hat would be a perfect Chronoswiss to wear with your everyday denims? This question began to work on us, and during months of experimental designs we soon realised that the case had to hit the exact colour note of another speciality in our hometown – artisanal dark chocolate,” says Maik Panziera, Chronoswiss head of design, about the latest version of the Open Gear ReSec.

Nicknamed Chocolate, the case is both satin smooth and scratch-resistant, thanks to a uniquely hued PVD coating inspired by a Grand-Cru dark chocolate bar by Lucerne-based Max Chocolatier. A chilli and cranberry red “dial” gives a fiery impact to the minimalist design void of numerals. “This is actually not the dial, but the mainplate of the mechanical movement. Its structured, fine-grained, powdery appearance is achieved by sandblasting a red varnish mixed with a see-through pigment,” Panziera continues.

The dial side is an action-packed, 42-part construction in several layers. Black bridges support skeletonised open gear train wheels, which power Trigono-shaped hands divided in the regulator manner of hours, minutes and seconds. Solid pieces of Super-LuminNova mixed with zirconium oxide form cylindrical pillars for the minutes and flat blocks for the hour indexes.

On this model which is limited to 50 timepieces, the regulator has been given a hypnotic twist: the second hand is a retrograde. This invention deriving from 17th-century pocket watches means that the second hand runs in a semicircle from four to eight. After thirty seconds it jumps back to begin anew.

The Open Gear ReSec Chocolate is a modern mechanical timepiece made in Lucerne, and it features typical design codes that watch lovers looking for something different have come to associate with Chronoswiss: a regulator complication, three-dimensional dial, onion crown and fluted bezel. “That’s what we do at Chronoswiss. We take inventions from classic watchmaking, but we always do our best to execute them in a unique and contemporary manner,” says Chronoswiss CEO Oliver Ebstein, who took over the company in 2012.

Noteworthy: for new owners of a Chronoswiss Chocolate timepiece, the company will also include a year-long quarterly chocolate subscription* from brand Max Chocolatier, containing an exclusive selection of seasonally flavoured, hand-made chocolates (Applicable for purchases made in 2020, and when registering for the 3 year international warranty program on the Chronoswiss website.