Sassoun Sirmakes founded Cvstos when he was only 22 years old, which is unusually young in a business dominate by much older businessmen and no least seasoned conglomerates. “I worked at Franck Muller after completing my studies and that is where I met Antonio Terranova. Terranova was full of crazy ideas and designs and I decided to start my own watch company with him as designer.” You may recognize the surname Sirmakes, as Sassoun’s father is the co-founder and CEO of Franck Muller Watchland, Vartan Sirmakes.
Cvstos means “guardian of time” and the young company employ more than 50 people working full-time in the production facilities in both Geneva as well as the French town of Ferney-Volontaire. The collection is a mix of bold and avant-garde designs fitted with both Swatch Group and Sellita as well as Manufacture movements. Cases, dials and parts of the buckles are all made in-house.
I met with Sirmakes in Barcelona, where Cvstos presented the limited edition Challenge Dani Pedrosa chronograph dedicated to the talented Moto GP driver Dani Pedrosa, who lives in Geneva, but was born and raised very close to Barcelona.
Encounter at the gym
“We met at the gym in Geneva,” Pedrosa tells me a few days before his 11th race at the legendary Circuit de Cataluña just outside Barcelona. “A mutual friend introduced Sirmakes to me and after a few meetings outside the gym we decided to work together.”
“I think the collaboration with Pedrosa fits Cvstos very well. Also, you only see much cheaper watch brands featured in the Moto GP medias. Working with Pedrosa means that we will feature him in adverts in high-end media, thereby raising a different awareness of his sport,” Sirmakes explains, when I asked him why a high-end watch company is entering the field of Moto GP sports.
Details inspired by the Moto GP world
Sirmakes, Pedrosa and Terranova showed off both chronograph watches dedicated to Pedrosa. One is made of titanium, the other features distinctive orange aluminum sides, which is the same color of Pedrosa’s Honda Repsol MC.
Many other details from the Moto GP world are incorporated into the two limited chronographs which are both issued in 26-piece limited edition, which is Pedrosa’s lucky number. “Look at the chronograph push-buttons. They are shaped like the throttle and handlebars. And the side of the case resembles the air intake of my Honda,” Pedrosa proudly explains while flipping over the watch to reveal a tungsten rotor in the shape of spoked wheel rim. The number 26 is also highlighted in red on the date wheel.
While the Challenge Dani Pedrosa is fitted with a Valjoux 7750 chronograph base movement, Sirmakes stresses that for Cvstos the cost of the time spent on modifying and decorating the movements is four times higher than the initial purchase price.
“This is because we spend a considerable amount of time on laser cutting and micro blasting the movement. So many things can go wrong when working with such tiny parts,” he explains. “We do also offer our own in-house manufactured automatic flyback chronograph movement, the cal. CVS 3650. However it involves such a complicated process that we can only produce approximately 200 movements a year.”
Sirmakes tells me that he wants to concentrate more on chronographs, of which Cvstos currently sells 800-1000 a year. “I want to concentrate on the basic three-hander Sea-liner collection (entry level price is 11,400 CHF) as well as our chronographs (entry level price is 14,000 CHF). These are undoubtedly our best sellers and these lines will be offered with more details on both the movements and the cases,” Sirmakes says, as he points out the new drilled-out case design of the Sea-liners compared to the early style with its more conservative approach. “These new case designs offer less weight and are very comfortable to wear.”
