something a bit colourful in order to balance, otherwise it's just too "emotionless".

Nope, there are no alternatives for the bezel. We did, at the beginning, toy with the idea of having a full step-case design with box sapphire crystal, yet we didn't pursue that avenue for a few reasons. It increased the dial aperture substantially, and because our designs are not hugely busy ones, the watches would have then felt very empty and "blank", in a way. Also, the cost of having a box sapphire crystal is very high, and this would have shoot up our prices in a realm that is not in line with what our targeted segments are willing to spend. But I have to say that all the people who have handed the watches thus far actually quite liked the bezel; it contrasts nicely with the nearby vertical-brushed surface on the top of the lugs, when in hands, it gives the watches a sort of pebble-like feeling, and there is a small "step" on the bezel that smoothens the whole and simply makes it nice looking 



Sergei T. said:


> Great stuff!
> I'm cheering on the pics not only related to the watch production itself (Rain & Subway), since it provide some atmosphere of China...


Hehehe, that's the kind of pics I really like taking  Here are a few more that I took during my trip to Beijing in Easter:








_This is one of my favourites. A very close friend of mine (Li Wei) is close to a monk living in the hutongs. So, everyday, I would go with Li Wei to visit him, and we would spend the day talking, making vegetarian food, drinking tea, coffee, etc. One morning, though, things were a bit different. It was an important religious celebration day, and, to mark it, monks from all over the country had to set some animals free. Of course, as you may imagine, this is not very easy to do in central Beijing. So we headed to a nearby fish market, and bought a few of them, alive. With our large (and heavy) plastic bag filled with litters of water and dozens of fishes, we then took the direction of one of Beijing's urban canals. There, the situation was fairly surreal. Surrounded by large motorway-like bridges, traffic jams, curious passers-by, and overlooking a highly polluted stream of water, the monk put on his ceremony robe and started reciting some chants. At the end of it, he was supposed to set the fishes free. Unfortunately, the bag was badly positioned on the ground, and because of its weight, it collapsed mid-chant, letting some fishes escape to the very first step of the canal. There, the level of water is very low, so the fishes start getting stressed and flap desperately. I rush to catch them, and put them in the deeper water, but that's easier said than done, because they are moving frantically. So there I am, crouching on the bank of the canal, under the monk chanting, the passers-by filming us, the car-jams, the street-sellers, the scorching sun, clumsily trying to catch some fishes. Oddly enough, nobody lost their temper and everyone stayed calm and solemn. _








_Light rain, near GongTi. Taken from a cab which I was about to exit_








_Very late in the night_








_Early morning, near Beijing West Railway Station_








_In the train. Landscape gradually fading away like in a traditional painting_








_Somewhere, in Chengdu_



Qidamin said:


> Lucky to have had the chance to meet Wilfried from Atelier Wen today in Beijing and see the prototypes, after having met Robin some months ago. The story of their project and the experience they gain is just amazing. The watches look very good, porcelain dials have something special. The case back is splendid too.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Thank you so much, Damien ! 



John Price said:


> It's funny how things work around here. I admit that while I've been a member of WUS for years I've never really browsed the Chinese Forum much. In fact, I came across this thread/topic purely by accident. Having a fondness for Credor (don't own one yet but may some day - perhaps a Phoenix chrono) I searched WUS for Credor and this thread came up. After reading nearly all of the posts I'm now quite taken by your watches. Both are beautiful and I've very much enjoyed reading about your journey and the progress you've made.
> 
> While I love blued hands I also love blue dials. And it's your blue dial (Ji?) model that draws me the most. Love the details such as the applied markers, the hints of Chinese culture... Admittedly I know very little about China but do know there's a wealth of culture, history, art... It's neat to see you tapping into this instead of the more typical reasons.
> 
> ...


Hey John, thank you for your message, and for taking the time to read all the posts. I have to say that we may have some similar tastes in watches; Credor, as a brand, is my absolute grail (I would love an Eichi II but a Node with blue or gray dial may be more realistic over the medium term), and that the Shippo is an awesome piece. It somehow reminds me of some of Voutilainen dials, which, imho, are amongst the most exquisite out there... So congrats! Enameled guilloché is something that I would love to do in the near future; especially because I'm aware of some very talented craftsmen in China who would do a fantastic job. If I were to do such a watch though, I would follow Ophion's path and have the guilloché pattern CNCed instead of simply stamped, because it feels nicer and more crisp. Anyway, enough dreaming for today... :-d

Well, I'm really happy that you like Ji. Hopefully yes, there should still be some ;-)

Have a nice day,

Robin.


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## MichealChang (Mar 28, 2016)

Qidamin said:


> Lucky to have had the chance to meet Wilfried from Atelier Wen today in Beijing and see the prototypes, after having met Robin some months ago. The story of their project and the experience they gain is just amazing. The watches look very good, porcelain dials have something special. The case back is splendid too.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I'm so jelly bro :-|


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## 1afc (Mar 19, 2014)

I congratulate you and wish you the best for the very interesting journey that you are on.

IMHO that blue porcelain dial is something else and along the lines of FP Journe's Chronometer Bleu. I think I might just have to buy that one!

I know it's pretty late to the party but I have some comments that might be of interest.

With regard to the white face 








I do love the white dial and also love the blued hands.I wonder if you have considered Breguet styled hands. 
The only thing I can see that might be a problem with the Breguet hands is that they may detract from the "Middle Kingdom" image as they scream French/Swiss.

I've played a bit with pad printing and I understand it's very difficult to tell from the photos so please excuse me but these are just comments for consideration.

However, the printing appears a bit flat.

I would experiment with a few more passes on at least some elements of the dial. In particular the hour markers and also the name.

I would also double or triple print (depends on how much ink they pick up each time) the name on the blue one as well.

I know that this watch will initially draw people in with it's looks but you may be able to enhance the whole package by speaking of the movement as will. 
I am not familiar with the one you are using but I'm currently wearing a Starking AM0184 and it just keeps incredible time so far.

I also will show my age here but will also congratulate you on making the crown bigger. I would continue to listen to whoever gave you that advice.
Arthritis is not fun and it is literally painful to wind/adjust many of the small crowns around.

Where do we register for the crowd funding?


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

1afc said:


> I congratulate you and wish you the best for the very interesting journey that you are on.
> 
> IMHO that blue porcelain dial is something else and along the lines of FP Journe's Chronometer Bleu. I think I might just have to buy that one!
> 
> ...


Breguet style hands go with Roman numerals. Could work with traditional Chinese numbers or symbols.

With modern numerals, these olive leaf (else bamboo) shaped hands are perfect here.


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## 1afc (Mar 19, 2014)

Actually there is one spec that I don't remember being mentioned, and that is water resistance.

Even though it is a dress watch I would hope that you would at least aim for 50m and not 30m.

Keep up the good work.


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## MrDagon007 (Sep 24, 2012)

I saw the Atelier Wen prototypes in Hong Kong over a dinner with watch enthusiasts and microbrand owners and they were very, very nice indeed!


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## Wilfried (Aug 2, 2018)

Hi everyone! As always, glad to see the thread rich in activity!

@MrDragon007, thanks! Glad you liked the prototypes  

@1afc, thanks for your question! Worry not, the cases have a water resistance of 5ATM - just what you might want out of a dress watch!

In other news, I just came back from a trip to Beijing rich in video and photo-shooting! That means we'll have a lof of quality stuff to share with you all very soon. I wanted to post a few teasers here, but am having issues uploading pictures...

In the meantime then, rendez-vous on our Instagram @atelierwenluxury for more pictures and (soon!) videos  

Have a nice day!

Wilfried


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## Wilfried (Aug 2, 2018)

Hi everyone! As always, glad to see the thread rich in activity!

@MrDragon007, thanks! Glad you liked the prototypes  

@1afc, thanks for your question! Worry not, the cases have a water resistance of 5ATM - just what you might want out of a dress watch!

In other news, I just came back from a trip to Beijing rich in video and photo-shooting! That means we'll have a lof of quality stuff to share with you all very soon. I wanted to post a few teasers here, but am having issues uploading pictures...

In the meantime then, rendez-vous on our Instagram @atelierwenluxury for more pictures and (soon!) videos  

Have a nice day!

Wilfried


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

MichealChang said:


> I'm so jelly bro :-|


Don't be. They'll be available soon and I don't have enough friends to buy them all :-d



1afc said:


> I congratulate you and wish you the best for the very interesting journey that you are on.
> 
> IMHO that blue porcelain dial is something else and along the lines of FP Journe's Chronometer Bleu. I think I might just have to buy that one!
> 
> ...


Hello,

Thank you very much for your kind message and for the compliments; being compared to FP Journe Chronomètre Bleu is quite something! ;-)

As for the Breguet hands, I have to admit that I am not, personally, a huge fan of them and that, whenever I see some, the first thing I think about is... Breguet. I like leaf hands because I feel that they are coherent with the 1950s stylistic cues that we took and because, as well, as PanKorop mentioned it, their smoothness somehow goes well with the modern numerals.

And please don't apologise for giving some suggestions; it is thanks to these that we are always able to evolve and improve. In regards to printing, there is actually more than one layer, but I will admit that it may not have been truly visible in the previous pictures. Here is one where it is a little bit more apparent:








_Credit h2o'clock 7 on FAM_

Wilfried will nevertheless go to Shenzhen in the near future to visit our dial surface manufacturer as we need to review the shade of blue we are using on the white model. It will also be the occasion to discuss the relief of printing, and to see to see if there is anything we can do to improve it. ;-)

Yes, we will talk more about the movement! I will do a longer post on this soon (and the information will be included on Kickstarter and some articles), but the movement we are using in the production pieces will of the manufacture's highest grade, and this means some tighter manufacturing tolerances as well as a long and extensive testing process afterwards. After being assembled, the watches will undergo regulations in 5 positions, as well as some additional extensive testing.

To be fair, even ourselves (and pretty much all the people we showed the watches to) had trouble manipulating the crown... So an increase in size was definitely needed!

We will have a website running very soon, and it will be possible there to leave your email address in order to get notified in due time and to not miss the super early bird offers. Otherwise, the watches will launch on October 12th, on Kickstarter 

Thank you!



PanKorop said:


> Breguet style hands go with Roman numerals. Could work with traditional Chinese numbers or symbols.
> 
> With modern numerals, these olive leaf (else bamboo) shaped hands are perfect here.


Completely agree :-d



MrDagon007 said:


> I saw the Atelier Wen prototypes in Hong Kong over a dinner with watch enthusiasts and microbrand owners and they were very, very nice indeed!


Super glad that you liked them! I will actually do a post about the HK Watch & Clock Fair very soon. Btw, I don't know if you remember, but we did meet in HK some time ago. I reckon it was in August 2015; I was there only for a few days and a friend from Beijing had introduced me to Ed via Wechat. He invited me to attend, and I gladly did. I remember you had a very nice Junghans chrono; I had a Zenith EP with me 

Here are some pics taken over the past few days, in Beijing:

































Et voilà !

Have a nice evening/rest of the day,

Robin.


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## 1afc (Mar 19, 2014)

The pouch looks good as do the positive displacement spring bars.


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

1afc said:


> The pouch looks good as do the positive displacement spring bars.


Thank you! Here is another picture with the pouch! It is made of top grain calf leather.

View attachment DSC_5864.jpg


Oh, and, here is today's excellent news: an article about us in the New-York Times!









You may read it here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/18/style/watches-atelier-wen-china.html

If you don't mind, please share it! That helps a tremendous lot!  Thank you 

Some more updates coming soon.

Best,

Robin.


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## Disneydave (Jan 17, 2016)

^^^The pic of the white dial watch, strap, and pouch looks really nice!

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk


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## Socal Sam (Sep 16, 2018)

Thank you for sharing your adventure. I have to agree with the members in wishing you success. I looked through all of your posts and many of the member replies and have a few comments. First off, there is nothing wrong with Made in China but as you have already seen in your French forum comments, you have a lot to overcome. You cannot trade on the perception of quality or the promise of mechanical innovation. Don't get me wrong, the Chinese clone movements are capable and your choice of the faster beat is the right one. But it is still a Chinese clone. You don not deny your watch's origin so your decision to embrace Chinese design is a wise one. Unfortunately, the cultural myth you chose is not instantly recognizable to Westerners and perhaps even to the Chinese themselves. By wearing your watch, the owner has to feel like he is capturing some aspect of your cultural statement. Is your cultural statement a lifestyle statement or a philosophical statement or what? You will need to find some Chinese cultural myth that is universally known AND related to time. How about watches based on the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac? Each animal version with the look of the Jackie Chan dragon watch?? All good Chinese know their animal year and much like the Western zodiac signs, there are personal attributes characteristic of each sign. Plus, people love animals. As for your watch itself, $500 to $1000 price is a competitive segment with many worthy and feature rich watches to be had. Looking at your prototypes, I have to question ceramic choice. Ceramics has fallen out of favor because of durability issues. If you have seen a broken case lug, you will know why Rolex has pushed the material to Tudor. Design-wise, your watches do not look like ceramic face watches and that's a problem. Ancient Chinese porcelain pieces are exquisitely beautiful and some are extremely valuable. China's ancient heritage offers infinite imagery and you will have a far better chance of resonating with your buyer's creative side. Screw secured case back does not scream quality. You will never convince anyone that it is water resistant. I did not catch the crystal material but it should be sapphire.


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## Qidamin (Dec 3, 2015)

I think you have misunderstood what this watch is about. First, how can they deny the watch's origin, as the main goal is to make a 100% China made watch, and to be proud of it? that's also why they didn't put a swiss movement inside...what's the point of it? The second thing, about design, was not to fall into the Chinese cliché, that you exactly mention (the 12 animals etc...) and have a minimalist but well recognizable Chinese inspired design. At least you have the kunpeng on the case back. The ceramic look is not easy to render in the picture, but as I have seen the watches I can assure you that the dials have something special and are really gorgeous. Maybe the only thing I would agree with is the screws on the back, but that's not a big deal for me I have to say.


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## Socal Sam (Sep 16, 2018)

Qidamin said:


> I think you have misunderstood what this watch is about. First, how can they deny the watch's origin, as the main goal is to make a 100% China made watch, and to be proud of it? that's also why they didn't put a swiss movement inside...what's the point of it? The second thing, about design, was not to fall into the Chinese cliché, that you exactly mention (the 12 animals etc...) and have a minimalist but well recognizable Chinese inspired design. At least you have the kunpeng on the case back. The ceramic look is not easy to render in the picture, but as I have seen the watches I can assure you that the dials have something special and are really gorgeous. Maybe the only thing I would agree with is the screws on the back, but that's not a big deal for me I have to say.


Your challenge is to convince buyers to pay $500 to $1,000 which is a premium over other Chinese watchmakers that offer models with a similar movement and cost $200 or less. In other words, the price difference represents the design content that you are adding. This design content must immediately connect with the creative side of your buyer's mind in order to justify the premium. In order to trigger a buy decision, the buyer has to say, "I love the looks and what the design stands for and I don't care that it is made in China and that it has a Chinese clone of a Swiss movement". That's the creative mind overcoming that rational mind in order to justify paying a premium. At first glance, your watches present plain looking blue and white faces with Chinese characters that carries a large premium over other Chinese watches with the same movement. I'm not saying that your design is bad and I certainly cannot say how the market will react to your design but you are asking a lot from what are essentially unsophisticated shoppers.

Here is the Jackie Chan dragon watch. It is immediately recognizable as having Chinese content. Ignore if you can that it is a Richard Mille. The design is artistic and appeals to the emotional side. That's your challenge.


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## Socal Sam (Sep 16, 2018)

The image link did not show up, my apologies. Google image search for "Jackie Chan Dragon Watch".


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## 1afc (Mar 19, 2014)

@ Social Sam I'm sure the guys appreciate all feed back and here are a few queries from me.

_I have to question ceramic choice. Ceramics has fallen out of favor because of durability issues. If you have seen a broken case lug, you will know why Rolex has pushed the material to Tudor. Design-wise, your watches do not look like ceramic face watches and that's a problem. Ancient Chinese porcelain pieces are exquisitely beautiful and some are extremely valuable. China's ancient heritage offers infinite imagery and you will have a far better chance of resonating with your buyer's creative side. _

I'm trying to reconcile a porcelain/ceramic face and a broken case lug. Sorry but I don't see the objective of the comment. 
Also I'm not quite sure what a ceramic watch face should look like. 
I agree that the white ones do look a bit flat but I believe the white tends to be a bit overexposed and the blue printing also looks washed out in many pictures. However, when I see a photo with better exposure the printing looks to be quite a rich hue. 
I also like the blue faced watch.
I don't know what you believe a porcelain dial is supposed to look like but the Hermes Slim doesn't really look like one in photos either.

_Screw secured case back does not scream quality. You will never convince anyone that it is water resistant. _
I don't agree with this comment in general on the basis that it is a dress watch.
There are plenty of watches that have snap backs with this level of WR.
To be contrary there are plenty of screw back watches that leak like a seive, maybe passed the crown or crystal. It depends on the design parameters.
There is also a school of thought that says the screw back is inferior to the Vostok style which uses a flat case back with a screw down ring as it makes the seals reusable.

While the price bracket is competitive, I believe there are a number of features that would make me spend my money in this price bracket when I mostly would not buy in this range.
They are
The story and attention to detail.
Porcelain dial - (because I don't have one yet)
Sapphire crystal
50M WR
higher grade 28.8 movement with extra tuning
Presentation pouch
Apparent quality of strap
Lever type spring bars

This project looks like a western version of Perpetual Watch Co. Same base ingredients as a lot of others but its the commitment to better finish that makes the value proposition.

Many people won't like the offering and that's fine, but many may see value.


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## Socal Sam (Sep 16, 2018)

1afc said:


> @ Social Sam I'm sure the guys appreciate all feed back and here are a few queries from me.
> 
> _I have to question ceramic choice. Ceramics has fallen out of favor because of durability issues. If you have seen a broken case lug, you will know why Rolex has pushed the material to Tudor. Design-wise, your watches do not look like ceramic face watches and that's a problem. Ancient Chinese porcelain pieces are exquisitely beautiful and some are extremely valuable. China's ancient heritage offers infinite imagery and you will have a far better chance of resonating with your buyer's creative side. _
> 
> ...


I appreciate your disagreement and your thoughtful and measured reply. I've read too many forum reviews and seen too many videos to consider a ceramic in a watch. Apparently, ceramic lugs shatter with what are seemingly light impacts. Lugs are solid structures while a dial is in essence fine China, pun intended. I would have to know that it is not as fragile as a tea cup. The execution of the design is good but the content itself does not pop. IMO, It does not stand out in a display case full of $500-1000 competitors. That's a highly subjective impression so disagreement is expected and accepted. Screw secured case may not seat the seal evenly so WR is always going to be questionable unless the seal is a monster like in the Vostok. If it is off the shelf Chinese, it is likely an o-ring. Exposed screws might be acceptable in a throw away watch but it is not in an aspirational piece. Your price point check list is spot on. Agreed, the founder's story is compelling and easy to root for. We have all heard the term "buying the seller" which is paying a premium for the seller's integrity. In this case, the premium would be for buying the founder and the experience he brings to the table, which is none. And they are priced over Perpetual.


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## Qidamin (Dec 3, 2015)

I know what you mean, but I must say that you still doesn't get it (I say it with no anger or anything bad against you  ). Chinese watches with dragon faces or animals or designs you can see on Chinese ceramics lime plum trees that is typically Chinese, with a Sea-gull movement for 200$, I think you can find that everywhere on the market. The approach is a bit different here. I would not create a French watch with the Eiffel tower because it looks so French. Maybe I would find something else, digging deeper in the French history and put a slight touch of it on the watch. That's what it is about here (and it is clearly explained). Then you can maybe read again the different posts to see why the price will be 500$. All component should be of a very good quality (movement, coated sapphire crystal, ceramic dial, rhodium or heated blue hands). The guys just try to make a Chinese inspired quality watch. And you are wrong, on the French forum, most of the people really appreciate the watches and the fact that they have a quite minimalistic design. Maybe it is just not the kind of design you are looking for


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## Socal Sam (Sep 16, 2018)

Qidamin said:


> I know what you mean, but I must say that you still doesn't get it (I say it with no anger or anything bad against you  ). Chinese watches with dragon faces or animals or designs you can see on Chinese ceramics lime plum trees that is typically Chinese, with a Sea-gull movement for 200$, I think you can find that everywhere on the market. The approach is a bit different here. I would not create a French watch with the Eiffel tower because it looks so French. Maybe I would find something else, digging deeper in the French history and put a slight touch of it on the watch. That's what it is about here (and it is clearly explained). Then you can maybe read again the different posts to see why the price will be 500$. All component should be of a very good quality (movement, coated sapphire crystal, ceramic dial, rhodium or heated blue hands). The guys just try to make a Chinese inspired quality watch. And you are wrong, on the French forum, most of the people really appreciate the watches and the fact that they have a quite minimalistic design. Maybe it is just not the kind of design you are looking for


Fair enough. I hope my comments do not diminish my best wishes for your success.


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## Qidamin (Dec 3, 2015)

All comments are welcome. It should be their success (I hope), not mine. To be honest, I didn't particularly like the designs at first (the blue one was ok for me). I had the same feeling as you, not Chinese enough, too simple! But I've started to appreciate the watches more and more while following the story.


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## 1afc (Mar 19, 2014)

Socal Sam said:


> I appreciate your disagreement and your thoughtful and measured reply. I've read too many forum reviews and seen too many videos to consider a ceramic in a watch. Apparently, ceramic lugs shatter with what are seemingly light impacts. Lugs are solid structures while a dial is in essence fine China, pun intended. I would have to know that it is not as fragile as a tea cup. The execution of the design is good but the content itself does not pop. IMO, It does not stand out in a display case full of $500-1000 competitors. That's a highly subjective impression so disagreement is expected and accepted. Screw secured case may not seat the seal evenly so WR is always going to be questionable unless the seal is a monster like in the Vostok. If it is off the shelf Chinese, it is likely an o-ring. Exposed screws might be acceptable in a throw away watch but it is not in an aspirational piece. Your price point check list is spot on. Agreed, the founder's story is compelling and easy to root for. We have all heard the term "buying the seller" which is paying a premium for the seller's integrity. In this case, the premium would be for buying the founder and the experience he brings to the table, which is none. And they are priced over Perpetual.


Hi Sam

As you know ceramics by definition are hard but brittle and I know many manufacturers have dropped ceramics as a case material for that very reason.

However, I don't understand how that translates to a ceramic dial.
My understanding is that the ceramic dials are a devilish beast to make, with a very high failure rate because of the thermal stresses. 
However, ceramic pocket watch dials have been around as long as the watches themselves and my understanding is that they last very well indeed.

Can you point me to any information that indicates a a ceramic dial may fail prematurely?

_ IMO, It does not stand out in a display case full of $500-1000 competitors. That's a highly subjective impression so disagreement is expected and accepted._
This is an interesting comment and, as you say, to each their own.
However, as I'm looking for an understated dress watch I think they will work for me. What I believe they do have is individuality and I expect they will be better "in the flesh".

Re the case seal, yes the Vostok is a monster but its claim to fame is that the closing mechanism does not introduce any shear in the rubber. It does need a strong closing force, hence the locking ring. The other feature is that the case back actually compresses more under pressure so supposedly works better.

I agree that the case back with hold down screws will use an o-ring that will be compressed between the case and the back to get the seal.
I also agree with you that this is a weak point in the design as they can also be difficult to remove when the oring gets old and hardens.
As I understand they are using a higher grade movement so I possibly would have considered a display back.

I know they have a sapphire crystal and I guess it will be flat.
This is also a point I would have changed as a domed crystal is more asthetically pleasing and the wearer also doesn't get complaints about reflecting in someone's eye.

Good discussion.


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## Socal Sam (Sep 16, 2018)

1afc said:


> Hi Sam
> 
> As you know ceramics by definition are hard but brittle and I know many manufacturers have dropped ceramics as a case material for that very reason.
> 
> ...


As you can tell from my post count, I've just renewed my love of watches. I appreciate the gentile discussion. You should see the other enthusiast forums I belong to. But, I digress.

Regarding the ceramic dial, no I cannot point to any data showing failure rate. However, knowing that ceramics as a case material is falling out of favor would raise questions...at least from this unwashed consumer. I don't view this as a criticism but rather an opportunity. If they can point to some manufacturing process that reveals integrity, that would be a great selling point. Regarding the content and looks, I've been a little harsh and I don't want to deny a dream. I will say that content must appeal to the widest audience and that means playing to the lowest common denominator which by definition is something that resonates with most if not all. The Chinese cultural content of this startup undoubtedly has great importance but it is a small facet of the whole and therefore obscure. Does this mean lowering intellectual content in order to succeed, then yes. If they are here to make a beautiful watch only, comment withdrawn.

Now, if they can get Stallone to wear one in a movie ala Panerai, that would change everything.


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## 1afc (Mar 19, 2014)

Hi Sam 
_Now, if they can get Stallone to wear one in a movie ala Panerai, that would change everything. _
Yes that would change everything 

I think you will find that ceramic dials and ceramic cases are very different animals.
The case can easily be subjected to impact loads which doesn't help ceramics at all.

Dials on the other hand tend to bring out the best in ceramics. 
They are sort of like the Lladro figurines that are tucked away in the back of a china cabinet and last forever.

Dials for the most part are protected from impact loads and therefore their ceramic hardness, luster and colour retention make them shine (pun intended) in this application. 
The fact that they are also on a metal backing probably also helps absorb some shock loads.

FWIW I wouldn't buy a watch with a ceramic case but have no problem with ceramic dials.

If they are so good then why aren't they used more?
Cost, including yield from production and thickness which means specifying longer canon pinions etc that would not be used for standard dials.


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## Socal Sam (Sep 16, 2018)

1afc said:


> Hi Sam
> _Now, if they can get Stallone to wear one in a movie ala Panerai, that would change everything. _
> Yes that would change everything
> 
> ...


All good marketing and selling points. Agreed, the dial would be supported and the case would dampen impact force but the face itself will still be subject to deceleration force. Has the manufacturer and founder conducted drop and wear and tear testing?


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## 1afc (Mar 19, 2014)

_Has the manufacturer and founder conducted drop and wear and tear testing? _
I don't know about that at all.

However, as mentioned before, pocket/watches have had ceramic dials for over a century.
Not that I'm the ultimate authority but I have not heard of this problem and I don't see why it should suddenly start to be a major problem.


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## Qidamin (Dec 3, 2015)

These watches dials are made with special process that makes them almost unbreakable, according to what Robin from Atelier Wen has said (I have searched it for you "They solved the fragility issue by adding some zirconium oxide powder to the mix of clay").


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## 1afc (Mar 19, 2014)

Qidamin said:


> These watches dials are made with special process that makes them almost unbreakable, according to what Robin from Atelier Wen has said (I have searched it for you "They solved the fragility issue by adding some zirconium oxide powder to the mix of clay").


I could be wrong but I think the reference was to a company that had not made watch dials before and they needed to experiment to get it right. 
I'm sure traditional manufacturers would have been doing that all along.


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## Socal Sam (Sep 16, 2018)

Fandegrue said:


> ...How do we ensure the resistance and durability of our porcelain dials? Good question  At the beginning, we went to Jingdezhen, which is the Chinese porcelain capital. Most of the workshops we talked to had no experience with the watch industry, and were not willing to take up the job given how small our volumes would be. One factory was interested, and despite producing some beautiful porcelains, we quickly discovered, as it was hinted out at, that the material was too brittle and fragile. We eventually found our current dial supplier through Fiyta, our assembler (and one of the largest and most prestigious watch company of China). They, too, are interested in making porcelain-dial watches, but given their size, scale and power (again, they belong to AVIC, which a $70billion turnover company), they had no trouble convincing a dial manufacturer to work for them and spend the required investment. They solved the fragility issue by adding some zirconium oxide powder to the mix of clay (and pigments, for the blue one) before cooking (on a thin copper disk)....


Here is what caught my attention. If they have drawn from the experience of pocket watch dial makers, that would be a selling point.


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## MichealChang (Mar 28, 2016)

Qidamin said:


> These watches dials are made with special process that makes them almost unbreakable, according to what Robin from Atelier Wen has said (I have searched it for you "They solved the fragility issue by adding some zirconium oxide powder to the mix of clay").


See post #77 as I asked the same concerns and questions about the dials. Plus they said it is going to be cooked on a metal (copper) disc. So I think it means that the dial is also re-enforced with a metal disc behind it.

_*Calling Robin for help*_


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## Letter T (Apr 29, 2018)

Socal Sam said:


> Now, if they can get Stallone to wear one in a movie ala Panerai, that would change everything.


If they can get me in a movie I will wear one.

Joking aside, I believe the target audience may not be general public but more watch enthusiasts and people interested in Chinese culture. If that is indeed the case then I do not see the need to play with the stereotypes about Chinese culture in the design.

Chinese zodiac/horoscope signs and Chinese dragons have been designed in everything, to the point it is not even interesting any more.


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## 1afc (Mar 19, 2014)

MichealChang said:


> See post #77 as I asked the same concerns and questions about the dials. Plus they said it is going to be cooked on a metal (copper) disc. So I think it means that the dial is also re-enforced with a metal disc behind it.
> 
> _*Calling Robin for help*_


That's standard procedure Michael. The early pocket watches and high end ones now use silver as the dial base. Ordinarily it is brass.
I think all this talk of fragility comes about because the company was trying to do something it had not done before.

However, my understanding is that they abandoned work with that supplier and chose another one that had the experience.

This might be of interest https://lundis-bleus.com/en/enameling/


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## Socal Sam (Sep 16, 2018)

Letter T said:


> If they can get me in a movie I will wear one.
> 
> Joking aside, I believe the target audience may not be general public but more watch enthusiasts and people interested in Chinese culture. If that is indeed the case then I do not see the need to play with the stereotypes about Chinese culture in the design.
> 
> Chinese zodiac/horoscope signs and Chinese dragons have been designed in everything, to the point it is not even interesting any more.


I do not disagree. And yet there is the Jackie Chan Dragon Watch which oozes style and is instantly recognizable as Chinese. Your question "target audience may not be general public" is an important one and leads to the questions of who are the buyers and how does the content translate into sales numbers? Business imperative might lead to the following question, should content message resonate with a wider audience? As I stated earlier, if the founder wishes to make a beautiful watch only, mission accomplished and my comments withdrawn.


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## tycn (May 7, 2016)

Socal Sam said:


> And yet there is the Jackie Chan Dragon Watch which oozes style and is instantly recognizable as Chinese.











I'm not sure if I agree with you there. I think the Atelier Wen is a much nicer and more tasteful looking watch, and for 1/1500 of the price. Regarding looking Chinese sure there's the dragon and phoenix motif, but the case design screams to me "garish, chunky Swiss high end sports watch".


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## joepac (Jun 29, 2011)

Subbed! 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk


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## atxdivebezel (Apr 21, 2018)

Unless I missed it, I think we glossed over the fact that these guys got an NYT piece, this is a HUGE FRIGGIN DEAL. Congrats to all involved. I've said it before, this is far and away the most interesting thread on this forum currently! can't wait to see what happens on go-live day on Kickstarter.


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

tycn said:


> View attachment 13494385
> 
> 
> I'm not sure if I agree with you there. I think the Atelier Wen is a much nicer and more tasteful looking watch, and for 1/1500 of the price. Regarding looking Chinese sure there's the dragon and phoenix motif, but the case design screams to me "garish, chunky Swiss high end sports watch".


That dragonbling (Cecil B.) de Mille is as much of a Chinese reference as Dmitry Peskov's skull watch - same maker, culprit, producer? - is Russian. Now, the latter seems to be considered by its owner as a dress watch more than a sports one!
Now, if everyone agreed on taste, the world would be so boring, and most people so lone...


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## MichealChang (Mar 28, 2016)

1afc said:


> That's standard procedure Michael. The early pocket watches and high end ones now use silver as the dial base. Ordinarily it is brass.
> I think all this talk of fragility comes about because the company was trying to do something it had not done before.
> 
> However, my understanding is that they abandoned work with that supplier and chose another one that had the experience.
> ...


Everyday is a new day that I learn something new. Thanks for the link. Now I have greater appreciation for enamel and similar dials.

By the way, the video at the end of the page where it shows the creation of their "Ocean Surface" texture on its dial is so beautiful.


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

Hello everyone,

First of all, please excuse the time it took me to reply. These past few days were particularly packed; I was in Paris to show the prototypes to a few press outlets. I have just left; I am writing these lines in a TGV speeding through the night in the sleepy diagonale du vide to reach Marseille.

I enjoyed reading the debate SoCal Sam's intervention sparked. I will not reply directly to all the points that were raised, but I thought that I would pick-up a few and elaborate on them.

The first one I would like to discuss is the question of value. At some point, something along these lines was said: "What is the difference between these watches and $200 Chinese ones?". From a purely neutral and objective point of view, there are quite a lot of them: a very, very finely regulated and adjusted movement (more than one month of continuous testing, tighter manufacturing tolerances than pretty much most Chinese movements, regulated in 5 positions using a Witschi chronocomparator), a porcelain dial (good luck finding one below €1500; ours is made virtually unbreakable by adding some zirconium oxide powder before heating), rhodium-plated hand-applied markers, genuine heat-blued hands, a double-dome sapphire crystal with five-layer inner-anti-reflective coating, top-grain vegetable-tanned leather straps, a high-relief embossed artwork on the caseback, extensive manual finish on the case&#8230; Hell, good luck finding a watch with that level of specifications for $500! As an aside, the aforementioned question of added benefits compared to a $200 Chinese watch should be extended to pretty much all the watches priced below $5K&#8230; Because they are, nearly all of them, partially made in China (for instance, Omega and Zenith have some of their cases made in the Middle Kingdom and some of their dials done in Thailand). It is thus a fairly erroneous assumption to assume that all Chinese watches are the same. Hell no, since pretty much all the watches around us are actually, at least partially so, manufactured in China/using Chinese components! Nobody would dare to say that a Seagull, a Longines and an Omega are the same deal, right?

But then, if we choose to move away from these surface observations, we can ask ourselves some further interesting questions. Is value only a specification sheet? Is there, in the first place, any such thing as value? Why do we buy watches?

I am of the opinion that, yes, value does exist, but it is absolutely not a mere laundry list of specifications. To respond to the question of value we need to know, first, what the rationale behind acquiring watches is. And this is heavily linked to the question of knowing what a watch main function turns out to be. So, what is it? Simply to tell the time? Of course, no, because otherwise the utmost perfection would be a smartphone or a very cheap, entry-of-line, Casio G-Shock. Hence, if it is not timekeeping, what could it be?

Before giving away my personal response, allow me to digress a tiny bit. Brancusi was a Romanian sculptor, and quite likely the greatest of the last century. He was famous for the abstract character of his pieces, and for having paved the way for surrealist sculptures. He was friend with Duchamp, Steichen, Epstein, etc. In 1926, he created a sculpture named "Bird in Space", which sought to reproduce what was, (at least according to Constantin) most fundamental and striking about birds: their movements while flying. Here is, for your interest, a picture of the piece:









Duchamp was at the time curating an exhibition at the Brummer Gallery in NYC, and he decided to include his friend's piece. When the latter finally reached the US shore, some issues arose with the custom officials: they would not recognise Brancusi's work as a piece of art but rather as an utilitarian object (a tool), which would call for a 40% tax. A lawsuit then took place, and the whole debate was "can we consider "Bird in Space" as art?". The sculpture did not fall in the epoch definition for the latter, so how to prove that it was not a tool? Ultimately, Brancusi and Duchamp's argument (I am simplifying a lot for the sake of brevity) was that the piece served no other purpose than being itself, and that, as such, it should be rightfully considered as art. This is, of course, only but one out of so many definitions for "art", but this is my favourite: an object which sole function is to be itself.

I believe that this definition very well fits watches. In my mind, therefore, watches are a form of art. What is attractive in art? What makes it valuable? It is the vision, the creator's take on his environment, the way he or she can convey his or her own feelings and move us, and make us, actually, feel something as well. Art is about feelings.

Two days ago, in Paris, I had the opportunity to meet one of France's wealthiest and most preeminent watch collector. His collection is more than stunning: Dufour, Voutilainen, MB&F&#8230; He was having trouble finding his next watch. He was tired of being milked and taken for a fool by the big brands, and true independent watchmakers take years to deliver. I did ask him about what he was mainly looking for in a watch. He looked at me in the eyes, a faint smile appeared on his face, out of which the following words escaped: "I buy the creator's soul".

The creator's soul. Of course, he made it on purpose a little provoking, but I still found lot of truth in his words. According to him, this is where the value stems from. More than a watch, he buys a story, a vision, some sentiments, that all have the final effect of moving him. He buys watches to appreciate feelings that are true, deep, honest and unique.

There is a lot of that, I believe, in our watches. Sure, it does not ooze, straight from the beginning, what one may stereotypically associate with China, but, at the same time, the point is that this is NOT what we want to convey. Our watches are not merely about "just" the Middle Kingdom, but rather about Wilfried and I's China. We want to take whoever gets our watches on a journey to our China, to what we, ourselves, appreciate there. This is a very personal voyage, that comes deep from our guts, and not a pre-packaged group tour to the Great Wall and to the Forbidden City. From the beginning, the goal with Atelier Wen is to provide responses to the question of knowing what modern Chinese chic is. With each of our watches, we aim to provide the beginning of an answer, but, of course, that answer is personal. This is what WE, ourselves, deem to be modern Chinese chic. Other individuals may have completely different points of views. So, no, you won't find golden dragons on our watches, but rather authentic cultural references that are meaningful to us. This is, in a way, a bit of our soul that we are showcasing though our products.

Do we have legitimacy to carry such action? Because, after all, we are not Chinese. I believe nevertheless that we have some. Wilfried was born in HK, spent his childhood there, speaks Mandarin like a local, and did roughly half of his studies in the Middle Kingdom. On the other, I have been, myself, passionate about Chinese watches since I am 15, and I have been, too, for the past few years, the disciple of Li Wei, who is the greatest authority on Chinese watches in China. I also lived in the country for some time.

Regarding market considerations and strategy... this post is already more than 1000-word long! So this will be for another day. The post about the HK Watch & Clock Fair will also be coming up soon.

I hope you will have enjoyed the read, and I would be keen to know your take on the notion of value, if you are willing to share it. 

Have a nice evening/rest of the day,

Robin.


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

Fandegrue said:


> (...)not a mere laundry list of specifications. To respond to the question of value we need to know, first, what the rationale behind acquiring watches is. And this is heavily linked to the question of knowing what a watch main function turns out to be. So, what is it? Simply to tell the time? Of course, no, because otherwise the utmost perfection would be a smartphone or a very cheap, entry-of-line, Casio G-Shock. Hence, if it is not timekeeping, what could it be?
> (...)


100%!
Now, glad your interest in Duchamp stops at the metaphor. He did exhibit "china" in NYC with his famous public fountain, but this is only proof porcelain alone doesn't make China. Now, I might have voted for a dial featuring the proud logo "LHOOQ", itself a homage to Alphonse Allais. I spare you a few spoonerisms about the explorer who returned by foot from China.

Now, let's not confuse art and craftsmanship - artiste et artisan - even if both work in an Atelier. Fortunately, your pieces are not "readymades", and they do have a function after all. Which is to tell time, faster than flipping open then unlocking the phone, or letting the G-shock rip through your shirt cuff. Watches are ludicrously, superfluously... convenient!

I hope your vampire friend, that soul snatcher from Paris, is one of your sponsors by now. Btw, I just flipped through the last Gazette Drouot (get it while in Paris): hilarious paper about crazy priced Chinese collectible crockery made of "tombac". Took me a while to figure out it's an antiquaries' fancy word for... plain brass. Marketing a legend of this "mysterious metal" gets the prices soaring to six zeroes.

So, to raise some cash, maybe you should after all make a limited edition Tombac-and-Imperial jade watch. With dragons, Fu-Manchu portrait, bells and whistles, "made in Empire du Milieu" by Atelier Gin Sling ;-)






​


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## MichealChang (Mar 28, 2016)

Fandegrue said:


> &#8230;.
> The first one I would like to discuss is the question of value. At some point, something along these lines was said: "What is the difference between these watches and $200 Chinese ones?". From a purely neutral and objective point of view, there are quite a lot of them: a very, very finely regulated and adjusted movement (more than one month of continuous testing, tighter manufacturing tolerances than pretty much most Chinese movements, regulated in 5 positions using a Witschi chronocomparator), a porcelain dial (good luck finding one below €1500; ours is made virtually unbreakable by adding *some zirconium oxide powder *before heating), rhodium-plated hand-applied markers, genuine heat-blued hands, a double-dome sapphire crystal with five-layer inner-anti-reflective coating, top-grain vegetable-tanned leather straps, a high-relief embossed artwork on the caseback, extensive manual finish on the case&#8230;


Should have said "by adding some forgotten-secret-ancient-watchmaking-juicy-sauce powder before heating" ;-)



Fandegrue said:


> But then, if we choose to move away from these surface observations, we can ask ourselves some further interesting questions. *Is value only a specification sheet?* Is there, in the first place, any such thing as value? Why do we buy watches?


After reading that, now I'm questioning some of my watch purchasing decisions. :roll:

Anyways, Great read. Always loved reading wall-of-texts filled with interesting stuff to read.


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## Chascomm (Feb 13, 2006)

MichealChang said:


> After reading that, now I'm questioning some of my watch purchasing decisions. :roll:


And once you stop to reflect, you learn a lot more about watches and about yourself.


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## Letter T (Apr 29, 2018)

This has to be one of the most interesting topics on the whole forum.


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

PanKorop said:


> 100%!
> Now, glad your interest in Duchamp stops at the metaphor. He did exhibit "china" in NYC with his famous public fountain, but this is only proof porcelain alone doesn't make China. Now, I might have voted for a dial featuring the proud logo "LHOOQ", itself a homage to Alphonse Allais. I spare you a few spoonerisms about the explorer who returned by foot from China.
> 
> Now, let's not confuse art and craftsmanship - artiste et artisan - even if both work in an Atelier. Fortunately, your pieces are not "readymades", and they do have a function after all. Which is to tell time, faster than flipping open then unlocking the phone, or letting the G-shock rip through your shirt cuff. Watches are ludicrously, superfluously... convenient!
> ...


Hahah, do not worry, I do not have any surrealist ambitions for my brand; there is no plan, as of now, to go start signing some random objects and to afterwards call them timepieces!

Ah, maybe I should then look for a fancier word to describe Japanese 316L steel?

That Atelier Gin Sling piece, instead of following our initial vision of creating "new Chinese chic" could be the embodiment of the "new Chinese kitsch", and, who knows I may be able to sell it a fortune to Koons most ardent fans?



MichealChang said:


> Should have said "by adding some forgotten-secret-ancient-watchmaking-juicy-sauce powder before heating" ;-)
> 
> After reading that, now I'm questioning some of my watch purchasing decisions. :roll:
> 
> Anyways, Great read. Always loved reading wall-of-texts filled with interesting stuff to read.


Hahaha, is that a call to raise the prices? :-d Secret ancient watchmaking juicy sauce powder doesn't come cheap hahaha :think:

Well, it is so easy to get caught in some marketing discourses, in some general opinions, general "movements"... hence it is nice, from times to times, to pause a little a bit and dig deeper into what we really like and want 



Chascomm said:


> And once you stop to reflect, you learn a lot more about watches and about yourself.


Yep! And then, too, you get to enjoy more your next watches 



Letter T said:


> This has to be one of the most interesting topics on the whole forum.


Wow, that is too great of an honour! Thanks! I hope you will like today's post.

*****

Some updates to share with you today.

First of all, some progress has been done regarding the straps, and three prototypes were delivered to us during the HK Watch & Clock Fair. The exotic one is still not ready yet; because of the fairly uncommon and unique nature of the leather, sourcing it is not that straightforward. But we're still working hard on that and hopefully some progress should materialise soon. So, what new straps do we have with us? We have:

-A pearl grey suede one with beige core and minimal stitching;
-A pearl grey suede one with red/burgundy core and minimal stitching;
-A navy blue calf one with regular stitching.

These are, of course, not final, and we're currently testing them and collecting some feedbacks. Apologies for the quality of pictures; as the Kickstarter launch date is approaching, we have somehow entered the "sprint mode", and we haven't yet found some time to properly take some nice shots.
















































_Strapping them on for the first time  _

The HK Watch & Clock Fair took place over the past few days, and Wilfried attended. It was the opportunity to meet many small watch brand owners, and to collect some interesting feedbacks and insights. Thank you very much to my friend Ed (from HKEd) for having invited us to attend the dinners. I don't have much comments to add so&#8230; enjoy the pictures!

My friend Ben from Maison Céladon had put me in touch with Minxiang from Watch Wonderlands, a very cool indie/small-brand-focused watch shop in Singapore. He gave lots of advice and tips to Wilfried, and was kind enough to write something about us on Facebook. So, thank you! This then prompted me to create a Facebook page for the brand&#8230; Thus far, there's not much, but you may want to check it out (and even like it - let's go crazy!): https://www.facebook.com/atelierwen/








Thank you!

As for the fair pictures:
















_If there's a booth where Wilfried had to stop, it is this one... Funny to say hi and to catch-up with our Liaoning Peacock Watch friends outside of Dandong, for once  _
















_Don't ask me about the typo..._

View attachment 13511775

_It's tourbillon frenzy this year!_








_Trying the blue model on!_








Quick exchange! (present here is Phantoms Lab owner)








_If some of you are branding consultants... _








_Lots of small brand owners present!_








_And lots of watches, too!_









Wilfried then headed straight to Beijing to take care of the last steps needed to finally complete our Kickstarter video. Back in April, I went to the Chinese capital for two weeks, and, there, we shot all the scenes where our presence was needed. Remaining was thus all the frames with our watches as well as the "brand environment" ones&#8230; which is quite a lot! As he's there for just four days, these are going to be some quite intense ones.

As he was looking for a suitable filming location - we wanted a place where we could have a "sea of roofs", he bumped into a group of local collectors who noticed the two watches strapped to his wrists (must be an international WIS greeting sign haha). They invited him for dinner, and had quite a good time. While these guys were mainly collecting more expensive pieces, they still very much liked our babies. I know this update doesn't add much in regard to manufacturing, Kickstarter prep etc., yet these nice little moments are often what make the "adventure" very cool to pursue.








_Finally in Beijing!_
















_New friends!_

And finally, one behind-the-scenes pic from the shooting:









One final wristshot:

View attachment DSC_5678.jpg


Have a nice day,

Robin.


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## AlbertaTime (Dec 27, 2008)

Fandegrue said:


> Our watches are not merely about "just" the Middle Kingdom, but rather about Wilfried and I's China.


Saw that in an instant as soon as I saw your designs.


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## Letter T (Apr 29, 2018)

Fandegrue said:


> Secret ancient watchmaking juicy sauce powder doesn't come cheap hahaha :think:


This instantly reminds me of Kung Fu Panda and his father's special ingredient soup:

The secret ingredient of my secret ingredient soup is nothing. There is no secret ingredient. To make something special you just have to believe it's special.

In a way it translates nicely into the watch itself. As long as Wilfried and Robin believe it is special and can persuade others it is special - it will be special.


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

Hello everyone,

I hope you are well.

A few pieces of news to share with you today, and they are all mostly linked to the straps!

We have done quite some progress in regards with our "secret" exotic strap, so much that we are now confident sharing what it actually is. Those of you who follow us on Instagram will already be aware of its nature, but, for the others, I am happy to announce that it will be made of salmon leather! Why did we decide to go for such leather? There are actually a few reasons. The first one is that we wanted to offer something with genuine scales, but which was not prohibitively expensive either. Crocodile and lizard were out of question (even more so if you factor all the CITES-induced hassles) and we did not want to, again, do some pattern embossing on a calf base. The second reason has more to do with symbolism; fishes having some deep significance in Chinese culture, we felt that it was very much in line with what we stand for as a brand. In a way, it reinforces the Chinese character of our watches.

Locating some skins was not easy at all, and you may have noticed that we have quite some delay compared to our initially-envisioned prototype delivery date, which was set to be around the HK Watch & Clock Fair (early September) &#8230; Anyway, our strap provider has recently located some supply, and Wilfried went to see them in person to check whether or not they are adequate enough to make some prototypes. This is what they look like:









Please note that *it is not guaranteed that the final product will use any of these particular skins*; we however need to start our testing process, hence we decided to proceed with the navy blue one you can see there.
















_Quick and dirty shots_

The next step was to choose the lining. We are doing four prototypes in total, and, as such, we decided to try two different ones. Because of the fairly exotic and unique nature of the strap, we wanted something that, too, felt a bit out of the beaten path. We therefore settled for some orange lining. For the second one, we went back to something more conventional: light grey. Hopefully, we should have them by October 10th!








_Grey_

View attachment 13530563

_Orange_

These straps will be available as an add-on on Kickstarter. The watch will come with our new, smooth, navy blue calf as default, and, then, both the grey suede and the blue salmon straps will be there as options. They will be quite affordable; the aim is to provide an array of straps that allows for some very different looks and that increases the number of situations in which the watches can be worn. In a nutshell, we want to improve their versatility, and we want to do so at a cost that is not unreasonable for buyers. The default strap tends to lean more on the formal/dressy side of things, while the grey suede one feels more relaxed and "playful". Lastly, the salmon one definitely has an exotic, a unique vibe, and it should be good fit with special and unique occasions.

After the Kickstarter, I would be very keen to start developing a line of slightly special straps: stingray, sturgeon, other fishes, vegetable-based materials, etc. It will of course all depends on how the KS goes and on our ability to afterwards activate some of the investors we have been talking to. Wilfried and myself are just out of school, and, as such, our means are not unlimited&#8230;

Quite a few people around us have asked about some non-animal materials, and, while I have nothing against the former, I can understand where they are coming from. I am nevertheless completely against paying an unreasonable price-tag for a less-than-mediocre pinatex, or for any other trendy vegan materials. As such, we are now developing on our very own alternative. It has some excellent properties, a true Chinese character (heavily linked to the culture of one of Yunnan's ethnical minorities) and it has never been used on watches! It is taking a bit of time to develop, but hopefully we should be able to present something by the middle of next year.

Last point about the straps: I don't know if you remember, but we were hesitating between two linings for our pearl-grey suede strap; either some beige suede or some burgundy calf. Here are two pictures to remind you:








_Option 1_








_Option 2_

What we found out after testing both for a few weeks is that the hot stamping tends to be much more resistant on the calf! Hence, that burgundy calf is what we will use for the lining. Some individuals around us were a bit worried that it could lose its colours, and after hearing that concern a few times, we asked the strap supplier to proceed to some wear tests&#8230; and the result was concluding; no colour loss!








_We're all good!_

In other news, I recently went to Paris to meet with a few press outlets, and as a result some additional coverage should be coming up as we get closer to the Kickstarter launch date. I also met with my friend Tristan Ledard, who is France's rising watchmaking star. "Only" 24 years-old, he has already won the AHCI Young Talents Competition, and he is in the process of creating his very-own, 100% handmade watch (à la Philippe Dufour). He kindly unscrewed the caseback of the prototype I was wearing, because I had never seen the inside of the case in person. There, he noticed that the inner surface of the caseback wasn't brushed in the most spotlessly clean manner. Back at his atelier, he took a few pictures of the machine settings needed to generate a good and consistent brushing, and I sent them to our case supplier. A few days later, I received a message alongside a few photos, telling me that they had improved the caseback inner surface as requested. It looks much better now! It may seem like a tiny detail (who would even see the inside of the caseback?), but to us, it is quite important.








_Much cleaner!_

We have also made some progress with the packaging. The watches will come in a blue top-grain leather travel pouch, and this is pretty much all sorted out. Here is a picture of it:









Our big concern these days had to do with the cardboard box in which the pouch will be deposited. During our last trip to Guangzhou and to its "packaging district", we realised that there were two courses of option in regard to this cardboard box: either we order a few dozens of thousands, and then the manufacturer will make exactly what we want, or we order less and then we have to choose from a catalogue. The issue is that the quality of the boxes there is fairly crap, and they are more reminiscent of a smartphone box than of a premium watch one&#8230; Thus, this is a less-than-ideal situation. Fortunately, though some personal friends we managed to strike a deal with a company that usually only works with high-end couture brands; they are known for making packaging for two Spanish and Italian brands that both start with a B. The quality is really, really good; it feels a bit weird to say it, but they make some pretty awesome cardboard boxes! And since we have that friendly link with them, they will be able to make something fully customised according to our specifications and in low volumes! Inside, there will be a very-high density foam that will protect the pouch against any shock.

Here is, by the way, the artwork that will be printed on top of the box. It has been designed by our very own Liu Yuguan, and it depicts both the traditional and the more modern facets of China. Thus, on one side you may see a temple, and on the other one you may notice a man waiting for a cab next to some famous Shanghai skyscrapers.









Our website is finally ready! It took a while to get it to run, but now all is well. Please check it, and if you feel like it, sign-up! We've put up a referral programme, hence if that interests you, don't hesitate to take part in! And it would be truly awesome if you could share the website (or just the venture) with people you deem could be interested. Thank you so much!

Atelier Wen

Last point for today, we had to delay our launch from October 12th to October 19th. Opening a business bank account in HK took longer than expected, and our schedule for pre-launch tasks was becoming too unrealistic&#8230; So, we had to push by one (small) week!

A bunch of wristshots taken by both Wilfried and myself over the past few days:








_Overlooking Wanchai from Star Ferry Pier_








_Temple in Beijing_








_It's getting quite cold in France!_








_Yeah, I like sweaters :-d _

Have a nice rest of the day,

Robin.


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

I like eggshell (broken) and clouded blue (blown through a net) porcelains. So I welcome these fishy scales, giving some movement (fantasy?) to these smooth, even dials.
|>


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## drunken-gmt-master (Mar 29, 2018)

Fascinating thread & congratulations to Atelier Wen. For a future design(s), it would be wonderful if you could explore something inspired by that historical Sino-Franco amalgam known as Chinese Deco, popularized in Shanghai & Nanjing between the wars.


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## GUTuna (Dec 27, 2014)

I love the decision to produce salmon leather straps. I have a few fish leather straps and I'm a huge fan. You're definitely taking your own path.


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## dw3107 (Jun 25, 2009)

Seeing the designs of your watches got me interested. Reading about your journey has got me itching to sign up to your campaign. Looking forward to more updates.

Best of luck!

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


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## MichealChang (Mar 28, 2016)

If you guys follow them on facebook, you might have seen this. But I'll just leave it here for all of us to see.


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## mauler8999 (Sep 4, 2018)

Beautiful strap. What kind of Leather?


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## MichealChang (Mar 28, 2016)

Apparently it's salmon leather. I have never seen or heard anything like it.


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## Kromag (Nov 27, 2012)

MichealChang said:


> Apparently it's salmon leather. I have never seen or heard anything like it.


I think it's more common for dive watches to use fish skin. That one has a lot of texture. Here's an example of a sturgeon skin.


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

There's also a tradition of fish leather for dress watches... Grey, black, beige sharkskin when not or little padded, or this "galuchat" (Eng.: shagreen, Ger.: Perlrochen) made of polished skin of some small sharks and rayfish.


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

stolen-gmt-master said:


> Fascinating thread & congratulations to Atelier Wen. For a future design(s), it would be wonderful if you could explore something inspired by that historical Sino-Franco amalgam known as Chinese Deco, popularized in Shanghai & Nanjing between the wars.


Thank you very much! Yes, that could be a very interesting and meaningful source of inspiration. I had not thought about it before, but this could truly be highly relevant for a watch, and could generate some very interesting case shapes and dial layouts... Some homework for me!

I really enjoy this style! One thing I like to do in Shanghai is to hunt for buildings that fit within the art deco canvas... The Park Hotel being amongst my favourites!








_Credit: Agoda_



GUTuna said:


> I love the decision to produce salmon leather straps. I have a few fish leather straps and I'm a huge fan. You're definitely taking your own path.


Thank you! We have just received one prototype, so now, time to test it! Not sure yet we'll stick with the skin we have at the moment; it all depends on its quality and how down the road it looks like on the wrist. Out of curiosity, what fish leather straps do you have? And how would you rate their durability? It's quite novel for us to venture into fish leather, so I still have quite a few interrogations ;-) Thanks!



dw3107 said:


> Seeing the designs of your watches got me interested. Reading about your journey has got me itching to sign up to your campaign. Looking forward to more updates.
> Best of luck!
> Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk


Thank you, that's very kind of you! I hope that you will enjoy today's (fairly short) update  Don't hesitate to leave any comments/suggestions you have regarding the salmon leather strap! 



MichealChang said:


> If you guys follow them on facebook, you might have seen this. But I'll just leave it here for all of us to see.
> 
> View attachment 13543251


Hahaha, you're quicker than me :-d

Some more pictures (please don't mind their quick and rough nature)!

































I quite like it on Hao ;-) As the Kickstarter is getting closer and closer, we are madly busy and as such we haven't had the time yet to take some proper wristshots... But we'll try to take a few over the forthcoming days.



Kromag said:


> I think it's more common for dive watches to use fish skin. That one has a lot of texture. Here's an example of a sturgeon skin.


I have to say that I really dig your H2O! The sandwich dial, and that strap combo...  But fish skins are also used on more dressy watches; just have a look at Ochs und Junior for instance 



PanKorop said:


> There's also a tradition of fish leather for dress watches... Grey, black, beige sharkskin when not or little padded, or this "galuchat" (Eng.: shagreen, Ger.: Perlrochen) made of polished skin of some small sharks and rayfish.
> 
> View attachment 13543663


Nice galuchat! I by the way didn't know galuchat translated intro shagreen; I always thought it was "stingray"... I learnt something today!  We considered galuchat/stingray/shagreen at the beginning, but the good quality ones were way too expensive. I still have the hope, after the Kickstarter, to start building a range of fairly unique straps: other fishes, stingray, vegetal materials, etc. ;-)

Have a nice day,

Robin.


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

Fandegrue said:


> Nice galuchat! I by the way didn't know galuchat translated intro shagreen; I always thought it was "stingray"... I learnt something today!  We considered galuchat/stingray/shagreen at the beginning, but the good quality ones were way too expensive. I still have the hope, after the Kickstarter, to start building a range of fairly unique straps: other fishes, stingray, vegetal materials, etc. ;-)
> 
> Have a nice day,
> 
> Robin.


Have a good night!
I tend-my bias-to restrict "stingray" to the central (spine) part of sting-rays, where you get that distinctive line of big white spots (pearls) in a lozenge pattern. Galuchat is more about an even, regular fine pattern, this from several fish. Very Art Deco, btw! I'm sure there are French "chinoiserie" furnitures, 1920's, combining Chinese shapes and galuchat patterns.

As for the English "shagreen", it's from the French "chagrin" for anything that itches or irritates; a small pebble between your foot and shoe sole used to be a "chagrin". What has it to do with ray-fish or sea-dog skin? Well it does scratch, as still used by trad Japanese cooks to finely grate ginger, wasabi... If you ever fished, you learnt the painful way to wear gloves before taking sea-dogs from the hook.

Also, think of the French saying "ça rétrécit comme une peau de chagrin": why did it (usually money...) shrink as shagreen skin (i.e. leather)? Skin a sea-dog, then tan it to leather, and you'll see: ends up just wide enough for a Panerai watch strap! Sayings are like tumbleweed: familiar, but with their roots forgotten upwind.

PS: one of my late 19th century sources states galuchat was originally pale green. Such a strap would go so well with a celadon porcelain (greenware) dial... I do insist, eh?







_Document source: Unesco / (c) Longquan Celadon Industry Association, 2008_
https://......./images/NdFC77


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

PanKorop said:


> Have a good night!
> I tend-my bias-to restrict "stingray" to the central (spine) part of sting-rays, where you get that distinctive line of big white spots (pearls) in a lozenge pattern. Galuchat is more about an even, regular fine pattern, this from several fish. Very Art Deco, btw! I'm sure there are French "chinoiserie" furnitures, 1920's, combining Chinese shapes and galuchat patterns.
> 
> As for the English "shagreen", it's from the French "chagrin" for anything that itches or irritates; a small pebble between your foot and shoe sole used to be a "chagrin". What has it to do with ray-fish or sea-dog skin? Well it does scratch, as still used by trad Japanese cooks to finely grate ginger, wasabi... If you ever fished, you learnt the painful way to wear gloves before taking sea-dogs from the hook.
> ...


Dear PanKorop,

Thank you very much for your reply. I have to admit that I really enjoy reading your messages; they are phrased in a way that is truly attention-catching and the contents you discuss are of high interest value. I wish that, back in high-school, I had a French Literature teacher that could explain the roots of popular idioms the way you do it.

As for a celadon green dial, if only you knew how much I am dreaming of such a dial. It will occur for sure; now the sole remaining question is when? :-d

*****

I hope that you are well.

Today is quite a special day for us: in exactly a week, we will be launching on Kickstarter! Needless to say, it is getting a bit hectic work-wise here!

I have not done any proper announcement about the Kickstarter - and all it entices - beforehand, hence I thought that today is the right time to take the opportunity to publish such information.

First thing first, it will start on October 19th at 12AM, French time, and it will last for a month. Thus far, it is still quite straightforward. Where it is going to be a tad bit more complex is with the rewards&#8230; Buckle up!

There will be three different prices available: "super early-bird", "early-bird" and "regular". After the pre-order campaign is over, the watches will retail for $720.

Let's dig a bit more into the rewards! We will thus have:
-Super early-bird: $488 (x50 + 15 sets)
-Early-bird: $528 (x200 + unlimited sets)
-Regular: $548 (unlimited)

I have to confess that, since the time I started talking about the project online, our costs have increased by roughly 18%. This is mainly due to all the small improvements we are implementing: Japanese 316L, better straps, better sapphire, more complex finishes on some angles, etc. Nevertheless, when I first introduced Atelier Wen on the leading French watch forum, I had promised that the watches would sell for roughly €450, and since I want to honour my pledge, I priced the early-bird tier in a way that matches it. I see the super early-bird tier as a way to thank all the individuals who have been following us on forums (i.e. amongst others, you guys!).

In order to be able to produce, we need to raise at least $30,000, the equivalent of selling 61 watches. Still, given all the work and efforts that we have been providing over the past year and a half, we would be happy with a little bit more 

We would be truly grateful of your help over the coming week. As Tesco has been saying it for a long time, "Every Little Helps"! So, if you have anyone in your entourage who, even remotely, has a liking for watches, please do mention them our project! Thank you so much!

In other news, a few outlets have mentioned us recently! In English, we have:
-aBlogtoWatch:https://www.ablogtowatch.com/atelier-wen-creates-high-quality-watches-proudly-chinese-identity/
-Wah So Shiok: https://www.wahsoshiok.com/2018/10/watch-review-atelier-wen-hao/
-Ron Good / Alberta Time / The Alberta Museum of Chinese Horology in Peace River: https://www.amchpr.com/atelier-wen-porcelain-odyssey-hao-visits-the-amchpr.html
-And, lastly, a wonderful article that Minxiang Yang of Watch Wonderland has put up: Atelier Wen ? Porcelain Odyssey « Analoglust

Since no post is ever complete without a picture&#8230;

View attachment DSC_5635.jpg


Have a nice day, everyone!

Robin.


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## Fandegrue (Jul 17, 2011)

Guys!

So excited and happy to tell you that we are launching NOW!!

You may find us here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/468056807/969213248?ref=596430&token=afee1985

Thank you everyone for the huge support! This will be my last post here btw; next one will be in the Start-Up Watch Forum!


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## PanKorop (Jul 21, 2018)

Fandegrue said:


> Guys!
> 
> So excited and happy to tell you that we are launching NOW!!
> 
> ...


Ben... merde!

(sorry, guys, for being such a traditional froggie)


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## John Price (Feb 21, 2011)

Congrats on getting this one off the ground. Really enjoyed reading your posts.


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## ConsumingTime (Oct 17, 2018)

Congrats on blasting right past your goal. I hope to be able to afford one of your watches in the future. They look spectacular.


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## Chascomm (Feb 13, 2006)

One last bump to alert the members on this forum to the new thread in the Start-Ups forum:

https://www.watchuseek.com/f512/atelier-wen-new-chinese-chic-4819159.html

"Funded within 30 minutes!"

:-!


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