I had the pleasure to sit in during a Marvin design review session with industry giant Jean-François Ruchonnet (Jeff) and designer par excellence Sébastien Perret  yesterday. With our CEO Cécile, they are the team responsible for the new Marvin Malton 160 line design (both round and square versions). In the past four or five months (that’s amazingly fast in this business), they managed to put together one of the most exciting watch lines in Marvin’s history.  There’s something inherently unique and enriching about sitting down with people of this caliber in any given industry. So how does it work when the Maestros are conducting?

I think the keyword is “details”. In two hours, every single details of every single component making up the Malton was discussed, verified, challenged (sometimes) and, approved, nixed or modified. The way it works is Cécile has the “big picture” vision. That includes style, pricing, variations, and positioning. This is her with our Sales Director Damien inspecting one of the Maltons.

Jeff has ultimate design input and directional control (that’s him on the left).

Sébastien (he’s on the right) also gives design input and ideas. Then he goes off and generates plain, 3D, black and white or color graphical blueprints of the pieces by hand and computer.

And the process repeats iteratively. It’s really a lot like (proper) software development. Here are the finer points that were discussed (without going into confidential specifics):

Polishing and metal matting on the case sides. Specifically, the unique “recessed” areas pointed to on the regulator below (for lack of a better name):

Anti-reflective layers either on the inside or outside of the crystal and the proper amount of layers to apply. This has a direct effect on the dial light reflection that can consequently alter the perceived color of the dial. The effect is different depending on the convexity of the sapphire crystal (curved or flat).

The exact width of the crown protectors to make sure they are perfectly in line with the crown. A few tenths of a millimeter were lacking on the blueprint. The protectors must be perfectly in line with the crown.

The exact length and width of the indexes. On various different models, these measurements can be varied depending on the required effect.

The height of the hands above the dial markings. As you can see below, there’s only so much room you get on A (without doing expensive customization) to clear a marking on B.

The color scheme of the metal of the case, dial and hands. Selecting single or bi-color schemes, depending on the model version. You hear the term “pantone” mentioned a lot. Alloys can contain various percentages of pure gold, giving the ability to closely nuance the resulting color from yellow to pink and white. The proportion of gold is referred to as 1N, 2N, 3N, 4N and 5N. This is a Swiss watch industry standard apparently ranging from greenish to yellow-red gold as described in this fairly technical paper.

The angular fit of the bracelets around the wrist when you simply lay the watch flat on your wrist. Do they just “jut out” or do they nicely fall to fit around the wrist curvature. This is highly dependent on the leather grade and suppleness.

The slope of the leather straps. I never realized this but leather straps are actually thicker on the attached side A (horns) than on the clasp end B. They basically look like this up close:

The desired width of the attached end is a not-so-simple matter of matching the height to the size and style of piece you are designing.

The type and granularity of the leather straps (flex test). There are multitudes of different leather color, style and finish permutations. At issue here is a proper cost/quality ratio. You can what I call a “flex test” on numerous different samples. With this simple test, looking at how the skin comes back to the initial shape, you can pretty much tell you if the strap will wear out before or after four months of wear.

The curvature of the crystal (flat or cushion effect). All Maltons sport scratch-proof sapphire crystals. Depending on the models, you can do “cushioned” or flat crystals.

The dial color. Many possibilities here but in fact, not really. Jeff has enough experience to know what will and what won’t work on a given style size, and shape of watch. It’s important to maintain proper contrast between the dial (background) and the hands (foreground), not to mention any additional complications such as chronos, small seconds, date windows, and the like.

Matching dial to bracelet color. There’s a trending aspect to that decision. But either way, there seem to be only so many “acceptable” combinations in a certain class of watch at a given point in time.

For metal bracelets, the art of fitting the right amount of links per row, and the shape and curvature of each link not only in the bracelet, but in the way it connects to the horns is a science of its own. Not to mention picking the correct metal coloring either single or multi-color. This is especially apparent in the square Malton series.

Microbilleting is a process that makes patterned indentations on a smooth metal surface. It is used to decorate watch parts, namely areas on the dial. To me, it looks a lot that what’s described here.  If I understand correctly, it can be done with very tiny hard metal “billets” with a machine or you can fire microscopic projectiles (like hardened glass balls)  at a metal surface to give it a pattern. The choice of technique (cost control), placement and pattern styles requires deep experience and is artwork at best.

I don’t think there was a single part or parcel of the Malton series that was not discussed and debated for finalization. I leave out the discussions that took place regarding movements, engraving on the rotor for automatic models, numbering fonts, weight, clasps, curvature, light refraction, you name it. I think I learned more in a couple hours than in the past two months. It sure pays to be local and able to mingle with the Maestros of horology in their natural habitat.