The Automatique: Starting A Movement

The belief that watchmaking is a pursuit grounded in legacy and eternity is fundamental to Maison Biver. So we knew from the moment we set out to create our first three-hand automatic watch that it would need to be both an incredible watch in its own right as well as a foundation for things to come. The Automatique is built around the brand new Calibre JCB-003, which firmly establishes a signature house style for movement design while also offering plenty of flexibility for the future.

The Calibre JCB-003 was developed in partnership with Dubois Depraz, one of Switzerland’s most esteemed and oldest movement and complications specialists. At the outset, we decided that this new movement needed to be a practical caliber for powering an everyday watch, meaning it needed to have automatic winding and a good power reserve in addition to other performance considerations. But it also needed to be flexible and powerful enough to drive additional complications in the future.

“The collaboration with Dubois Depraz seemed obvious to us,” say Biver technical director François Perez. “They have more than 120 years of know-how and they are able to meet the most complex watchmaking challenges…We took as an example the sumptuous design of the historic calibres of the Vallée de Joux, such as the ratchet wheel overhanging the barrel, and integrated a twist of modernity through the decorations chosen with the evolving clou de paris centered on the micro-rotor.”

That micro-rotor is made of 22k 5N rose gold plaquette, offering the practicality of an automatic watch while still allowing the owner to view all of the intricacies of the movement without obstruction. Given the attention paid to carefully crafting and hand decorating each individual component, this is a necessity. However, some collectors enjoy the physical connection they experience with their watch when hand winding it (especially after the power reserve is fully wound down), so Calibre JCB-003 allows for this as well. The keyless works and click are even visible through the partially openworked bridges situated between the crown and barrel, allowing the wearer to see the movement at work.

Those are not the only spectacles visible through the sapphire glass caseback though. As the movement was developed from scratch, every element was designed to balance performance and aesthetics. The two work hand-in-hand, with the bridges shaped to maximize visibility and to offer ample opportunities for decoration. The solid gold bridges have a mix of long, swooping lines and shorter, more staccato curves, all of which are beveled and polished, and the central sections feature guilloché work in a Clou de Paris pattern scaled up or down to suit each component perfectly. Other surfaces feature circular graining, satin finishing, black polishing, and perlage, amongst other finishes – no surface or edge is left unconsidered. The result is a distinctive aesthetic that is rooted in horological history while also pushing the art and craft of watchmaking into the future.

“With the Automatique we wanted to elevate the idea of a three-hand watch in our own way, creating something imbued with our ideas and taste,” says co-founder Pierre Biver.

From both technical and aesthetic perspectives, Calibre JCB-003 is perfectly poised to carry Maison Biver into the future. It plants a flag in the ground, solidifying Biver’s unique approach to contemporary watchmaking art and serving as the foundation for our take on a not-so-simple three-hand everyday wristwatch, while also offering a technical foundation on which we can continue to express our creativity and engineering prowess.