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A look at the Maitre du Temps Chapter Two

Maitre du Temps is a brand started by an American watch businessman, Steven Holtzmann. It is premised on the concept Max Busser pioneered at Harry Winston which has since been appropriated and tweaked by others.

Steven Holtzmann of Maitre du Temps and Thierry Oulevay of Jean Dunand

Maitre du Temps (along with Jean Dunand) will be represented in Singapore by Sincere Watch Ltd, which was recently acquired by a consortium including its former owner and an arm of LVMH. This came after a period of uncertainty after the then owner of Sincere, Hong Kong-based retailer Peace Mark, went bust.

Sincere Watch was one of the world’s first retailers of Franck Muller and later on, F. P. Journe and Lange; it picked up these brands years before they were popular or successful. That gave its management team a well deserved reputation for betting on the right horses and being able to build brands.

Maitre du Temps will not be an easy brand to sell, despite the industry grandees involved in each Chapter, especially in a developed market like Singapore. It will appeal to a fairly small audience; it is further hindered by its price and the youth of the brand. However, with the right clientele it could potentially be a lucrative brand for Sincere. Given the company’s track record it could very well turn out that way.

The Chapters

Each Maitre du Temps watch – they call each model a Chapter so the first one was Chapter One – is conceived by a trio of famous watchmakers. Chapter One was the work of Christophe Claret, Peter Speake-Marin and Roger Dubuis. Though the specifics of each watchmaker’s contribution were not revealed, it would not be hard to imagine that Claret and Speake-Marin worked on the technical development, Claret built the movement while Dubuis provided an aura of genteel, old world legitimacy.

Chapter One (shown above) was a grand complication with perpetual calendar, tourbillon and chronograph. Chapter Two on the other hand is a triple calendar – smaller, cheaper and more practical.

The Chapter Two

Speake-Marin and Dubuis reappear for Chapter Two, while Daniel Roth lends his imprimatur to the project and rounds off the trio. The base automatic movement is produced by Vaucher and likely similar to what the company supplies to Richard Mille, Hermes and others. However a custom module is added for the triple calendar – big date with day and month on rollers.

The Chapter Two is one of the most fascinating triple calendar watches I have ever some across. It has no additional complications beyond the calendar yet it is very elaborate and also weirdly practical.

Uniquely, the Chapter Two is an instantaneous calendar, so all the calendar indicators jump precisely at midnight. That is a fairly remarkable achievement, given the size of the rollers and the diminutive base movement. Maitre du Temps got around that by machining the rollers out of an aluminium alloy before anodising them for colour. Not everyone will like the aesthetics of the rollers – I can’t decide if I like them – but they are exceedingly legible.

The big date is operated by a pusher beside the crown, while the day and month are changed via paddle pushers in the back. Since the pushers for the rollers are in the back, Maitre du Temps cleverly put numbers on the rollers indicating the month displayed in front so that the wearer can advance the day or month without flipping the watch over.

Above: The paddle pushers for the day and month

Above: The numbers on the rollers for adjusting the day and month from the back