Rexhep Rexhepi, the young watchmaker behind the Akrivia brand, seemed to come out of nowhere in 2018 with the launch of his Chronomètre Contemporain. Of course, he hadn?t come from nowhere at all. He had worked at F.P. Journe and had his own brand established for several years before the Chronomètre Contemporain was released, but his relative youth and the immediate accolades from the independent watchmaking community made it seem like Rexhepi was experiencing something akin to overnight success. The Chronomètre Contemporain?s appeal, for me, is in its simple physical beauty. It?s just a gorgeous object, and that, when it comes right down to it, is what drives my watch enthusiasm. Not using them as tools, or even their history, but as objects of pure design made for aesthetic pleasure. The other driving force behind my love for watches is in their mechanical nature, which makes Rexhepi?s latest creation a watch that feels as if it could have been stolen from deep inside my subconscious, if only I had the subconscious of a world class watchmaker. 
The new watch, dubbed the Rexhep Rexhepi Chronomètre Contemporain II (the RRCCII) maintains the key design notes found in the Chronomètre Contemporain, but refines a few things in quite subtle ways. But under the hood, the movement is far more complicated. The idea behind the RRCCII is to preserve the aesthetic of the original, but incorporate new watchmaking techniques that Rexhepi has mastered in the years since i...