Jules Verne, André Citroën, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Gustave Eiffel, Georges Méliès, Louis XIV, Marie Curie… Since the launch of its first watches, the Gustave & Cie brand has ceaselessly honoured French historical figures. At the start of 2024, it reveals its new model named Paul, inspired by the poet Paul Eluard. This new 24-hour watch is to be discovered as a sneak peek within the framework of the brand’s crowdfunding campaign.
A double encounter between poetry and watchmaking
“Elegance has only one hand.” This truth Gustave & Co has adopted since the launch of its first watch at the dawn of the 2020s. And for a debut, the young brand founded by Guillaume Rémond and Timothée Barbier did not do things by halves as it could pride itself on offering the first single-hand watch assembled in France.
Like a brand such as MeisterSinger, this element has become the signature of Gustave & Cie’s watch collections. More than a mere aesthetic quirk, this single hand also conveys a certain philosophy. Here, the brand wants to encourage us to take our time, to read it differently. And never mind if the time is less precise on a single-hand watch than on a traditional model. After all, nobody is to the exact minute…
And if this poetry was not enough, Gustave & Co. decided to write a new stanza, a new verse, with their Paul watch. After such famous characters as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry or Jules Verne, this time it is Paul Eluard to whom this ticker owes its name. Particularly known for “his works on the themes of freedom, love, and the passing of time”, this great poet was an obvious source of inspiration for the brand.
Attention to detail according to Gustave & Cie
Reinventing the single-hand watch seems to be a very complicated task. However, something special emanates from this new Paul. It features clean and elegant lines, at the heart of a 39mm diameter steel case with a thickness of 12.1mm. Its shape reminds us of “a pebble shaped by time” according to the brand, while the slightly domed sapphire glass that tops it brings a touch of retro nostalgia to the whole.
For the launch of this new dress watch, Gustave & Cie envisioned 4 different versions, each evoking a moment of the day or night: rose gold and blue, silver and white, rose gold and white, silver and blue. And since, in his poem “The night is never complete”, Paul Eluard explained that in every dark moment, there is always a glimmer of hope, the 24-hour dial was conceived as an evocation “of the infinite cycles of day and night”. The words MIDI and MIDNIGHT, written in full, bring rhythm to this poetry of time, where each hour can be seen as a verse and each minute as a comma.
It can also be noted that the indexes applied on the enamelled dial adopt a typography reminiscent of the poet’s handwriting. And to go further in details, Gustave & Cie also slightly redesigned its needle, slightly curved at the tip.
Unsurprisingly (or almost), it is a Miyota movement that powers the watch, specifically the 9075 GMT caliber, fully set in the brand’s assembly workshops, in Besançon. This mechanism, whose reliability is no longer to be proven, offers 42 hours of power reserve and can be admired through the transparent back. We then discover that the oscillating mass has been fully decorated, engraved with a part of the poem that inspired the Paul collection.
Once again, Gustave & Cie has chosen crowdfunding for the launch of its watch. It is therefore available for pre-order from March 14 to April 15 on Kickstarter. The first 150 numbered copies are available for 590€, then 690€ for the next ones. Ultimately, the Paul collection will be available on the brand’s website from September 2024, priced at 890€.
