Q&ANorqain’s VP On The Brand’s Recent Developments And Key Novelties—Part I

Could you start by talking about the novelties showcased at Watches and Wonders this April?

I think in general we can say that 2026 is our most innovative year, especially with regard to the Watches and Wonders novelties. The first big launch—Wild One Chronograph—which we’ve had requests to bring out since the Wild One collection was introduced. After two years of development, we managed to incorporate our 8K manufacture calibre into the Wild One case and very importantly into the same size case. So we’re still at the 42mm size, and very marginally had to increase the thickness which was foreseeable with a bigger movement. However, adding the thickness at the bottom, the case kind of absorbs the difference, and you don’t feel any change between this and the other Wild One models. The three editions of the Wild One Chronograph are in black, burgundy Norteq (limited to 400 pieces), and the 75-piece gold version.

"The first big launch is the Wild One Chronograph, incorporating our 8K manufacture calibre into the Wild One case into the same size case." The Wild One Skeleton Chronograph is seen here in black

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The black Wild One Skeleton Chronograph with a turquoise strap

"The three editions of the Wild One Chronograph are in black, burgundy Norteq (limited to 400 pieces), and the 75-piece gold version." Seen here is the burgundy Norteq edition

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01

How important was it to bring out gold versions of the Wild One, especially since gold doesn’t quite go with ‘wild’?

We believe in challenging the norms, creating things that people don’t think work together. And I we’ve had some successful gold pieces in the Wild One collection before this, like, from two years ago, there was what I like to call the chocolate watch—featuring red gold with the brown rubber. I think it’s a very cool niche to be in for an ultra-sporty watch, with the precious metal adding an elegant touch. And this 75-piece limited edition chronograph is one of the nicest designs in the whole lineup for us.

"We believe in challenging the norms, creating things that people don’t think work together. And I we've had some successful gold pieces in the Wild One collection before this, like, from two years ago. This 75-piece limited edition chronograph is one of the nicest designs in the whole lineup for us"

This flyback movement was used in the Independence collection earlier. Have you had it in mind to bring it into the Wild One line as well?

I wouldn’t say it was meant to be in the Wild One, but It was always meant to be used for other pieces as well. I think as soon as we had it, we decided that the challenge was to get this into Wild One.

Talk about the process of skeletonising this entire thing.

When you develop it from the ground up, knowing that it’s supposed to be skeletonised, it’s different than taking an existing movement and saying, okay, let’s skeletonise this now. I think with the latter, you’re starting from the top and then cutting down. You build on it in a way where you know it will look nice skeletonised, and we add our mountain DNA via the mountain bridges. I think that would be the difference to the typical process.

When it comes to skeleton watches, there’s always a challenge of legibility. How do you overcome that?

I’m always 100 percent honest in our communication. Of course, we try to overcome this challenge with contrasting colours on the hands or the lume. Or then there might be a different finishing or colouring of the movement like we now have on the Wild One Skeleton X-Lite. It’s a beautiful colimaçon finish on a black movement that helps to create that contrast, even if you’re using a hand in black as well. Plus, there the yellow colour on it. But yeah, it’s something we’re aware of. As I was saying, I’m 100 percent honest. I always tell customers that if they’re looking for perfect legibility, a skeleton dial is probably not for you. It’s impossible to get perfect legibility in skeletonised displays.

Speaking of the X-Lite, did you have a target in mind that it has to 45g in weight?

We definitely wanted to be below 50, but basically it was mainly about getting it as light as possible, with it still being very robust and shock-resistant.

My next question is related to that. Is it a challenge to achieve lightness and robustness at the same time? And how do you overcome such challenges?

Absolutely, that was the biggest challenge with the X-Lite. And overcoming that was really about innovation in material, for which I need to mention Biwi (material innovators in various category). This project would not be possible without them. And we’ve created our second proprietary material with Biwi with this piece, which is X-Lite. We have used it for the casing ring. X-Lite is even lighter than the Norteq, but it’s more shock absorbing because it’s softer. So it’s actually a hollow material, and floats on water. We use that for the casing ring, so it absorbs even more shocks, even though we removed a lot of the outer material on the watch.

What makes you call it a concept watch even though it is a 200-piece edition?

Yes, in the car industry, a concept car is one piece and you usually don’t see it, right? For us, we wanted to change that a bit. We call it a concept watch because it’s so different from anything we’ve done or seen. I think in the industry, especially at this price segment, even though this is being produced, I think we can still call it a concept watch. There are 200 pieces, and with the whole development that went into it, we can fairly assume that in the future there will be different versions of it. But this first launch is what we’re calling the concept.

"We call it a concept watch because it's so different from anything we've done or seen. I think in the industry, even though this is being produced, I think we can still call it a concept watch"

"There are 200 pieces, and with the whole development that went into it, we can fairly assume that in the future there will be different versions of it. But this first launch is what we’re calling the concept"

How did you decide on the neon colour accents?

We always challenge the design team to find fresh colours, like to not follow but to create trends. We always have several colours on the screen. Then we do a first pre-selection, we get samples, because the real product can be very different from what we see on the screen. And then we start playing around, putting those colours next to the materials, and we have a closer selection, maybe two or three colours left. Finally, we’ll do actual samples with those. And then in the end, it’s really us saying, okay, no, this is the one. And that’s what we did with the neon.

"We always challenge the design team to find fresh colours. We always have several colours on the screen. And then we start playing around, and we have a closer selection"

"Finally, we'll do actual samples with those. And then in the end, it's really us saying, okay, no, this is the one. And that's what we did with the neon"

With the Enjoy Life editions, was there always a plan to discontinue the first ice cream version and then come up with something else, as you’ve done with the Sprinkles edition? What’s the plan with Enjoy Life?

I wouldn’t say that was always the plan, but I think we fairly quickly realised that we created something special with Enjoy Life and that Enjoy Life is not just the ice cream watch and that we should create a whole new universe under the umbrella of Enjoy Life. Because with me travelling around and my brother [CEO Ben Küffer] travelling around, we heard some beautiful stories, emotional stories from customers who bought this watch and told us what it actually meant to them. And we said, okay, we need to continue this, not just as the ice cream watch, but as I mentioned, expand on a potential universe. We always will have the goal to put a smile on the face of the people who wear it. And yes, so that’s when we decided to discontinue the first edition and make space for something new.

It’s still got the ice cream motif on the back and there are sprinkles which are associated with ice cream.

Exactly… I think when we discontinued and announced that something new would be coming, everybody expected us to just change the flavours and the colours of the sub-dials versus the first edition. And we typically don’t want to do what everybody expects us to do. So we challenged our designer [and product development director] Matteo [Mercan]. He’s a very creative guy. We said, come on, you can find something different that they’re not expecting. And one day he came back to us and said, “Everything’s better with sprinkles.” So then we had the blue raspberry and the strawberry editions and the small details of all the sprinkles glowing in the dark.

"We challenged our designer Matteo [Mercan]. He's a very creative guy. We said, come on, you can find something different that they're not expecting"

"One day he came back to us and said, 'Everything's better with sprinkles.' So then we had the blue raspberry and the strawberry editions." The latter is seen here

What were the challenges of bringing together the different colours of Super-LumiNova and getting it all together?

I think the colours of the Super-LumiNova were not too challenging. The challenge was more about finding the right colours—the strawberry and the blue raspberry. It was the same process as I mentioned with the X-Lite, where we had different samples on the screen, narrowed it down to samples on the table, and then decided that these are the colours to go with. Also, my brother is very detail-oriented when it comes to our product. He actually looked at every single sprinkle and edited the placement, like this needs to go away or this one needs to be there. So even though it looks very random, there is a very clear system my brother used to place these sprinkles.

"My brother is very detail-oriented when it comes to our product. He actually looked at every single sprinkle and edited the placement, like this needs to go away or this one needs to be there"

"So even though it looks very random, there is a very clear system my brother used to place these sprinkles." This here is the blue rasperry version of the Enjoy Life Sprinkles

Watch this space for more from Tobias Küffer on Norqain’s other 2026 highlights