Horolonomics

I first became acquainted with independent watch brand Zeitwinkel sometime in 2020 during the pandemic.

For a while, I'd seen a lot of folks posting about watch chats on Clubhouse, a new social media app experiencing shockingly rapid adoption. I hadn't been able to participate, though, because Clubhouse was iOS-only for quite a while. Eventually the app was released for Android and I hopped into a channel hosting watch industry chats. The discussions were informative and enjoyable.

One of Zeitwinkel's co-founders, Albert Edelmann, was a regular. I appreciated his candor as well as his sense of humor. As time passed, we continued to chat online and I had the opportunity to meet Albert in person at a Redbar event and during Watchtime in New York. He extended an invitation to visit Zeitwinkel's workshop in Switzerland, which I really appreciated, but just couldn't arrange until this year.

So back in September I found myself on a train from Zurich headed to St. Imier, the home of Zeitwinkel's workshop. Albert and I figured out there was a narrow window during which he would be in the workshop after a trip to Germany. The very next day he would fly out to a distributor's anniversary celebration in the UK. It looked like we might be able to thread the needle in our calendars.

I was determined to visit Zeitwinkel for one reason in particular: authenticity.

In the watch industry, it is sometimes difficult to tell when certain "smoke and mirrors" are in play. But Zeitwinkel could claim a collaboration with a long-established and very experienced collector group, a group which really did not seem to tolerate spin or shortcuts when it came to traditional watchmaking. For the purposes of preserving and transmitting the craft of watchmaking, brands like Zeitwinkel are vital because they serve as a platform for experienced watchmakers to practice and execute their profession most fully. The brand is also authentic when it comes to movement architecture choices. For example, bridge plates and bridges are rendered in German silver, a necessarily more complicated material to work with (compared to brass) but one which develops a sought-after patina over time. Rather than cut corners, Zeitwinkel makes deliberate choices to "do hard things" because those things are worth the effort.

When I arrived in St. Imier, Albert educated me on the history of the town, which lies in the Berenese Jura district. Watchmaking is ever-present in St. Imier. For example, a Longines factory is on the southern part of the town. Villeret, the long-time headquarters of Blancpain, is just to the east. Richemont's Compagnie des Technologies de Luxe (CTL) Horlogerie operated in St. Imier for many years. The list goes on.

Certain important moments in watchmaking history also took place in St. Imier. In 1872, the international anarchist movement was founded in St. Imier (see this article in Europa Star for details). In 2022, modern-day Anarchists organized a 150 year anniversary event in town, a fact which made me chuckle. I can't pretend to know enough about political theory to understand the concept of organized anarchists.

In the second half of the 1800s, the watchmaking school in St. Imier was also an important part of Switzerland's answer to America's competitive edge in mass-producing precision watches.

According to the book Disrupting Time by Aaron Stark, St. Imier's watchmaking school was the first to education Swiss students in mass production techniques. In Stark's estimation, two Swiss "spies," Jacques David and Theo Gribi, learned details of American watchmaking and concluded that the traditional Swiss system of atomistic, distributed production (often referred to as établissage) could not successfully compete with American watchmaking without a change of some sort. St. Imier was at the leading edge of that change.

The Zeitwinkel workshop has its own historical ties to watchmaking. A Patek Philippe dialmaker, Flückiger & Fils, once operated out of Zeitwinkel's space (Flückiger was eventually acquired by Patek and still operates out of St. Imier but in a different building). Zeitwinkel's workshop is roughly laid out in the shape of a "L" with a machining room on one end, an assembly and testing room in another end, and reception and office space in between.

At the time of my visit, the brand employed three watchmakers.

One of those three was on his way back from Zeitwinkel's dial supplier with a newly designed dial which would be revealed the next day in the UK. I was equal parts shocked and amazed by this timeline: a dial hadn't even made it to the workshop yet and in less than 24 hours it would be part of a functioning watch on display in another country. Albert took all this in stride but it seemed like a minor miracle to me.

The opportunity to see almost all (or perhaps all?) of Zeitwinkel's catalogue was definitely a trip highlight. On display was a gemset example I'd never seen before. Going into my trip, I was deeply impressed by the simple fact that a small team of dedicated watchmakers and enthusiasts could achieve so much. I was even more impressed after my visit. Zeitwinkel will celebrate a 20 year anniversary next year, which means the brand and its founders have witnessed quite a bit.

In their earliest years they navigated the Great Recession, roughly eight years later they were part of the unprecedented boom in watch enthusiasm (beginning with the 2017 Rolex Paul Newman record-setting auction and running through the COVID run-up in secondary prices). For the Zeitwinkel team, the lessons learned through these ebb and flow periods are no doubt valuable when it comes to the current "troubles" confronting the industry.

From an economist's perspective, the long-term success of Zeitwinkel suggests that the watch industry will, as a whole, produce valuable produc innovations.

The health of any market is fundamentally tied to whether there are "barriers to entry." If there are, incumbent firms do not face as much competition and they can become lackadaisical while setting unecessarily high prices. The fact that an independent brand like Zeitwinkel can successfully enter the watch market and sell a high-quality product through a diverse catalogue means that collectors are not captive to incumbents. Rather, longer-standing brands must continue to push the envelope in order to keep pace with nimble entrants like Zeitwinkel.

I'll wrap up this post with a number of additional photos from my visit to Zeitwinkel's workshop (see below). In my next post, I will provide an update on another important entrant to the watch industry, this time in America.



Disclosure: Zeitwinkle generously included me in their guest list for the Watchtime New York 2025 trade show, which had a market value of ~$50 (single day admission). My visit to their workshop and plan for this post predated the trade show but I will do my best to disclose these kinds of connections with brands.

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