New Czapek & Cie Promenade Collection: Ripples and Rays
by Nina Scally
The “Goutte d’Eau” technique used in Czapek & Cie’s new Promenade watch collection shines a new light on the grand feu enamel effect, evoking ripples radiating from a water droplet hitting a pond’s surface. The “Guilloche Soleil” is equally captivating, with its sunray effect spanning the entire display.
Czapek Promenade Goutte d’Eau
Wherever you look in the luxury watch sector, there are examples of brands that excel in carving out their own niches. Some brands have a special calling to manufacture cases made from their own, cutting-edge materials. Others have vocations in developing exquisite bracelet designs.
Some continue to push the boundaries of proprietary movement manufacture, while others reign supreme in achieving timepieces with record-breaking thinness.
And when a brand excels in a specific district in watchmaking, they truly stand out.
They don’t even have to be a big company with colossal marketing strategies or an unquenchable desire to be the best and stay the best. Some just want to be known for what they’re good at. Such modest watchmakers are those like Czapek & Cie.
Czapek (if you didn’t already know) has a penchant for designing flawless, superlative (sometimes dramatic) dials. They are considered by many an enthusiast as works of art, and the level of craftsmanship involved behind the scenes to bring these dials into existence is admirable, to say the least.
Czapek Promenade Ivoire
No collection demonstrates this better than the new Promenade collection. Three timepieces open up this collection, each boasting a rare dial technique. The Promenade watch collection includes the “Guilloche Soleil” in colors of “Bleu Nuit” and “Ivoire” and the “Goutte d’Eau” in sapphire blue nuances.
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Old Techniques, New Vision
Czapek & Cie has a long and storied history that many don’t realise. The foundations of the brand began in 1811 when Polish watchmaker, François Czapek joined forces with Antoine Norbert de Patek (yes, that Patek!) and eventually went on to make watches for the nephew of Napoléon Bonaparte (and French emperor), Napoléon III.
However, between the 1960s and 70s, the brand succumbed to an early demise and wouldn’t see the light of day again until 2015. In that respect, the new-gen Czapek & Cie we have now come to know and love is still relatively young. It hasn’t stopped the manufacturer from practicing some of the most beautiful time-honored dial manufacturing techniques in history, though.
If you haven’t explored Czapek & Cie as a brand, it wouldn’t surprise me. The brand, for reasons unknown to me, flies under the radar. There is no valid excuse for it. Czapek & Cie watches are every bit as beautiful as a Rolex or Patek.
They also sit in a similar price bracket as Rolex, Vacheron Constantin and Omega. Are they just as mechanically complex? Yes. Though, up until 2020 the brand was only manufacturing 180 timepieces a year.
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Producing on such a small scale does have its advantages. Many of the world’s most iconic watches have huge waiting lists and prove tricky to acquire because of small-scale production and the whole supply vs demand farce. This only makes them more desirable.
Czapek & Cie, however, has to wait months for the smallest of watch components since it’s not a vertically integrated company yet. To put this into some context, there is a 10-month waiting list for screws alone!
One can’t help but wonder how much the brand might upscale by taking more steps towards becoming completely in-house. Interestingly, that seems to be the brand’s very intention. The company recently invested in larger manufacturing facilities and new equipment, and by 2022, its production quantities had crept up to 300.
It predicts that for the 2024-2025 year, it will be producing watches in the thousands.
Czaepk & Cie’s Dial Techniques
Czapek & Cie is a company that likes to pay homage to its heritage in many of its collections. The Quai des Bergues collection, for instance, is named after the location where it was founded.
Czapek Quai des Bergues
The designs from this series draw heavily from pocket watches of the 1850s and are characterized by dial features like “Fleurs de Lys”-style hands set against grand feu enamel and guilloche dials..
Sports watch collectors, however, may turn their attention to watches from the Faubourg de Cracovie collection. These chronographs are available in unconventional dial colors like salmon and purple and in the rare California dial arrangement.
Few styles of watch garner the same cult-like appreciation as the integrated bracelet sports watch, though. The Antarctique is a contemporary classic that attests to the manufacturer’s capability in this genre.
Czapek & Cie. Antarctique Tierra Adélie with blue dial on the wrist
Many models in the collection demonstrate the breadth and scope of the brand’s skillset in crafting everything from trapezoid dial motifs to three-dimensional stamped surfaces.
The Titanium Dark Sector, for example, boasts a geometrical anthracite dial, but in an unexpected twist, takes on an atypical format. The reader references the time via the gaps in the hour track rather than any indices marking the hours.
Czapek Antarctique Green Meteor
The same collection is also home to a dial made from 600-million-year-old vibrant green-lacquered Gibeon meteorite. Czapek & Cie does a stellar dial!
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Inspiration for the Promenade collection
The idea of the Promenade came about as an evolution of the Antarctique. Appreciating that not everyone loves a sports watch, the brand listened to its audience. They wanted a more elegant and refined version of the Antarctique but with the same solid mechanical performance.
Czapek Promenade Bleu Nuit
The dial of the Promenade is spacious and vast, allowing for clarity and, of course, that water droplet and sunray effect. The small sub-second hand sits in the unconventional location of 4:30 and, as the only sub-counter on there, remains the one element on the dial to create those entrancing ripples and rays.
And that small seconds also feature stop seconds when the crown is pulled out for higher precision when setting the time.
Czapek Promenade Goutte d’Eau with Milanese bracelet on the wrist
Ripples and Rays
The new Promenade watch collection by Czapek & Cie launched at this year’s annual Watches & Wonders event in Geneva. Without generalizing too much, the consensus across the luxury watch-collecting community was that brands could have, shall we say, pushed themselves a little more outside their comfort zone.
Some manufacturers were accused of playing it too safe and producing (dare I say it) boring timepieces, but no one can accuse Czapek of doing the same. The Promenade collection is a place to go if you want something to ponder.
Czapek Promenade Goutte d’Eau
Excuse the pun, because one of these dials is inspired by the ripple effect caused by a water droplet hitting the surface of a pond. The other is a sunray-effect dial released in an ivory and blue iteration, inspired by the sun rising from behind a mountainous landscape.
Czapek Promenade Bleu Nuit
Naturally, there is a metaphor behind these dials: the freedom to express a dial in a new and compelling way.
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“Goutte d’Eau” Sapphire Blue
It’s no secret that Czapek & Cie likes to draw from the expertise of others when it comes to dial designs. The Antarctique Drake de Passage was the result of at least 30 people working on the model.
The “Goutte d’Eau” technique, seen in the entrancing blue sapphire iteration of the new Promenade watch, is a collaborative effort between the watchmaker and Donzé Cadrans – a traditional enameling technique company.
Czapek Promenade Goutte d’Eau
The ripple effect of the dial feels almost infinite, creating the illusion of a continually widening pattern. Yet, it is how these dials are created that impresses the most. The blue color is the brand’s very own and, as such, has its own reference, the number 573.
The grand feu enamel surface is particularly hard to achieve. The material is prone to breaking and has to go through an intense firing process. Once oven-baked, the dial cools and, as it does so, displays a mesmerizing color-changing process, starting as green and then transitioning to blue.
The 38mm watch, crafted from stainless steel features a sapphire crystal top, a smooth bezel, and curving lugs that make the watch fit more ergonomically, as well as a thin crown, stamped with the Czapek & Cie logo.
Czapek Promenade caseband and crown
Its recessed and sandblasted case sides are a nice touch and the slim case depth is impressive, sitting at just 10mm high.
The bad news is that the Promenade “Goutte d’Eau” is a limited edition of 100 pieces and it has already sold out.
Promenade “Guilloche Soleil” Blue Nuit and Ivoire
Inspired by the sun emerging from behind a mountain’s crest, the “Guilloche Soleil” watches in “Ivoire” (Champagne) and “Bleu Nuit” (Night Blue) are achieved through a different process but are just as impressive. The hours and minutes sit on the flange, while the rest of the dial is festooned with that radiating sunray pattern.
Czapek Promenade Ivoire
Similar to the “Goutte d’Eau” timepiece, the dials of the “Guilloche Soleil” watches in Ivory and Night Blue radiate from the 4:30 small seconds sub-counter, but in a different effect. The hand-guilloche technique harnesses a more modern approach.
To achieve the finish, Czapek & Cie partnered with Swiss dial manufacturer Metalem. This is a 38mm stainless steel watch, supplied on either a stainless steel Milanese bracelet or a traditional nubuck leather strap, the same as the sapphire blue watch.
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The Promenade Movement
The movement for a moment is well worth explaining. Czapek & Cie has always designed its own movements but outsourced the manufacturing side. For example, the Calibrer SHX1 fitted inside the Ques de Berges watch, was designed by the brand but made by Chronode, as was the SXH5, powering the Antarctique watches.
Czapek Promenade caliber SXH5 movement
Now things have changed. Inside the new Czapek & Cie Promenade watches is the new-gen SXH5 Calibre. It’s not completely built from the ground up at the company’s ateliers, but it soon will be. So far, this movement features bridges, plates, and structural components, all authentic to the manufacturer.
Soon, the same will be said about the levers, springs and axes. Eventually, this will give the brand more flexibility and more independence. It will reduce lead time and enable the brand to manufacture on a larger and faster scale, thus upscaling the brand’s ability to compete with those bigger names in the industry (leading back to my point earlier about brand exposure).
Through the back of these watches, you can instantly identify the seven skeletonized bridges that make up this movement, reminiscent of the company’s earliest pocket watches.
And through the display back you can also appreciate the high level of hand finishing including highly polished anglage with sharp internal angles.
Straight-grained sides, beveling, and hand-chamfered angles are all included. A micro-rotor automatic winding system is deeply anchored into the movement itself to accommodate a thinner case.
Even more appealing, the rotor is crafted from recycled platinum, helping the engine achieve its impressive 60-hour power reserve with peerless performance.
The Promenade collection was a natural and almost unsurprising move by Czapek & Cie. This is a chance for the company to really showcase its latest developments in the realm of in-house movement manufacture.
Czapek Promenade Goutte d’Eau
At the same time, these tangible, trance-inducing timepieces demonstrate next-level dial decoration, making them some of the brand’s most intriguing to date.
For more information, please visit www.czapek.com/czapek-watches-collection-promenade
Quick facts: Czapek Promenade Collection 2024
Indications: hours, minutes, small seconds
Case: stainless steel
Dimensions: 38 mm (diameter) x 10 mm (high)
Movement: in-house caliber SXH5:1, micro-rotor automatic winding, stop seconds
Power reserve: 60 hours
Water resistance: 50 meters
Warranty: 3 years
Strap/bracelet: Nubuck calf leather (color to match dial) or Milanese mesh in stainless steel
Limitation: the “Bleu Nuit” and “Ivoire” are regular production pieces while the “Goutte d’Eau” is a 100-piece limited edition
Price: 17,350 Swiss francs (excluding taxes)
You might also enjoy:
Czapek Antarctique Green Meteor: Cosmos to the Wrist
Czapek Antarctique Tierra Adélie & Orion Nebula: The Restraint Stands Out
Calling On The Village: Czapek & Cie. And The Quai Des Bergues Collection
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