DonCorson
[AHCI]
3358
Independent Opens His Own Store
We have been following independent watchmaker Romain Delafontaine for several years now. For example here and here. A watchmaker who has worked for many of the big and small houses in the industry in his career, just to drop some names; AP, F.-P. Journe, Chronode and Antoine Preziuso and Studio 7h38, Romain also has his own ideas and started his own brand "r-watch" in 2011. The r-watch models are playful with lots of ideas. They don't aspire to be at the top of the heap in decoration and polishing or technical complication but good solid quality along with an affordable price.
As a next step in his career Romain has decided to open his own store in his home town Yverdon-les-Bains. Let's stop in at the store opening celebration and take a look at some of the r-watch collection.
Romain welcomes us in his new store.
The store is in a pedestrian street in the center of town.
An r-watch special edition is being passed around.
The work bench is already well occupied. With his extensive experience Romain has access to spare parts for many brands including Raymond Weil, Sector, Zenith, Eterna, Ebel, Movado, Tag Heuer, Louis Erard, Mondaine and the Swatch Group basic, mid and high range brands.
Friends and colleagues from many of his professional positions came by to congratulate. The evening was quite a crowd of high end horological competence.
Romain's school clock.
Watch watching.
Romain's newest watch creation is this original date mechanism. As the date advances the date pointer turns pointing to the date alternately on the inside and the outside of the date ring. As you can see the dial itself has an internal gear along its edge which activates this mechanism.
This Blue Angels watch is the result of a customer request....
The three color watch confounds me each time I see it. I wouldn't otherwise believe that simply changing the color of the indexes would change the feeling of the watch so profoundly. 3 watches in one, the colors automatically changing every day.
The 3 color Ubiquity which includes a donation to a charity caring for water around the world in its price.
Independent Opens His Own Store
It's not always easy for an independent watchmaker to start up his/her own business.
Hi Don. Interesting set of watches. I am particularly fascinated by the rotating date.
Thanks
