HYT and Chronopassion go back a long way. Their destinies have been intertwined from the beginning, and even before, from the days when the young watch brand was looking for its first sales outlet and shared its preliminary sketches. Back in 2011, when HYT was on the verge of launching, Laurent Picciotto (Chronopassion) was already working with them. The newcomer would win the Innovation category of the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève the very next year.
And yet, the two institutions have never before collaborated on a complete series of watches. There have been a few one-of-a-kind pieces, however. Most of these are private commissions, one-off designs created by HYT for Chronopassion’s most discerning collectors. One of the most recent to appear in public was the H4 Dragon. The watch was quietly revealed last January in Geneva, before being packed up and sent off to its owner in New York. The rest are known only to those lucky few clients, and the Parisian boutique.
Exclusive but not limited
Today marks a turning point for HYT and Chronopassion: this will be their very first exclusive series. It’s neither a one-of-a-kind piece, nor a limited edition, but a collectors’ model produced in very small numbers – which is all that is possible given HYT’s restricted production capacity
“Initially, I was introduced to what would be the future H0,” explains Laurent Picciotto, the founding chairman of Chronopassion. “Frankly, I found it very impressive straight away. To the point that, out of the three models I was shown, I couldn’t really find anything I would want to change. Then, gradually, the idea of colour variations emerged. We started working on a unique combination of black and blue, and it was immediately obvious that this was it.”
There will now be three general models, plus a “Blue Night” H0 for Chronopassion. The standard models include one with a black case and green fluid, and two with a grey case and blue or black fluid. The Chronopassion series combines the black case of the former with the blue fluid of the latter.
The first example has just arrived at Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris, where it has been snapped up by a regular client. More will be available in the following weeks. “Out of fairness to HYT collectors, we wanted to align the price of the H0 Blue Night with that of the other models, at 39,000 euros including tax. The case will not be engraved with any special inscription, but our collectors know that this piece will never be available anywhere other than at Chronopassion,” concludes Laurent Picciotto.
