- Raúl Pagès

Raúl Pagès has been shaped by many influences. His introduction to traditional watchmaking came at the restoration house of Michel Parmigiani, where he worked on some of the most historically significant pieces that live in the Sandoz collection and adorn the displays at the Patek Philippe Museum. It was here that his deep respect for the work of the masters of centuries past was fostered. Pagès’ education deepened his yearning to adapt some of these historical innovations for contemporary use, while enriching them with his particular aesthetic.

This is plain in his watchmaking journey so far, which reveals his tastes in everything from mid-century furniture to the works of Le Corbusier, and the music of Al Green to his weakness for vintage Fender electric guitars. It is perhaps this variety of influences that makes his perspective so fresh, revealing its traditional basis only to those who care to look closely. His foray into the space, which pre-dated the most recent wave of young independents by a few years, has been made distinct by his choices.

Starting his independent career with the unusual decision of creating the Tortue automaton, he followed it with his first watch, the Soberly Onyx. It was a glimpse into his aesthetic, inspired by designs and architectural philosophies of the mid-century. Pagès says, “This was the philosophy of the Bauhaus school – you drew lines direct to the functions. I identify with this thinking”.

This is evident in the Régulateur à Détente RP1, Pagès most recent piece. Its straightforward form belies a world of depth and design thought, with colour science being employed with restraint but to maximum effect. Crucially, this is the watchmaker’s first entirely novel work, with a manually wound calibre of his own design. At its heart is the historically significant and remarkably precise detent escapement, its design updated by Pagès for modern usage on the wrist.

Says Robert Barham, head of Sales at a Collected Man, “There is so much about Raúl Pagès that resonates with the way we try to do things at A Collected Man – with taste and restraint, and a perspective informed by experience. Pagès’ innovation on the detent escapement is of course significant. However, what makes it so palatable is the aesthetic he has wrapped it in, be it the utilitarian case, the Bauhaus-inspired dial, or the exposure of the workings and decoration of the movement. It is rare to find such a cohesive idea as the RP1 in watchmaking today”.

While long-time friends, a partnership with Anita Porchet seemed unlikely to Pagès. The ornate style native to her work with enamel seemed at odds with Pagès’ detailed but functional outlook. However, the Régulateur à Détente RP1’s design incorporated a shade of blue inspired by Le Corbusier’s palette codified in his Architectural Polychromy. There was room then to broaden the palette while staying true to Pagès watchmaking vision.

What started as an open-ended conversation between two independent artisans developed into a detailed discourse about colour science and how shades can be deployed individually, and in relation to another, to the service of both legibility and refined aesthetics.

However, shades Pagès picked from Architectural Polychromy often proved to be difficult to replicate due to the delicate and exacting nature of enamelling. Other combinations of enamel would interact better together on the dial if their relationship were inversed, Porchet opined.

This yielded three dial variations of the Régulateur à Détente RP1, each with a unique colour combination. A Collected Man has had the opportunity to offer the first of these three examples for sale.

- Anita Porchet

Wearing a matte pearl grey enamel dial, accented in shade and texture by the glass-like, bright yellow enamel subsidiary registers, this unique Régulateur à Détente RP1 subtly augments the now familiar aesthetic of the watch. While Pagès originally envisioned the dial in a coral red, the shade – which was a composite of two pigments – proved to be a challenging one to work with. The enamel that resulted from it was prone to cracking especially over the relatively wide expanse of the dial. Porchet offered instead a naturally occurring colour of enamel – yellow – not unlike shade 4320 W from Le Corbusier’s Architectural Polychromy of 1959, in combination with the cooler shade of pearl grey. “I liked this even better than the coral red,” says Pagès.

To the watchmaker, enamel seemed a suitable companion to his advancement on the historically important detent escapement at the heart of the manual wind calibre in the Régulateur à Détente RP1. “There is this impression that enamel is very fragile. However, the very reverse is true. When you find pocketwatches with enamel dials, that are sometimes more than 200 years old, and the dial, with its printing, is still intact,” Pagès says.

Says Barham, “While we have long admired Anita Porchet’s intricate artwork that has adorned the dials and cases of some of the best established and respected houses in watchmaking, this will mark the first time A Collected Man will have the honour of offering one of her works. Having had the privilege to offer watches made by the hands of some of the best watchmakers in the world, it’s something of a milestone for the company to offer something made equally by one of the greatest in Antita’s field.”.

Read more about the craft behind the unique dial on this Régulateur à Détente RP1 here.