First meeting
Everything begins with a conversation, in Clerkenwell or in the town of your choice. Edmund Hartwell, the Atelier's master watchmaker, receives you in person to understand the intention: a legacy to pass on, an anniversary, a wood from a family estate, a movement dreamed of since childhood.
This meeting is complimentary and commits to nothing. It rarely lasts less than two hours.
Sketches
Within six weeks the Atelier sends you three distinct directions: a watercolour sketch, a materials brief and a technical sheet for the proposed movement. You choose, you blend, you set aside. No piece enters production without your handwritten signature on the final drawing.
Woods and materials
Our cellar holds some forty precious woods, naturally seasoned for ten to forty years: Macassar ebony, amboyna burl, fiddleback maple, Rio rosewood (CITES Annex II), Provençal olive. Cases in lost-wax cast 18ct gold, 950 platinum or Damascus steel. Dials in grand-feu enamel, straw marquetry or Tahitian mother-of-pearl.
Movement
The Atelier designs its own in-house calibres in partnership with watchmaker Vianney Halter for the finest complications: flying tourbillon, perpetual calendar, minute repeater, equation of time. Each movement is hand-adjusted over three hundred hours before final reassembly.
Timing and investment
Allow twelve to eighteen months between signing of the drawing and delivery of the case. Bespoke commissions begin at £64,000 for an automatic three-hand piece in precious wood and steel, and may reach £395,000 for the rarest complications.
Payment is made in three stages: 30% on signature, 40% at the mid-point following a workshop visit, 30% on delivery.
Delivery and register
Your timepiece is delivered by hand, in Clerkenwell or at your home, in a wooden case matched to the wood of the piece itself. The piece is entered in your name in the Atelier's provenance register; you may consult its history at any time.