The TimeWalker Pythagore Ultralight concept watch is being presented for the first time outside China. What can you tell us about it?
The complexity and virtuosity of the TimeWalker Pythagore Ultralight are all in its “dematerialisation”. We made the case out of a combination of innovative materials: black DLC-treated titanium for the lugs, and ITR2 Kevlar/Carbon for the caseband, caseback, bezel and crown. ITR2 is an extremely lightweight composite resin, eight times lighter than steel and four times lighter than titanium, but it’s very difficult to work with. For the first time, we have enriched this material with Kevlar, making it even lighter. Without a strap (which we’re currently working on), the watch weighs 14.88 grams. The movement itself weighs just over 4 grams. It’s absolutely mind-boggling! 14.88 grams is approximately the same as three sheets of A4 paper. We keep looking for objects that we can compare with the watch, to help people understand and visualise what the weight actually represents. For the movement design we drew inspiration from the historical Minerva Pythagore movement from the 1930s, with its rectilinear architectural shapes reminiscent of bridge design, and references to Pythagoras’s golden section. The movement of the TimeWalker Pythagore Ultralight is pretty simple, but it is made according to high-performance criteria and with an almost vintage diameter of 40 mm. It’s a very interesting mix of elements.
Do you have any plans to make the TimeWalker Pythagore Ultralight available commercially?
Not for the time being. It’s a concept watch, a research and development exercise using innovative and revolutionary materials.
You are entering the very rarefied circle of brands that make ultra-light watches. Are you hoping to beat some records?
No, that’s not our primary intention, even if the result is that we’ve produced one of the lightest watches ever made. Let’s be clear, as things stand we cannot claim it is the lightest watch on the market. It is very light in terms of the case and movement, but we’re still working on the strap, to see if it’s possible to come up with something that weighs less than 4 grams.
High-tech sports watches are not your usual field. Are you looking to conquer new watchmaking territory?
I will say that we want to reinvest in the field of sports watches. We have the sublime chronograph heritage of the Minerva, and we haven’t yet made the most of this. And our company is called Montblanc. The name represents the highest peak in the Alps; it’s a symbol of human achievement. In a way, everything about our company has a connection with sport, performance and extreme human challenges. That is where our legitimacy lies, and we have a great deal of material available to work with. There are two pieces that give a foretaste of where we are going in terms of professional watches: the monopusher chronograph from the 1858 collection, and the TimeWalker ExoTourbillon Minute Chronograph. We are going to expand our watch range with a selection of professional watches, which is essential in our price bracket. It took Jérôme Lambert just three years to reboot our classical, elegant collections. Now it’s time to do the same with the other side of our output: sports watches.
Do you plan to announce any new partnerships in parallel with your sports watches?
You’ll have to look out for us at the next SIHH. We’re working on something very big and very interesting!
Montblanc offers top-end watches at accessible prices. What is your secret?
We put great effort into selecting our partners and suppliers, to ensure a certain price point while providing watches that will sell. We have a business model that allows our brand to build and develop over the long term. We are also working on the marketing structure of the development process itself, to ensure that we can use the same movements, the same modules, not just in a single model but in several, offering different versions which will allow us to recover our development costs by spreading them across the entire collection.
