The heart of a watch is the movement. Everything about the design is built around it! Since the mechanical aspects were to be a prime feature of our design, I was very concerned about the selection of the movement. I considered both Swiss and Japanese movements and evaluated them in regard to how well they would work in this project. There’s quite a lot of choice out there!
Quality was essential as the project was intended to be a higher-end watch. Aesthetics were important as the movement would be visible from both the front and back. I looked at ‘skeletonized’ movements but learned that these could be fragile. Instead, I settled on a class of movement that were partially skeletonized or showed an ‘open heart’ in that the balance wheel and escapement were visible from the front. Finally, I also wanted a self winding movement as this both offered a practical benefit and also made the interior of the watch more interesting!
I have now settled on a Japanese automatic movement.
Having settled on the movement, I could now develop a more detailed design. All the dimensions of the watch would be built around the movement.
