This year marks the 15th anniversary of high-end Swiss independent brand Armin Strom, at least the modern-day incarnation of it. That’s right, a decade and a half ago two childhood friends – master watchmaker Claude Greisler and entrepreneur Serge Michel – took over the small business set up by watchmaker Mr Armin Strom in Burgdorf, the village where they grew up.
In the years since, Michel and Greisler have grown the company with some distinction, establishing a fully integrated manufacture that now employs 38 people in the nearby city of Bienne. There they are able to design, develop and impressively hand-decorate their own in-house calibres that often incorporate performance-enhancing mechanisms like the brand’s Resonance technology.
And the company now produces 400 or so watches per year, often in limited runs that sell out quickly on or before launch, such is their appeal to collectors.
Earlier this year, Greisler stated that, as part of its anniversary celebrations, the brand is going to release a new timepiece that “truly encapsulates our 15 years of know-how and innovation”. At WorldTempus, we have a hunch that we might see this creation at Geneva Watch Days at the end of August.
In the meantime, Armin Strom has whetted our appetites by unveiling a fresh eye-catching take on a fan favourite: Step forward the Gravity Equal Force Ultimate Sapphire Purple.
Instant Hit
With its minimalist design, well-finished automatic movement – including a chronometry-improving, stop-work de-clutch system – and wearable proportions, this model became an instant hit with the watch fam when it was launched five years ago.
The first versions of this 41mm piece featured a solid, off-centre hours and minutes dial that incorporated small seconds. Opposite this was the visible micro-rotor and mainspring barrel, supported by distinctive finger bridges, with a matte-finished mainplate forming an unbusy backdrop to all these elements.
Since those early pieces, we have been treated to various guises of Gravity Equal Force, which have featured guilloche decoration, colourful dial and movement treatments and the use of sapphire. Impressively, the new Gravity Equal Force Ultimate Sapphire Purple manages to encompass all three of these.
First off, there is the visually-arresting, purple-toned mainplate that boasts a beautiful barleycorn guilloche motif. This gorgeous pattern was engine-turned by hand at Comblémine, the dial workshop of revered Finnish watchmaker Kari Voutilainen.
Meanwhile, the striking purple hue – applied via a 3D PVD process – is rich and vibrant, but doesn’t detract from the splendour of the guilloche. While the brand has made at least one purple-inflected unique piece in the past, this is the first time Armin Strom has used the colour on a serially produced model.
And elevating this edition further is the off-centred hour and minute dial disc which has been made out of transparent sapphire crystal. The choice of this material lets the gears driving these indications become visible underneath the hand-finished, Super-LumiNova-filled steel hands.
Trademark Finishing
Through the display back, the part of the mainplate that remains visible is also coloured purple. In fact, front and back, Armin Strom’s trademark fine hand-finishing is all over this piece: Polished bevels on the bridges, black polished screws, polished countersinks, perlage and a diversity of graining as well as Geneva waves on the three-quarter bridge.
Priced at CHF 27,500, Gravity Equal Force Ultimate Sapphire Purple comes on a light grey nubuck leather strap with purple stitching. It will be produced in limited quantities: 25 pieces per year. As things stand, there are only a few more pieces up for grabs in the production run for 2024, so get in touch with Armin Strom if you’re considering snapping one up.
