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MeisterSinger - Rituals Of Time
In the horological world, dial sizes fluctuate, while movements become more complex. Brands are striving harder and harder to grab your attention with their bold and beautiful timepieces. However, amid all the noisy designs and cluttered aesthetics, there’s one brand that refuses to be a part of the crowd—and it’s called MeisterSinger.
Though the company was founded 18 years ago, the term ‘MeisterSinger’ originated in southern Germany during the Middle Ages, and it means ‘master singer’. The genesis of the term is quite interesting—whenever a contestant in a singing competition would come up with a new note that had never been sung before, he’d be awarded the title. This name for a brand that represents something new and different with all their offerings is extremely apt. MeisterSinger’s logo is also a fascinating glimpse into the brand’s ideology—it is an inverted ‘fermata’, which is a musical symbol that stands for ‘pause’ in musical notation. It’s the perfect representation of a minimalist element that they use in all their watch designs—one that surely makes you pause and appreciate its simple beauty.
Even among the German watchmaking bigwigs—such as A. Lange & Söhne, Nomos, and Junghans, to name a few—MeisterSinger has managed to carve a niche for itself. And this niche is thanks to a modern design language that goes against the grain—beautiful watches with a single hand. The company is based out of Münster, where all MeisterSinger watches are designed. Though the brand has timepieces powered by movements procured from Switzerland, they also manufacture a few of their own calibres that power some of their famous offerings—such as the Circularis. Thus MeisterSinger’s innovative approach to watchmaking has culminated in brilliant timepieces with high-end, award-winning designs and superlative inner mechanics.
In the year 1999, Weller Manfred Brassler, sold his company, The Watch People, which had been producing quartz watches since 1989. Consequently, he founded MeisterSinger in 2001. His source of inspiration was clear—clock towers such as the one on the façade of Westminster Abbey in London that had a single hand pointing to the hour. One would think that it would be cumbersome to read time from a watch that only has a single hand. However, sundials and clock towers made use of the single hand ages ago. Once you get used to it, there’s really no going back. The essence of MeisterSinger watches was to keep timekeeping uncomplicated and hassle-free, and they managed this beautifully. The collections inside the MeisterSinger hangar are Meisterstucke, Classic, Classic Plus, New Vintage, and Casual.
Today, MeisterSinger has come leaps and bounds from its humble beginnings, with a number of popular collections under its belt. From timepieces that range from the classic and vintage-inspired to the contemporary and cool, MeisterSinger seems to really have it all.
One of the first MeisterSinger timepieces to gain international attention and recognition was the MeisterSinger Scrypto 1Z, which won the Red Dot Design Award in 2002 and the iF Design Award in 2004. The N° 01 is another beautiful and classic watch in MeisterSinger’s repertoire. It too won the Red Dot Design Award and the iF Design Award in 2004. It was also deemed ‘Watch of the year’ in the Netherlands that very year.
The MeisterSinger Perigraph was another meister stroke. This watch has a centrally-placed date ring, with a red pointer at 12, which points to the date. This timepiece also won the Red Dot Design Award in 2009, and the Good Design Award the same year. It was the Paragraph's unique and memorable design that really put the brand on the map.
If we’re talking about exceptional design, one needs to mention the MeisterSinger Paleograph Chronograph. This timepiece has two chronograph counters that work with the help of a single pusher on the crown. However, what’s truly extraordinary about this timepiece is the hand-wound MSH01 movement powering it. With an impressive power reserve of five days, thanks to its twin mainsprings, this movement catapulted the brand to fame and ensured that it wasn’t just known for its eccentric designs, but its mechanics as well. This exceptional movement won the Red Dot Award in product design in 2015 and the German Design Award in 2017.
Another timepiece worth mentioning is the MeisterSinger Adhaesio, which was the winner of the Red Dot Design Award and the iF Design Award in 2016. This watch has been crafted with a bright and eye-catching sunburst blue dial, which features a second time zone and date ring for the man on the go.
In 2017, MeisterSinger came out with its City Edition watches—one of the most interesting releases by the brand. By 2018, the brand had manufactured 58 limited edition localised versions of the watch, with one variant for Mumbai, which depicts the Gateway of India, and the other for New Delhi, depicting India Gate. These editions flew off the shelves soon after they became available at Ethos.
The year 2018 also had novelties like the MeisterSinger Black Line and the Lunascope that took the world by storm. The Lunascope, which is MeisterSinger’s beautiful moon phase watch, won the Red Dot and iF Design Awards in 2019. Unlike most other moon phase watches, the moon phase display here is quite large here—covering almost the entire top half of the dial. It is quite a realistic depiction of the moon, sitting amid a field of stars. The Lunascope needs adjustment every 128 years, all thanks to the incredibly precise ETA 2836-2 calibre. The Black Line collection comprises four watches—the Salthora Meta, the Perigraph, the N° 03 and the Circularis Power Reserve. What’s different about these watches is the colour of the dial—an arresting matte black hue that grabs attention like nothing else. Another thing that’s special about these watches is that their cases have been given a diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating, giving them a rich, dark appearance, while making them incredibly durable.
Currently, these timepieces are perfectly imbibed inside the collections such as Perigraph, Astroscope, Stratoscope, Bell Hora, Metris, Neo, and many more.