Late in 2008, Swiss watch brand Manufacture Contemporaine du Temps burst onto the watchmaking scene with the Sequential One.

Dedicated to unconventional ways of telling time, the brand is the brainchild of Denis Giguet, formerly in charge of development at Harry Winston for the Opus series. The Opus connection extends to master watchmaker Jerome Marcu and watch designer Eric Giroud, who is also responsible for the Horological Machine No. 1 from MB&F. With the Sequential One, the trio simultaneously confirms their own legacies and vision for the future.

The Sequential One is a square 45mm time-only watch, with seconds display via the caseback. There are major innovations here in the display of hours and minutes. No, it is not an outsized hour disc and retrograde minute hand. In this visual, the time is 9:22. The hours are displayed at the 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock positions, with the markers at these positions showing a fixed set of numerals. On the hour, the minute disc rotates anti-clockwise, revealing the next hour and positioning the minute hand at zero once more. In the case of this visual, 10 o’clock will be displayed at the 6 o’clock position.

Manufacture Contemporaine du Temps