Louis Westphalen
1
Reply from Hodinkee including some exclusive Behind the scene of our Limited Edition
Jan 09, 2017,16:19 PM
Hi everyone,
Thanks a lot for chiming in on this interesting topic; to be 100% transparent with you, we were as surprised as you to discover those prototypes, which obviously were really close to the watch that we had designed with Zenith as an exclusive Limited Edition.
This thrilling project all started at a lunch where we asked if we could bring back a vintage chronograph that we loved. Zenith was interested so we immediately sent a first proposal of the dream watch that we had in mind - as soon as we got back to the office actually, and it was one of the most exciting brainstorming I was ever part of. From then on, you will see that the creation of our Limited Edition involved a lot of tweaks, which made us even more proud of the 25 pieces that were offered in October last year.
I have attached here some of the most decisive steps of the creation, the names have been masked on purpose but it will very genuinely show you how this Limited Edition for and by Hodinkee came to life, from the first email in February 2016 to the last changes to the dial some 5 months later.
We were extremely happy of the amazing response to the launch, and Zenith as well, which explains that they now wish to offer a non-limited version of a vintage inspired chronograph.
We obviously reached out to Zenith to inquire about those leaked dials, and they immediately responded that this was nothing more than prototypes taken from our collaboration, the final production will show considerable alterations to the design of the dials (for instance the Chronometer certification won't be mentioned on the dial, among other things).
Furthermore, the non-limited watches won't be available until June 2017, almost a year after the release of the Limited Edition for Hodinkee.
Thanks a lot for your trust, it was amazing to read from two happy owners here, and to see the overall reaction to this leak, trust us it is nothing more than prototypes. And we wish Zenith as much fun on developing those new chronographs as we had with them when designing our Limited Edition together.
What you will read below is just three of the dozens of emails we exchanged then but they really document the key moments that led to the release of our Limited Edition, with all our initial hopes and eventually the final modifications to make our watch even more special.
I will be around to answer any question you might have, and also feel free to shoot me an email at [Email address suppressed for privacy], anytime.
The very first email about the Limited Edition
Hearing what is possible, and what is not
Altering the dial to get the balance and vintage feel we really wished for