introducing: Wei & Friends, the hands that carve time

Combining the skills of watchmaker and designer, Martin Weichert set on to create his personal watch collection 2 years ago. His vision was to create watches with a high level of craftsmanship and an uncommon design. Interestingly, one of his sources of inspiration being abstract British sculptor Henry Moore, Weichert describes his creations as Watchsculptures.

Both sized at 44 mm with 12 mm of thickness, the first two collections of W&F (Wei & friends) have been christened Pure and Unique. The cases come from the best suppliers in Germany and their mechanical UNITAS movements made by industry leader ETA are personalized by Soprod.

The dial, available with black or white vitreous enamel, can only be manufactured through a painstaking and expensive process.  Dial enameling is one of the oldest crafts of watchmaking, but it has gone out of fashion due to the difficulty of the process. The benefit is a great surface and colour stability over time. The three-dimensional blued hands, as well as the dial, hands, lugs and buckles all undergo manual finishing in the workshop.

With the expertise of his partners and friends, Weichert was able to design a dial illuminated through reflection, a shock-proof movement and dial holder; and a new type of strap attachment that fits three sizes (20, 22 and 24 mm).

All watches are hand-made, and only a few piece come out of the workshop each month. The Unique collection will feature one-of-a kind timepieces created in collaboration with artists. The team of W&F will also accept orders for bespoke projects.

The Pure collection starts at EUR 1790.