time-keeper


David Candaux DC12 MaveriK, a breakthrough creation

September 2025


David Candaux DC12 MaveriK, a breakthrough creation

David Candaux unveils the DC12 MaveriK, born from seventeen years of reflection. At its core beats the new Calibre C30, a seven-level movement crowned with three patents, designed to liberate the double balance and reimagine precision for the modern wrist. Rooted in the Vallée de Joux yet free from its codes, the MaveriK embodies both heritage and bold innovation – a living architecture where mechanics breathe, adapt and inspire.

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025 opens a new chapter. A demanding terrain, sculpted like a mountain ridge, where mechanical art meets technical daring. Drawing from the past, David builds an architecture that lives, breathes and inspires. After seventeen years of reflection, he unveils a radical idea: a free double balance. Heir to the Vallée de Joux yet freed from its codes, he forges a movement in motion, suspended between memory and boldness.

At the heart of this creation beats an unprecedented calibre, designed and crafted in his workshop at the Solliat. The C30, with its seven-level architecture, unfolds a depth that perfectly follows the case’s distinctive line. it unites the memory of the Vallée de Joux with a vision of tomorrow. Like a mountaineer on a narrow ridge, every gesture is measured, every balance decisive, aimed at a single goal: precision on the wrist.

David Candaux DC12 MaveriK, a breakthrough creation

Three new patents crown this achievement. Each is the fruit of extensive research and testing, and above all, of a clear idea: a mental gesture that constantly deconstructs to rebuild with greater mastery.

The creator’s freedom takes shape in the movement’s freedom: the DC12 MaveriK is born.

The double balance has fascinated watchmakers for centuries. In the 1930s, at the École Technique de la Vallée de Joux, unique calibres were created where two regulators worked in tandem, linked by a differential. Rare pieces, exceptionally precise, yet never industrialized.

Decades later, Philippe Dufour reinvented this complication with the Duality, the first wristwatch to integrate two balances connected by a differential. A discreet and masterful creation, it inspired David and echoes the meticulous spirit and precision-driven culture that shaped him.

Gabriel Locatelli, who first crossed his path at Jaeger-LeCoultre when he was just 14, instilled in him rigor and precision: a deep voice, an intense gaze and a guiding hand that engraved in him discipline and high standards. Philippe Dufour, a seminal figure of the Vallée, has always been there as a steady, supportive presence, teaching him patience, the poetry of mechanics and the path to independence.

David’s approach is not about reproducing an old mechanism, but evolving a language. His work is the result of years of reflection, silent testing and accepted doubts – a rare patience. He draws on archives, visits museums and follows in the footsteps of past masters. For him, innovation cannot exist without memory.

David Candaux DC12 MaveriK, a breakthrough creation

Heir to Gabriel Locatelli’s tenacity and nurtured by Philippe Dufour’s silent rigor, David chose a singular path. Their example convinced him to push his pursuit to its fullest. The double balance becomes the vehicle of a living heritage: an architecture in motion, shaped for today. His way of writing, in his own hand, the next chapters of watchmaking history.

The double balance is one of the most effective – and most complex – solutions to optimize real-world precision. Two balances, functioning independently yet compensating each other, achieve a radical equilibrium in the service of accuracy.

But each escapement requires its own energy. Simultaneous demands can disturb the movement or even cause a stoppage. The classic solution? To move the differential – the system’s keystone – away from the seconds’ train, at the expense of precision.

At the heart of the DC12 MaveriK, David changes the rules: he liberates rather than constrains. He places his foundational invention at the center of the movement: a flying satellite planetary mounted on a hairspring shock absorber. It is not peripheral; it lives at the core of the seconds’ train. This satellite does not command – it accompanies. It absorbs, adjusts and allows two independent balances to dialogue freely, finding a natural equilibrium together. The mechanical differential, positioned at the seconds’ train’s nerve center, calculates in real time the average of their isochronism deviations, ensuring exceptional regularity. A genuine compensating mechanism, the hairspring of the flying satellite channels force with subtlety, delivering a fluid and balanced distribution to each balance. The watch breathes, senses and adapts before it acts.

To ensure this exceptional mechanism remains reliable in daily use, the C30 caliber integrates a secured winding system, covered by a second patent. Winding click and spring work together as a safety system: energy flows in the correct direction, unwanted backflow is blocked, ensuring smooth, robust winding true to artisanal watchmaking.

Finally, the DC12 MaveriK incorporates a third patented system combining winding and time-setting. Thanks to a coaxial, ingeniously inclined control mechanism, the crown engages either the two mainsprings or the time-setting function, independently and compactly. The result: precision, robustness, and fluidity at every interaction.

Every patent, every innovation, every detail converges toward a single goal: allowing the components to interact freely, to absorb, to accompany, and to act fluidly – creating a watch that lives and breathes with its wearer.

With the DC12 MaveriK, David takes a new leap in the expression of his design, achieving near-surgical precision. Every line carries meaning, every detail reflects a deliberate choice, and the geometry – perfectly curved and balanced – reveals absolute mastery. Ergonomics are total: the “magic crown,” integrated into the case, ensures ultimate comfort, while the fluidity of the case’s curves, with parallel arcs and consistent thickness on both the dial and caseback sides, embraces the wrist with almost organic precision. The top-loading construction is a technical feat, and the lugs, fine, taut and lightweight, extend this dynamic. Even the 39.5 mm diameter is conceived to the millimeter, offering a presence that is balanced yet never heavy.

The dial pushes this pursuit of harmony to its peak, inviting us into an uncharted universe. The opening, though round, curves delicately to follow the case’s form – a tamed ellipse. Its “chip”-shaped, thin, undulating silhouette evokes both the fragility of a leaf and the strength of a confident design. Resting on a nickel silver base, a subtle homage to historical pieces, it comes alive with applied indexes that stand out against an outer white track. Each index, crafted in titanium with a precise angle and length, follows the curvature of the dial to enhance visual harmony. Minute numerals, marked at five-minute intervals, integrate subtly along the periphery. The central hours disc, in white opal and ringed with diamond-polished edges, delivers a contemporary reading. A delicate interplay of colors, materials and textures unfolds, while the hands, flame-blued and finely honed, capture the light in perfect resonance with the minute indexes.

At 12 o’clock, everything converges: the three-dimensional, suspended differential commands attention through its free presence. It completes a 60-second rotation and drives the small seconds with lightness, embodying a movement that breathes, freed from traditional constraints. In counterpoint, at 6 o’clock, “Le Cœur et l’Esprit” (The Heart and Mind), asserts a philosophy: the intimate link between thought, transmission and creation.

David Candaux DC12 MaveriK, a breakthrough creation

Through a wide aperture, the caseback reveals the movement with its two beating hearts, infused with the spirit of the Vallée de Joux and crafted in Grade 5 titanium – a guarantee of lightness, robustness and longevity, in line with all of David Candaux’s creations. Two elongated bridges, stretched like arcs and featuring straight-grained decoration inspired by historical models, cradle the balances with purity, enhanced by a hand-finished central snow-grained bridge asserting its presence with sobriety and precision. Every finish – polished inward angles, brushed flanks – becomes a language of sincere craftsmanship. Finally, the case plays with contrasts, alternating polished and satin surfaces to emphasize the singularity of its lines.

Water-resistant to 50 meters, the DC12 MaveriK unites modernity and the memory of the Vallée de Joux. Case and dial bring to life an intuitive, technical watch sculpted to endure. It breathes the present: radical, familiar, a living signature on the wrist.

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