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Price: 16,000.00 CHF (EXCL. VAT)
Collection: Promenade
Description:
PROMENADE PLISSÉ: IMMACULATELY TAILORED
Launched at Watches and Wonders 2024, the Promenade collection was born from the desire to create a chic and truly modern watch, as a canvas for creative expression, not solely a timekeeping instrument.
Like many developments at Czapek, there was no straight line from the idea of creating a new collection to the result. Rather, ideas morphed and evolved from the initial intention of developing a women’s watch with a collector-quality mechanism to the desire to make a chic and modern watch that would appeal to those with an eye for style and appreciation of mechanical sophistication.
Presented in a slim 38mm case, Promenade expresses a relaxed and quietly confident sophistication, injected with playfulness and joie de vivre. The signature of the Promenade dial is asymmetry: the designs radiate from the small seconds dial placed at 4:30, producing a sense of dynamic tension. In 2025 Czapek introduces a new dial – Plissé (pleats) – in three colours.
Promenade looks to fashion as a frame of reference – from cinema icons to haute couture futuristic pleats and light-as-air silks that marry tailoring tradition and high technology, and the eternally modern Le Smoking – created in 1966, the OC of androgynous style.
A NEW DIAL INSPIRED BY TEXTILES
Inspired by textiles, the Plissé dial is the result of a complex stamping process that gives the impression of fabric being pushed aside by the weight of the sub-dial to bunch up into pleats across the dial. This creates an intriguing play of light and shade and the illusion of flowing, dance-like movement across the dial as the wearer moves his or her wrist. The new stamping technique was developed in partnership with Czapek’s regular collaborator, Metalem. An added challenge in developing the Plissé dial was to integrate the applied indexes within the contours of the pleats. Plissé is presented in three colours: Ivory, Pearl White and Rose, the latter equipped with a Milanese mesh steel bracelet. Production of each colour will be limited to 18 pieces.
Allowing the decoration to take centre stage, the timekeeping indications are pared back to a minimum: fine, semi-skeletonised arrow-shaped hands and applied indexes with diamond-cut angles to reflect the light.
A SLEEK CASE AND SOPHISTICATED CALIBRE
The imperative for Promenade was that the 38mm case should be slim, which called for a micro-rotor movement. Thus, Czapek translated the strengths of its in-house calibre SXH5 into this new identity, playing with its architecture to achieve the desired dial aesthetics.
The Promenade case is a modern evolution of Czapek’s icon – the original Quai des Bergues model – recognisable by the recessed and sand-blasted case sides, the curved crown protection, and a slim, rounded bezel.
THE MOVEMENT
Since its introduction in May 2020, the automatic Calibre SXH5 has continually evolved. For Promenade, Czapek and its engineers played with its architecture purely for the sake of the dial aesthetics – another example of the Maison’s “Beauty above all” approach, positioning the small seconds mechanism now directly beneath, and on the same axis as the dial display.
Immediately recognisable by the seven skeletonised bridges that hold the gear train in place – inspired by the 19th-century pocket watches of François Czapek – the movement plates and bridges feature fine haute horlogerie finishes, including bevelling, straight-grained sides and hand-chamfered inward angles. Beating at 4Hz (28,800 vph) and wound by a micro rotor with a mass of 100% recycled platinum, SXH5 offers 60 hours of power reserve.
EVERY DETAIL COUNTS
In fine watchmaking, every little detail counts. Besides the exceptional SHX5 movement and the sleek and sharp design of the case or the dial, a great deal of attention was put on the straps. This is why the Promenade collection is proposed with either a refined nubuck strap or a Milanese steel bracelet.
