Q&ACzapek Chief Shines A Spotlight On The New 2023 Antarctique Novelties

Which of the 2023 novelties is your favourite?

(Laughs) My favourite watch is always the next one coming out. That’s the Antarctique Revelation. It’s a revelation for 2023. It’s my favourite watch right now. And it’s a difficult watch to create. We went through a lot of trial and error in terms of design. Things go well, then there’s a problem, and when you try to solve the problem, you move past it, but then you realise later where you are is not where you’re supposed to be. So then you go back to relook at everything that might have led up to the problem. You might have to correct a piece, and then the next one and so on. It all has to be creative. In 2021, we began to develop the first skeleton. Everyone was saying that they wanted to see the movement. After a point, we stopped the process, because it wasn’t turning out too well.

The key element in a Czapek watch is that it has to be beautiful and desirable. The quest of beauty is what François Czapek was about. And we continue his quest today. We think about whether he would like a watch that we’re creating. We wouldn’t imagine him creating the same watch, because it’s 200 years later, and too far out. However, we have to follow a certain standard and certain codes that make any watch we create worthy of the Czapek name.

Can you talk about how the Antarctique Dark Sector came about?

The Dark Sector was designed at the very beginning of the Antarctique design. It was around February 2020. It was a dial we were quite sure about. We redesigned it a little though and it was ready in 2021, but we didn’t launch it. There was too much to do. We had too much going on, and we decided to focus on the steel editions at that time. We knew titanium should have its own time. We wanted to differentiate the titanium from the steel. The steel model has markers on the dial, but the titanium only has the Dark Sector dial. And the void is the marker. That’s what we wanted.

“The Dark Sector was designed at the very beginning of the Antarctique design. It was around February 2020. It was a dial we were quite sure about,” says de Roquemaurel about the titanium novelty

Was it always titanium that you had in mind for the Dark Sector edition?

It was initially just a drawing of a design. Everything was zeroed in on later. The sketches are difficult to read, as you need to know how to go from there to the actual finished products. The monochromatic look came about as we were thinking of doing different colours. We were clear about one thing, which was that we needed a completely balanced look. However, there will be more colours in future versions. It would work very well with blue and green as well. With titanium, we kept it neutral, also because of our limited production capacity.

Here is another monochromatic edition of the Antarctique, quite like the Dark Sector. This is the Antarctique Ice White in steel

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This Anatarctique has the signature 'Passage de Drake' pattern on the dial, which is seen throughout the mainline of the Anarctique series

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The Antarctique watches run on a very impressive automatic movement, with a chunky, yet small micro-rotor, allowing for a clear view of the entire rear of the mechanism

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Have you ever thought of doing an Antarctique in gold?

Yes, it will be launched in 2023 itself. Even though our supply of Antarctique watches has been halted, gold in particular is very special for us. The pieces with diamonds and precious metals are not affected by this limited supply. This is because of the fluctuating price of gold. The prices fixed for orders coming in are determined based on the rate of gold at that time. We buy the gold when an order is confirmed and we have to get the pieces produced quickly after that. This gold edition will be a time-only Antarctique.

How did you decide on the colours and treatments seen on the new 2023 Shasiko dials?

We were considering pink as a colour option, with a certain pink stone as a reference point. A while later, the supplier of these Shasiko dials, at the time, showed us a metallic pink that was just so different—very genderless if you will—and we just knew we wanted to use that shade. We find that it goes well after the purple wave dial. We love to play with colours. My background is in fashion, so I find colours interesting. For me, colours are something that go very well in haute horlogerie. Haute couture has them, and horlogerie should have them too. This pink is really the star of the show among these coloured dials.

“We were considering pink as a colour option, with a certain pink stone as a reference point.” This is the 'lotus pink' edition of the Shasiko-dial Antarctique

“The supplier of these Shasiko dials, at the time, showed us a metallic pink that was just so different, and we just knew we wanted to use that shade.” It's seen here alongside a blue version

About the Stormy Night and the Misty Grey. They are less of talking pieces, and are more as jewelled options for those who might appreciate the more feminine nature of these pieces. There’s a custom cut for the diamonds in these editions.

Like the 'lotus pink', most of Czapek's colours are named. Seen here is the 2022 Antarctique Glacier Blue, a spin on ice blue, which is a very popular dial colour these days