Kross Studio is known for no logos, and its cases with no lugs and no crown. But for the Harry Potter collector set the Geneva studio used its KS 06 case with lugs. It comes with a Reuge music box playing the theme song, and on the watch’s tourbillon case no less than four hand-engraved and -painted quidditch players made of gold float around the rest of the movement. “It is a result of my passions for watchmaking and fictional universes,” said Marco Tedeschi, founder of the Geneva studio whose first horological creation came out in 2021 – a tribute to Star Wars called Death Star Central Tourbillon. This black 45-millimetre grade 5 titanium watch with a central tourbillon, black inner bezel, and rhodium-plated hour markers with white Super-LumiNova® looks like had one of the engineers of the Death Star been commissioned to design a watch.
This watch was also a collector set that came in a 1.2-metre container which weighed 80 kilos and could double up as a coffee table. “Actually, the container was more complex than the watch,” said Mr. Tedeschi with a laugh. “It has 980 components, whereas the watch has around 280 components. As Lucasfilm – the producer of Star Wars – loved the intricacy of the whole project, we were given actual props from the movie that were also part of the collector set. We were the first licensee to get actual parts from the movie that was sold with a product,” said Mr. Tedeschi proudly about his first project that was released in 2021 on March 25 – his father’s birthday. “It was my father who introduced me to watchmaking when I was eight years old, and he was working at a watch and jewellery shop in what was then the Hilton Hotel in Geneva (today Fairmont Grand Hotel). My task in the shop was to wind the watches, maybe that is why I am to this day so attached to hand-wound movements,” he explained. “Winding a watch gives such a pleasant feeling of the mechanism at the tip of your fingers.”
Collaborations like the above movie sets used to be the main staple of Kross Studio, but after Mr. Tedeschi released the MT 1 – a hand-wound tourbillon with seven days of power reserve. The watch case is in a disco volante style with no lugs and no visible crown. Whereas the dial side is hugely technical with an open-worked design, the caseback is a soothing and peaceful contrast. Designed as a Japanese zen garden, every ruby is a centre of a wave giving the centre points of the patterns normally seen in gravel parts of such gardens. The crown is the central back part, reminiscent of a rotor.
“With this design you just have to make 15 turns instead of 80-90 with a normal crown to completely wind the barrel. The huge power reserve is possible thanks to an oversized barrel which is larger than the radius of the mainplate. As for the design, I just love the 1970s and I am a huge fan of the early Marc Newson Ikepods, said Mr. Tedeschi, who graduated from watchmaking school in vallée de Joux in 2000. In his 25 years in the industry, he spent 11 years as a product director at Hublot, and two years at sadly defunct RJ-Romain Jerome. The latter is where he came in touch with pop culture collabs, which today is around 30-40% of the 50 pieces per year.
“I always wanted my own manufacture, and now I do! We make everything apart from the springs, rubies, sapphire glass, and bracelet. We have CNC milling and decoration departments, we have a technical office with two engineers, and we make everything in-house apart from said parts and plating. In total we are 17 people,” Mr. Tedeschi said.
With an annual output of only 50 pieces, he is of course also subcontracting to other brands for technical developments, and components, with both big groups and small independents on the client list.
In only five years, Mr. Tedeschi and his team have been able to create products that are instantly recognisable without logotypes. “We focus on design and development; the brand name comes second.” As for the no logo, he had a simple answer: “I never saw Picasso sign in the middle of the canvas.”
