This is the watch Czapek & Cie had planned to show you when it launched at SalonQP two years ago. Was it right holding it in reverse for 2017"
by James Buttery

When the Czapek name was revived two years ago, founder Xavier de Roquemaurel had not originally intended on launching with the traditionally styled watches of the Quai des Bergues collection. He had envisaged coming to market with an altogether more modern take on the 18th Century watchmaking of Francois Czapek.
Eventually, and wisely, he and his partners instead decided to first introduce the watch world to the Czapek house style through the twin sub-dials, fine fleur de lys hands and enamel dials employed more than two centuries ago by the man who was once watchmaking partner of one Antoni Patek. The approach certainly worked, Czapek won the Public Prize at last year?s GPHG.
 
This, the 43.5mm Place Vendome Tourbillon Suspendu finally launched last month at Baselworld, is the watch that de Roquemaurel had thought to show you first. While the signature hands, enamel dial and bottom-loaded dial are still evident, it?s a very different proposition.
The design links classic and modern aesthetics, framing the traditional hands – which have lost some of their fineness in the name of legibility – and the enamel dial ? now a ring ? within an open dial on a canvas of frosted mainplate. It?s an agreeable composition, as neither period feels forced on the other, although it could be...