Watchmaking
Watches would not tick without their makers. HORAGE has a young, dedicated and highly educated Swiss team of horologists working behind the scenes to keep with the times.
Swiss Production
The watchmaking game is one of endurance. To position oneself at the watchmaking table an investment not only financially, but in top talent and perseverance is not an ask, but an unwritten requirement. Watchmaking as it pertains to movement making is a multi-year discipline. The initial time investment for a new manufacture movement is 3-5 years and and industrial level movement such as our K1 movement is 7-10 years. Only after a watchmaking group has successfully completed an initial movement whether it be a manufacture or industrial movement can they shave a few years off the timeline. The initial investment in learning what works and for the most part what doesn’t work is needed, without failure one never learns to optimize.
The watchmaking battle ground is unforgiving and only those that invest in time, talent and patience will come out the other end.
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Manufacture meets Industrial
Florian Serex a creative development partner realized an opportunity in watchmaking that was largely overlooked. On one side of the watchmaking spectrum there were the manufacture movements that are largely known for their beautiful decorations and multitude of complications and on the other side were the industrial movements designed to be long standing workhorses with little flexibility when it came to complications and not always aesthetically pleasing.
It was Florian who positioned K1 as a bridge between the benefits of both types of movement. On one side we looked to develop an ultra efficient and reliable movement built on industrial production standards, but also deliver the flexibility in complications and decoration of a manufacture movement. K1 was a first to do this with a modular design that offered 18 base variations over 5 standard complications (small second, big date, small date, power reserve, 3 hand). Given its stable construction bridges can be simply and beautifully decorated.
Our production facility is named THE+ and this is where all the watchmaking magic happens. The team at THE+ are lean, ultra efficient and extremely innovative. With 6 individuals, Jonas, Silvan, Lenny, Marcella, Florian and Pascal we are capable of producing 3000+ K1 movements a year whilst working on future movement developments and offering 3rd party brand support.
Above and beyond
Our production is quite different from competitors in that we engineer all our products in house and do all our own assembly starting at T0. Many ask what T0 is and this is a critical point in assembly often outsourced by the major brands to 3rd parties. T0 means that every jewel or part that would typically come pre-assembled from a parts supplier is actually all assembled in-house by our team of watchmakers. Specialized and completely unique equipment to THE+ had to be developed for these processes to ensure our K1 production meets the most stringent of quality control standards. Starting at T0 means that you, the customer can be rest assured that the entire assembly of your watch happens at our facility in Biel Switzerland.
With the K1 movement proving to be stable and a new industry standard in modular movement construction we have our eyes set on the next mechanical movement, watch project or way of enhancing our customers involvement with our brand. In addition we are continually looking at new technologies to be applied to our beloved watches that make the world for all of us a better place.
When we are not building new watches our team is head down in movement development. At the current moment we are developing our newest automatic mechanical movement K2. K2 is a micro-rotor movement that is ultra slim, incredibly efficient and will support our next generation watch design concepts. Visit the K2 page here and join the journey.
HORAGE is committed to an investment in time, patience and masters of their craft.
