Shaping Light & Shadow

Sometimes it is the simplest things that are actually the most complicated. This philosophy runs through much of what we do at Biver, but nowhere is it more present than in this pair of the exclusive Japan edition Automatique watches we created for The Hour Glass, our retail partner in Japan. Distilled to its most essential elements, these watches pair platinum and rose gold cases with bright white and deep black hard-fired enamel dials, respectively, playing with form, light, and shadow in new and interesting ways. As always, we seek out the best partners we can find for specialized crafts and each dial is handcrafted by Les Émailleurs de la Cité, Switzerland’s finest maker of exceptional enamel.

“Black and white dials were chosen because they align with traditional Japanese aesthetics,” says co-founder and creative director Pierre Biver. “We also appreciate them as classic colors in traditional watchmaking, offering us the opportunity to bring two perspectives together and to see how they would impact one another, creating something new and distinctive in the process. The result is a pair of timeless classics that are still distinctly Biver in style.”

Working with enamel is a bit like alchemy. The craftsperson starts with a metal plate – either 22k rose gold or 18k white gold, in this case – and an array of powders, slowly layering the materials and firing them at temperatures approaching 800°C. Over time, this builds up a glass-like surface that has both hints of transparency and the reflective qualities of a mirror. Les Émailleurs de la Cité requires more than 10 hours of layering and firing to build up the surface of a single dial, and just one wrong move or an unintended air bubble and the entire process must be started over from the beginning. A further six hours are required to polish the surface of each dial, giving it that unique sheen that shifts and changes in the light.

Further complicating this process is the use of applied gold markers for the hours, something rarely seen on enamel dials due to the risk and difficulty. Affixing them to the dial can result in cracking, destroying a dial that has already survived the first phase of creation. To solve this problem, we leave small islands of bare gold beneath the markers, though that creates its own issues as well: Our craftspeople must work around these areas when polishing the enamel and the borders between gold and enamel must be perfect so they are invisible once the markers are applied. Again, it requires great complexity and ingenuity to make something appear so simple.

Importantly, these new dials feel perfectly at home in the Automatique and were actually envisioned before the model’s release last year. The way that they play with light can be seen in the watches’ other elements as well. The concave bezel and faceted lugs of the case are a perfect example of this, as are the deep bevels and black-polished surfaces found across the Calibre JCB-003, visible through the sapphire casebacks. While these watches bring together diverse ideas from different cultures, they are cohesive in their presentation, speaking with one clear voice.

“Japan has consistently had some of the finest collectors in the world, known for their deep appreciation of originality, quality, and craftsmanship, ” continues Pierre Biver. “These collectors have a keen eye for detail and value timeless classics over fleeting trends. Their knowledge and expertise are remarkably diverse, and Japan remains a place where true mastery of craftsmanship is deeply respected and cultivated. It is a privilege to create special pieces for these collectors and this market.”