Ateliers Associés Backs Mickaël Gaspar’s Souscription
Ateliers Associés, a new venture founded by William Massena and Louis Westphalen-Lemaitre, aims to support independent watchmakers by providing funding and expertise. Their first partner is French watchmaker Mickaël Gaspar, whose debut watch, the Souscription, features a dial-side balance and retrograde date mechanism. This initiative seeks to address the capital and commercial challenges faced by emerging independent watch brands.
- Limited to 20 pieces
- Price: CHF69,000
The Souscription's design exposes the balance, pallet lever, and retrograde date mechanism on the dial side, with an aggressively domed sapphire crystal accommodating these exposed mechanics.
The watch features a retrograde date corrected via the crown and a running seconds sub-dial positioned on the case back.
The movement is hand-wound, built on an unspecified Swiss ebauche, with a slow 2.5 Hz beat rate.
In-house work includes turning staffs and pinions on a traditional lathe, and making and poising the free-oscillating balance wheel with a hand-formed overcoil hairspring.
Each watch requires approximately 250 hours of machining and finishing, including sandblasting and hand-bevelling the bridges.
Ateliers Associés takes minority stakes in partner brands, aiming to preserve the watchmaker's control over their company, name, designs, and calibres.