When Swatch hit the massive three-O in March 2013, the fashion-watch phenomenon commandeered a whole flooring of the Baselworld commerce honest, filling it with each single considered one of their 5,000-or-so watches. One thing large was going to occur, and it positive did: the Sistem51. A £100 watch, which turned the discuss of a city extra used to £10,000 worth tags.
Like its legendary plastic forebear, Sistem51 sticks to (shock, shock) 51 components, however – amazingly – it’s now a purely mechanical watch, moderately than battery-powered quartz, with all of its cogs mounted on a single screw. Oh, and it’s made solely by robots in a approach like no different.
Some have been, and stay snobbish about its plastic micro-mechanics, however you may’t assist however goggle on the achievement of making a self-winding motion with lower than half the standard components, packing 90 hours of energy reserve (the norm is round 40), plus claiming an accuracy of +/-7 seconds a day – virtually exact sufficient to earn ‘chronometer’ standing, of which Rolex, Omega and Breitling all boast.
Now obtainable in metal ‘Irony’ guise, for a dressier look, Sistem51 is the anti-fashion trend watch: defiantly subtle, intentionally anarchic. It’s peerless, unprecedented, as future-forward as fashion-forward, but entrenched in Swiss custom.
How The Swatch Sistem51 Got here To Be
All of the bubblegum designs, artist collabs and down-with-the-kids advertising apart, individuals overlook how revolutionary the Swatch watch was. Removed from being simply one other fashionable fad of the 80s, Swatch was conceived in response to a extreme (within the watch world, no less than) disaster: from the early ’70s onwards, handmade mechanical watches have been being threatened with obsolescence by low-cost, mass-produced quartz watches pouring out of the Far East. Even James Bond had discarded his Rolex for a Seiko digital.
In stark distinction to the pouting, Swatch-toting teenie boppers on the quilt of Smash Hits, it took a brief, bearded, moderately plump engineering advisor known as Nicolas G. Hayek to show the fortunes of Swiss watchmaking round. A employed gun, he masterminded the formation of the Swiss Company for Microelectronics and Watchmaking Industries, or ‘SMH’, by merging a consortium of mega-brands similar to Tissot, Omega and Longines collectively.
The bail-out banks known as upon Hayek, who invested 300 million Swiss francs of his personal money, then, as president, dragged SMH kicking and screaming into the trendy age with manufacturing traces, machination, and one daring, determined transfer: the Swatch watch.
An early Swatch advert from the ’80s
It was invented virtually accidentally. An SMH engineer known as Elmar Mock had recklessly spent 500,000 francs on an injection moulding machine in the identical yr the agency had made 4,000 workers redundant. When his supervisor discovered, he had simply two hours to provide you with a proposal: an affordable quartz watch that used ultrasonic welding to construct the mechanism straight into the case. No screws, watertight, with simply 51 components, and little else to go improper.
Fortunately for Mock, SMH was already in search of an affordable new product, so – suitably chastened – he was given simply six months to convey his ‘Swatch’ to market.
Hayek pitched it completely to make the most of an age outlined by disposable earnings and magnificence over content material. The typical Swatch proprietor used their assortment as an emotional assertion to swimsuit no matter their temper took them on a selected day. Now you may hold your father’s Omega or mom’s Cartier safely locked away for particular events and, for on a regular basis use, simply throw in your ‘second watch’ (truly the origin of the title, not ‘Swiss watch’ as many assume).
A Swatch advert from 1984 with tennis legend Ivan Lendl
The Swatch watch’s wild success – together with all of its wacky spin-offs (bear in mind Pop Swatch?) – bolstered the restoration of all these venerable manufacturers up until the ’90s, when curiosity in conventional mechanics returned and the likes of Cindy Crawford began showing on Omega billboards. So vital was this placky 50-dollar airport reward, that SMH was renamed ‘Swatch Group’ come 1998.
By 2006, the 333 millionth Swatch had been bought, and by 2013 a product was required to mark Swatch’s thirtieth with becoming finesse. And boy did we get one…
A Technical Masterpiece
You may forgive Swatch’s new inventive director, Carlo Giordanetti for being considerably intimidated. Regardless of a historical past with the fashion-watch phenomenon stretching again so far as 1987 – bar a seven-year hiatus designing for Montblanc – the Italian was confronted with no imply job earlier than the ink on his contract had even dried: mark the 30-year anniversary with one thing spectacular.
“In a approach, I used to be intimidated, sure,” says a easy however honest Giordanetti, “in any case, everybody has their very own concept about Swatch. The Sistem51 was a Coca-Cola bottle train – to vary issues, however not change a lot.”
Because it transpired, Sistem51 was arguably probably the most thrilling launch of 2013’s Baselworld commerce honest, regardless of a projected price ticket of simply CHF100–200. What that represents shouldn’t be solely the most affordable automated mechanical Swiss watch in the marketplace, but additionally some of the ingenious.
“The problem was to succeed in one thing just like Swatch with mechanics,” says Giordanetti, “however to get right down to that magic variety of 51 components? It appeared unimaginable. Particularly once we thought we had it – solely to search out we have been nonetheless on 54! Oh my god…”
Fortunately for him and his workforce, this was Swatch: “It’s a incredible benefit; the engineers are all sensible sufficient to not current a prototype with 49 or 53. “They do issues,” he provides gnomically, “in their very own kitchen.”
Being laser-welded shut, even probably the most skilled watchmaker must go at a Sistem51 hammer and tongs – successfully destroying it – with a purpose to work out how ETA’s engineers achieved that magic quantity. One thing commerce title EuropaStar did with grasp horloger Denis Asch as quickly because the watch hit Swiss shops in March 2014. The ensuing teardown report makes for a captivating, if significantly nerdy learn.
Total, what’s most spectacular is that the fundamental mechanical precept of a conventional Swiss watch – a mainspring barrel, wound by a peripheral rotor, powering a geartrain at a price ruled by an oscillating steadiness wheel and ticking lever escapement – has been solely preserved, in 51 components. Even the only mechanical actions often quantity round 120.
The opposite two most spectacular options – to Denis Asch no less than – are that the escape lever is in plastic (“that is the actual prowess, as a result of that is what determines the speed!”) and that there are certainly no screws, simply metallic pins. All besides the only axial screw showcased by means of the clear caseback. And it’s this that impressed Giordanetti when it got here to naming his creation.
“What I beloved most was the day we settled on the story of the ‘system’,” he remembers. “The central screw round which every little thing orbited jogged my memory of Copernicus and his solar-system principle, putting the Solar on the heart of the identified universe, not Earth.”
What Makes The Sistem51 Nice
In design, the Sistem51 is a watchmaking revolution. However so too is the method behind it, being solely robotized.
To take action, Swatch’s motion maestroes ETA purpose-built an enormous, bleeding-edge facility in Boncourt, at Switzerland’s north-west tip. Eventually depend (an exhaustive and unique on-the-ground report by know-how magazine, Wired), its 400 machines, unfold throughout 15,000 sq. metres work 24 hours a day, as much as six days every week, pumping out components made to minute tolerances, assembling Sistem51’s 5 modules, fixing them to the mainplate, then adorning in a variety of colours utilizing a digital printer.
Numbers are not often talked about in official communication (particularly on the subject of Swatch Group), however by Wired’s calculations, all of it amounted to no less than 4,000 watches per day. Since 2016, that authentic capability has theoretically doubled, with ETA constructing a carbon copy of the Boncourt facility actually over the street. All in all, a possible of two million watches per yr, taking Swatch increased than Rolex in Swiss mechanical manufacturing.
It’s the overall lack of human involvement that beggers perception – particularly on the subject of the meeting course of. Once you’re coping with such tiny, delicately poised mechanics, it’s virtually unimaginable to not depend on the dexterity of educated fingers and thumbs. However positive sufficient, in Boncourt’s meeting room, row upon row of robotic arms whirl in excellent methodic live performance, like an orchestra of conductors, all gluing, pinning and soldering the watch collectively, simply as Elmar Mock pioneered again in 1983.
The Greatest Swatch Sistem51 Iterations
Carlo Giordanetti definitely isn’t resting on his artists’ laurels. The truth is, the Sistem51’s clear caseback and uncovered motion has impressed him to assume in another way about his personal fastened canvas. “As Mr Hayek all the time stated: ‘Don’t fall in love with your individual good concepts. Begin once more each time and wipe the slate.’” To whit, the Sistem51’s personal photo voltaic system now boasts an ever-expanding universe of planetary our bodies, of all totally different patterns, colors and kinds.
As all the time with Swatch, the watch itself is the assertion, so simply go together with it. Lime-green plastic can work with tailoring. However for a extra basic look, there’s now a metallic ‘Irony’ vary in metal – a correct grown-up Swiss mechanical for lower than £200.
Sistem51 Sistem Blue
The unique launch design, choosing out the place of the interior pins as a star chart – a intelligent nod to the solar-system idea. The translucent case reveals Swatch’s signature 4-claw lugs are current and proper, and the distinction stitching alongside the rubber strap actually is stitched thread.
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Sistem51 Irony Sistem By way of
No extra damaging tear downs are required to disclose the secrets and techniques of Sistem51’s mechanical effectivity – it’s all on show dial-side now, framed in elegant polished metal. And sure, that strap is actual leather-based. How do they do it for £154?
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Sistem51 Sistem Frog
The most recent addition to the Sistem51 household, and a reassuringly plastic-fantastic one, after 2018’s emphasis on metal Ironys. ‘Frog’: basic Swatch lolz there.
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Sistem51 Sistem Brushed
Stealth mode activated, treating the metal Irony to a super-slick PVD coating for a bang-on-trend gunmetal sheen. Using an all-metal case and bracelet actually ramps up the luxe-factor, making it appear to be a watch that prices thrice as a lot.
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Sistem51 Sistem White
One other one of many 2014 launch designs, it was initially pigeonholed to ‘lady’. However we don’t know… with time (i.e. 4 years of more and more peacocky accessorisation) this feels extra asserted than ever.
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Sistem51 Sistem Soul
Appropriately named, here’s a dial straight from the sandy scribbles of Socrates himself, radiating calm with pensive cream tones and monochromatic minimalism. Aaaaand…. breathe. Purchase Now
Sistem51 1983 Swatch x Hackett
In the identical yr that Swatch was tearing up the Swiss rulebook, Jeremy Hackett’s up to date tackle British spivviness migrated from Portobello market stall to full-blown King’s Street bricks and mortar. The 2 manufacturers’ thirty fifth birthday is marked this yr with a bona fido (sorry) gentleman’s accent, starring Mr H’s beloved Sussex Spaniel, Muffin.
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