After many emails and a pandemic that has lasted much longer than expected, it finally worked out: I had a personal appointment with Torsti Laine. During breakfast at my hotel, I validated the address for our meeting: Grande Rue 3, ground floor, Le Locle.

Grande Rue? Really? For the previous two days I had been staying at a hotel at Grande Rue 1, which probably meant that my bed could have been next to the wall directly facing Torsti Laine’s workshop and I didn’t even know it.

Laine GG3 with salmon-colored dial on the wrist

A small nameplate at the door simply read: “Laine” and “Watchmaker.” No big corporate lettering, no advertising, no display, no show at all, an almost inconspicuous presence on this picturesque street in Le Locle. But once you enter, you are immediately immersed in the world of fine watchmaking.

Walking through the rooms of Laine’s workshop on the ground floor of the typical Le Locle city house we talked about Laine’s passion for U.S. cars, the English series Top Gear, independent watchmakers, tools, uncommon time objects, the art of guilloché, handcraft, and – very importantly – dial colors.

Laine GG with blue guilloche dial

My initial purpose in visiting was to see Laine’s extraordinary dials, especially now that a new model in a small 38 mm case powered by an automatic micro rotor movement by Vaucher (the 5401, also used in Parmigiani Fleurier’s watches) has appeared in his collection: the Laine V38.

The Vaucher micro rotor movement powering the Laine V38 (photo courtesy Thomas Brechtel)

We had agreed to meet on a Tuesday early in the morning. The last WhatsApp I had received from Laine read, “We can party as well. Watches are ready. My address is […].”

“Party?”

We can party? Much later, after I had checked my WhatsApp messages for the last time on that Tuesday morning to ensure that the time and place were correct, I read my own message to Laine from the day before: “Let’s meet early, ok? First party of the day.”

My English isn’t that good, and I had set the English keyboard on my smartphone where the Y key is next to T. I was in a rush and had inadvertently suggested, “Let us meet the first party of the day” and not the first part of the day.

How a single letter can change the whole character of a meeting.

Salmon-colored guilloche dial of the Laine GG3

The Laine collection

The collection of Laine watches currently includes the V38, Gelidus 3 (G3), and GG3, with the V38 being the newest addition. The latter is a well-proportioned 38 mm stainless steel micro rotor automatic watch offering a great variety of dial designs, including what Laine calls moonfrosting (a large grainage), a center dial in meteorite, and handcrafted guilloché with different patterns like grains of rice, flamme, and panier. All of the watch dials are available in many classic and fancy colors.

The manual-wind models (G3 and G33) are powered by Unitas movements, the case size is larger (around 40 mm), and the dial options are also colorful and come in huge variation of design compositions.

Torsti Laine’s movement decoration and finishing is simply breathtaking. The bridges are sculptured with signature, abstract calligraphy (please also see the graphic design and the lettering art of Polish designer Tomasz Biernat who cooperates with Laine) on classic patterns. There are not many watches in the independent, entry-price level sector that are finished to such an extent.

Laine G3 movement, based on Unitas and finished to perfection

To my surprise, I learned that everything around Laine’s watches seems to take place digitally; buyers don’t come to him personally. Customers don’t seem to drop by or come to see the workshop, and most communication is usually done by e-mail, WhatsApp, and (rarely) on the phone. Laine is indeed a digital independent.

And buyers are not generally from Europe: Laine’s customers are mostly located in the USA and Japan, where Laine watches are available in some partner shops. For Japan it is Noble Styling in Tokyo, while for the USA it is Passion Fine Jewelry in Solana Beach, California, Martin Pulli in Philadelphia, and Cellini in New York.

Laine’s production numbers are low because of the high level of the watches’ individualization, and Europe is not a big market for independent watches. And it is so uncommon as to be unheard of that a European might consider buying a watch without seeing it in the metal – a Laine watch is not inexpensive, quickly reaching the €9,000 level.

Laine GG with blue guilloche dial on the wrist

However, buying Laine’s watches without a face-to-face meeting doesn’t seem to be a problem these days for his customers. No shops, no authorized dealers needed. Knowledge about Laine watches more or less spreads by word of mouth from current owner to future and/or potential owner. Is it more advisable to put a sum of money like that into something “safer?” My clear answer is: if you are able to buy something this beautiful for that amount of money, you should do it.

Torsti Laine: beauty and craftsmanship

Laine stands for strong individualization, bespoke watches, dials, movements, colors, guilloché, lovely hands, and applied numerals – especially Breguet style – in any shape or language. “Dream colors” are made into dials in the Laine workshops.

The coloring of Gelidus 2 dials – a model unfortunately no longer in the program – are fully made in-house, while the handcrafted guilloché work is made by Décors Guillochés in Cernier, Switzerland. Laine offers a huge amount of decoration options, and everything seems to be possible if you are patient enough.

Dial of the Laine V38 in blue with guilloche by Decors Guilloché

Laine received a lot of orders during the pandemic months, a trend that remains absolutely palpable for many small brands and independents to this day. “Being independent is the best prerequisite for inventing, trying out, experimenting, curiosities, and new creations” is a key statement that I heard many times while talking to Laine about his work.

Torsti Laine: the workshop

Laine’s workshop is a very traditional, small watchmaker’s workshop full of machines, parts, and a seemingly endless supply of fantastic customized dials. The workshop comprises one very big room holding traditional watchmaking tools, including several lathes, and several smaller rooms with paint equipment (colors), polishing tools, electroplating equipment, a laser, one large office, and a kitchen (important for coffee – Finnish people seem to like to drink coffee a lot).

The big, heavy, noisy machines run in the attic so as not to disturb neighbors. If you are looking for a customer area like a lounge here, though, you can stop looking: he doesn’t have one and I did not miss it.

What Torsti Laine is most known for

Those who know Laine watches will be familiar with the restored column wheel chronographs of vintage Valjoux 22 and Valjoux 72 calibers from the early days of Laine’s career. In talking to him about watches and movements, I could still sense his interest in (old) chronograph movements.

The Laine 1817, a one-off specialty

At the moment Laine mainly focuses on very classic-looking, time-only watches. A large part of his production consists of hand-wound models with Unitas base movements (Gelidus and GG). The Unitas movement, originally made for pocket watches, is large, and large watches still fit the demands of some of today’s market – just: times and case sizes are beginning to change.

His foray into offering smaller case sizing is mainly motivated by the demands and wishes of Japanese customers, who “don’t like too large case diameters,” according to Laine. I too hope to see more smaller watches coming from him in the future, to which he replied, “be thankful to the Japanese buyers.”

Torsti Laine

There is a long list of advantages for working as an independent and doing it in the Le Locle/La Chaux-de-Fonds area. Laine’s perspective is simple and rational.

Laine Gelidus 2 with gold fumé dial, a model no longer in production

“Everything is so much easier and faster here,” he explained. “If a rare, super-thin drill or machine part breaks, you just go straight out of the house and buy a new one. It’s right on the way from home past the baker or the milkman or simply on the way to the workshop. Five minutes – that’s so wonderfully convenient. In Finland, it takes minimum two weeks or even longer: looking it up, finding the right one, processing the order, picking it up at the post, and waiting long days to wait until it arrives. In the meantime, all the wheels come to a standstill.”

For Laine, being independent and producing things on his own means being free of waiting times and long breaks if a certain part from a supplier is missing. If a part breaks, cracks, or looks different from expectations, he makes it himself; having his own tools, machines, and knowledge is important.

“You just have to make sure that the machines are far away from the neighbors and not so noisy,” Laine grinned.

Laine himself seems to like fancy dials and colorful experiments. His work is a feast of impressions in green, yellow, blue, pink, violet, orange, and red in multiple hues and intensities. If you’ve read Prinzessin Insomnia – a groundbreaking installment in the Dreaming Books series – you’ll know what I mean.

Torsti Laine receiving the 2014 A. Lange & Söhne Walter Lange Excellence Award

And, finally, it’s worth mentioning that Laine won A. Lange & Söhne’s Walter Lange Excellence Award in 2014 for a very special moon phase mechanism as a young watchmaker still in watchmaking school.

An award like this is very helpful, especially at the start of a young career, as it helps to become recognized in the media. And it makes for a good start to buy tools using the prize money.

And just look what he has done with all of that now.

For more information, please visit www.lainewatches.com and on Instagram @laine_watches.

Quick Facts Laine V38
Case: 38 x 9 mm, stainless steel
Dial options: moonfrosting, meteorite, handcrafted guilloché in various patterns, different colors
Movement: automatic Vaucher 5401 with micro rotor, 21,600 vph/3 Hz frequency, highly decorated bridges, plates, and rotor
Functions: hours, minutes, seconds
Price: starting from CHF 9,400 (before tax)

Quick Facts Laine Gelidus 3
Case: 40.5 x 11.3 mm, stainless steel
Dial options: moonfrosting, meteorite, handcrafted guilloché in various patterns, different colors
Movement: manual wind Caliber LA18.1 (base Unitas); 2.5 Hz/18,000 vph frequency, frosted bridges and polished plates, signature abstract or classic calligraphy
Functions: hours, minutes, seconds
Price: starting from CHF 8,500 (before tax)

Quick Facts Laine GG3
Case: 40.5 x 11.3 mm, stainless steel
Dial options: moonfrosting, meteorite, handcrafted guilloché in various patterns, different colors
Movement: manual wind Caliber LA18.1 (base Unitas); 2.5 Hz/18,000 vph frequency, frosted bridges and polished plates, signature abstract or classic calligraphy classic
Functions: hours, minutes, seconds
Price: starting from CHF 8,800 (before tax)

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