The Watch Show Finland: Møt en helt spesiell klokke og mannen bak

Klokkemessene er i gang igjen etter et par års tørke. Nylig ble The Watch Show Finland arrangert, og dit tok Morten Paulsen en tur. Det ble blant annet et spennede møte med et urmakertalent i særklasse, nemlig Matthias Kieser og hans klokkemerke Kieser Design.

Den 13. og 14. mai ble The Watch Show Finland avholdt i Helsinki. Siden 2017 har arrangementet har vært gjennomført årlig i den finske hovedstaden. I koronaårene 2020 og 2021 ble det ikke noe show. Mannen bak The Watch Show Finland er ingen rik klokkeforhandler, en en skikkelig klokkeentusiast med navnet Ville Arzoglou.

-Hello! Introduce yourself to our followers!

-My name is Matthias Kieser. I am the founder of the watch manufacturer Kieser Design. I was born in Munich and found a new home in Frankfurt eight years ago. After my degree in industrial engineering, I first worked in the financial industry before taking the leap into starting my own company in 2019.

-Yours is a very interesting timepiece, how did the idea of giving life to this project come about?

-At first, watchmaking was just a way to relax after a day at the office. I designed and engineered watches in the evening and on weekends. Then, about five years ago, I got the opportunity to set up a small workshop where I could work on the realization of my ideas from then on.

I always wanted to bring more color into the world of high-end watches. And not only to the dial, but also the case and other components! But any coating, no matter how durable, is prone to scratches. So the big question was how to protect the colored surfaces.

In the end, I found the solution in nature: The dragonfly’s body consists of an extremely durable exoskeleton. The wings are super lightweight because they are made of a sophisticated network of struts. The tragwerk.T combines those two features:

-By putting the anodized inner case into a lightweight titanium exoskeleton, its colored surfaces are perfectly protected!

I also took the mesmerizing texture of the dragonfly’s compound eyes and replicated it on the dial. Almost 300 tiny honeycombs make it shimmer in the sunlight almost as beautifully as the insect’s eyes.

-The possibility of being able to customize it is really very interesting, how many options will there be?

-Giving my customers the opportunity to create their own version of my watch was one of my major goals from the beginning. You can choose different colors for various components of the case, the dial, the rotor and the strap in the configurator on my website. The color palette will be constantly expanded and new options added. Furthermore you are welcome to contact me personally for special requests. So it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the possibilities are almost endless!

-Tell us a little about the production process, where does it take place?

-It all starts with an idea for a design and a first sketch, which is then translated into a 3Dmodel. Once every little detail is taken care of in the computer representation, prototyping begins. The watches are created in my own workshop. Production involves both high-end CNC machines and traditional equipment. For example, I machine the titanium cases, anodise the parts, polish indexes, print the dials and put it all together. Countless manual steps are necessary to achieve the best possible result.

The movements are top Swiss automatic movements, beautifully decorated and black ruthenium coated. I’m very proud of the rotor, which I designed myself: It weighs almost 25% less than a conventional rotor. It features an 18kt gold weight and an optimized centre of mass to achieve this. The honeycomb-shaped, skeletonized titanium support allows an unobstructed view of the movement at all times.

-We wish you the best for the official launch of your watch, do you already have other ideas in mind?

-Thank you! The number of parts I manufacture myself is already very high, but my goal is to increase it even further. I don’t plan on making more watches per year but to design even more sophisticated ones. I’m thinking about a chronograph-version of the tragwerk.T and I already have ideas for a new dress watch. So the project pipeline is full, only time is the limiting factor!

-During the development of the tragwerk.T, I spent countless days and nights at the watchmaker’s table and in front of the milling machine. To hold the final prototypes in my hands now and hear them ticking is an indescribable feeling! I’m looking forward to meeting potential customers and show them the beauty of the tragwerk.T.