This Scrappy Swiss Challenger Brand Is Not Here To Make Friends

Swiss watch manufacturer Horage can be summed up in one word: Disruption. And with a recently launched microrotor movement and a tourbillon movement, the challenger brand is finally ready to take on the big players in earnest after 12 years of research and development. Horage makes watches – the Autark is their most well-known model – but they also make the movement inside their own watches, and they're looking to supply that movement to other watch brands, too. Part of their business has always been OEM manufacturing; in other words, manufacturing watches or components of watches for other brands. And they've learned a tremendous amount from that experience. But as Horage's marketing director Landon Stirling says, OEM manufacturing can only go so far: "After managing countless watch projects, our interest in the OEM business began to fade. There's not a lot of excitement when every project for a client is about budget, sacrificing quality and design to keep pace with trends that will inevitably dry up. We felt it was time to branch out and do something on our own." The ethos of Horage is rebellious and unafraid to call out industry trends that mostly get swept under the rug – for instance, Stirling says, "the saturation of brands in the market using the same movements, falsifying in-house through a decoration exercise, or being Swiss Made without even having a registered entity in Switzerland." Horage doesn't live in a glass house while throwing heavy blocks of 316L at others. As a result of growing weary of OEM projects, they've doubled down and produced their own entirely in-house tourbillon movement. To get there, they recruited a team that brought diverse perspectives to the operation. According to Stirling, " [We] hired Stefan Kussmaul a former engineer at Eterna. Three years later, our current head of engineering, Jonas Nydegger, would join in 2012 and take over the project. Florian Serex brought a wealth of knowledge to our projects after acting as the former head of ETA laboratories and CEO of Vaucher Manufacture." Joining this core team was a crew of experts in other disciplines. The company works under a set of rules when it comes to caliber development: Never let a watchmaker make a movement on their own; add an engineer. Never let the two of them make a movement on their own; add a business-minded individual with an understanding of engineering. These three then require support in the way of mathematicians, manufacturing experts, designers, and so forth. As a result of focusing on lean manufacturing and a heavy investment in technical know-how, the brand has built a tourbillon entirely from scratch after a deal with an outside supplier fell through. The Tourbillon 1 was introduced at CHF 6,990 and is designed to be worn every day. It uses hearty ceramic ball bearing construction as opposed to delicate jewel and pinion construction. The dial and plates have been skeletonized in a grid fashion, allowing the tourbillon complication to be put on full display. Brushed, matte and polished 30 degree angles add interesting visual flair, and the plates come in silver, gold, and grey, with the addition of an optional blue PVD finish. Watches are delivering now. On creating a tourbillon from the ground up, Stirling says many companies "don't have the understanding of how challenging real movement making is, because marketing teams have been so effective with feeding both media and enthusiasts heavily laden fields of bullshit." Then he throws down one more gauntlet to the competition: “Brands should have a desire to make their own history, rather than only rely on the regurgitation, repackaging, re-promotion of yesteryear's developments." To learn more, visit Horage .Horage isn't just trolling the industry. It's backing up the talk with product.