RESSENCE
BY MICHAEL THOMPSON
OIL, WATER
& MAGNETS
Ressence watches feature many one-of-a-kind micro-inventions.
The Ressence patented ROCS module is driven by the minute axle of a customized ETA selfwinding 2824 / 2 base caliber. This unique 142-part horological complication is entirely bathed in 37.5ml of oil. ROCS five functions are: Runner, Minutes, Hours and Oil Temperature.( This exploded view does not include the base caliber).
Belgian industrial designer Benoît Mintiens created quite a stir when he debuted the first Ressence watches seven years ago. With a crowd around him at the now-defunct GMT show in Geneva that year, and later at the Basel fair, Mintiens presented watches featuring dials that separated timekeeping and function indicator subdials like many regulator clocks and watches, but with an even more unusual feature: each timekeeping hand was on a single plane and rotated around the entire dial to follow the minute hand. Like a classic regulator dial, the minute hand is larger than the other timekeeping indicators on a Ressence dial. It leads a onehour rotation around the dial; the hours, running seconds and other indicators also slowly change their position.
And if these first designs weren’ t unusual enough, Mintiens then several years later debuted his Type 3 with – gasp – an oil-filled case that eliminates reflections and makes the dial perfectly readable at any angle.
Mintiens explains that because oil and glass share very similar responses to refraction, the eye is tricked into momentarily losing its depth perception, thus the dial’ s indications all appear on one level.
But the 2.4 tablespoons of oil Mintiens pours into his Type 3 and Type 5 watches represents just one of many one-of-a-kind inventions that make Ressence such an odd duck of watchmaking. Let’ s look at a few other components found inside these two most recent Ressence watches.
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WRISTWATCH | 2017