Romain Gauthier Prestige HMS

 A precision mechanic born in the heart of fine Swiss watchmaking vallée de Joux center of Haute Horlogerie, Romain Gauthier has a unique approach and thinking to create timepieces. he works as a precision mechanic CNC operator for over 20 years with a background in making components supply for the Swiss watch industry.

Later on, Romain managed to expand the small CNC machine department into one of the best equipped and most capable production facilities in Europe. He then began work on the timepieces. In 2006, with help and guidance from his friend and mentor Philippe Dufour, the living legend of the Swiss watchmaking, who also came from the vallée de Joux, he is regarded as the greatest master of modern watchmaking, Dufour work is referenced as among the best ever made.

Talking about his work here, we have the Prestige HMS, one of the early calibers Romain created ( the first is the HM ). His caliber 2206 movement was thoroughly developed, designed, produced, assembled, and regulated by him. Showing the Vallée de Joux style finger bridges that have some of the hardest to do sharp-corner/angle anglage, the bercé anglage (rounded profile of the bevels) is one of the most complex techniques to master, too much it started losing the shape, too little it will not give a mirror finished, that's why Romain Gauthier can make only 40-50 watches per year, only a handful of people can complete such task.

Close up on the movement; everything has a beveling, sign of a true Haute Horlogerie. the cutout gear train wheel have an angle inside the circle every surface of the plate that holds the gear are finished in bercé fashion, Not only that, all the screw head got black polished with an "S" shape to decrease the chance of slip and mark the screw head, and of course nobody will be able to mess around with the movement!

If you read until now, did you ever notice the watch doesn't have the winding crown on the side of the case? Because it's hiding in the back, not for only the clean astatic look, but from the engineering standpoint, it helps improve the efficiency of the power on the mainspring when wind because it doesn't have to travel through more gear and wheels.

As We look in the front, it's also an excellent design with an interesting layout skeletonize on the Balance wheel along with the second hand, the dial for me looks modern and clean, with the old style of Vallée de Joux finished, the best of both worlds! The layout is clean, and maybe because of the lack of crown on the side, it gives an interesting look.

The watch case in 18ct white gold and has 41mm case size, but definitely wear smaller, something like 39 or 40 available now complete set from 2019.