March 28, 2024

Christophe Claret is on a world expansion tour to bring his exclusive Haute Horlogerie timepieces closer to customers. Following June openings with prestigious retailers in Dubai with Ahmed Siddiqi & Sons, at Westime Beverly Hills on North Rodeo Drive, and in Lucerne Switzerland at Gübelin, and before attending the July 15 – 22 exhibition at King Sign in Taiwan where it will present the Aventicum and the Allegro, Christophe Claret found the time to open a point of sale at the equally renowned Chronopassion shop on the Rue Saint Honoré in the fashionable and central 1st arrondissement of Paris.

Chronopassion Paris

From the four lines that comprise the brand’s permanent collection: Traditional Complications, Extreme Watches, Casino Game Watches and Ladies’ Complications, the Le Locle –based watchmaker has brought a pair of exceptional timepieces to the new Paris outlet: the playful, ingenious and 3 times award-winner Margot, Claret’s first timepiece for ladies launched in 2014, and the eye-catching X-TREM – 1 for men first launched in 2012, followed by the X-TREM – 1 Blue launched in Geneva earlier this year.

Christophe Claret Margot

Haute Time has already provided full descriptions of these very original timepieces; their exceptional creativity leads us to briefly highlight again some of their remarkable characteristics. The Margot, based on the theme of “He loves me; he loves me not”, with a daisy in the center of the dial, seems deceitfully simple with its pushbutton at 2:00 o’clock that when pressed, randomly slides 1 or 2 petals under the dial, and equally randomly selects a degree of love (or not) that is revealed to the wearer in French in a window at 4 o’clock (un peu, beaucoup, passionnément, à la folie, or pas du tout), all accompanied by a chime at each press to make it even more amusing. Paris now has it in rose gold with baguette diamonds.

Arthur Touchot Christophe Claret Allegro and X-TREM-1 Watches Baselworld 2015

As for the X-TREM – 1 for men, it is recognizable by its sapphire tubes on both sides of the caseband, with each tube containing a floating stainless steel sphere that is controlled by magnetic fields generated by two precision-focused magnets moved by ultra-thin surgical silk thread. The sphere on the left displays the hours while that on the right shows the minutes. In Paris, it is the platinum and PVD case that houses the revolutionary mechanism.

CLARET_Chronopassion2

Christophe Claret is passionate about watches. Before creating and manufacturing under his own name, he spent more than 25 years developing complex watch movements for prestigious Swiss brands. Today, with his Haute Horlogerie timepieces that are totally imagined, developed and produced in-house, he belongs to the very exclusive group of independent watchmakers.

Laurent Picciotto

Equally passionate is Chronopassion founder Laurent Picciotto (pictured above) who opened his boutique 26 years ago. Known for his experience and quality advice, he now sells some of the most exclusive brands in the world: Greubel Forsey is there with its Tourbillon 24 Secondes Asymmetric in platinum, along with Richard Mille, Audemars Piguet, Breguet, Panerai, Hublot, MB&F, Urwerk, HYT with its Skull Green, Möser & Cie and now, Christophe Claret: 33 brands in total that are “out there”, unique, individual and for many, independent.

Photo Credit: Haute Time. For more information, please visit the official Christophe Claret website. Follow Haute Time on Instagram to catch all of the new releases as they happen.