Sarpaneva K3 Unique Piece, Stainless Steel

A unique "Winter" K3 that draws upon aesthetics laid out in Sarpaneva’s Korona series, retaining featuring such as the inscrutable moonphase complication, an azure-blue luminous dial and openworked grille pattern rendered in turquoise.

THE SARPANEVA STORY

As the son of jewellery designer Pentti Sarpaneva, and nephew of the internationally acclaimed designer and artist Timo Sarpaneva, it was always the case that Stepan’s career would take a creative direction. Educated at the Finnish School of Watchmaking and then WOSTEP, his path to independent watchmaking was composed of various, rich learning experiences.

As many others had done before him, Sarpaneva spent some time restoring antique and vintage watches, including at Parmigiani, alongside Kari Voutilainen. As he put it: “I had to really learn the history of watchmaking with Kari, because we were working on things like minute repeaters and perpetual calendars, making parts for them.” Following his experience there, Sarpaneva also spent some time with Vianney Halter and Christophe Claret, which helped shape his skills and vision.

In addition to these wide-ranging experiences, Sarpaneva had been designing his own watches as far back as 1999, when he was still at Parmigiani. These were mainly one-off pieces, which he created for himself. However, a Japanese retailer once spotted one of these on his wrist, and asked if he could possibly order one. Sarpaneva says, “I made something for him and then a few pieces here and there for my friends. It grew very organically like that.” In 2003, the watchmaker formed his own brand in Helsinki, Finland.