Two workshops: Los Angeles and Lyon.
Our new workshop in Los Angeles, CA, and our original workshop in Lyon, France, work the same way. Every catalog watch goes through five steps before it ships. A watch that gets stuck at any step doesn’t leave: it goes back on the workbench or is pulled from the batch.
Three instruments, no assembly line.
A binocular magnifier for the dial and indices, a pressure chamber for water resistance, a timegrapher for timekeeping. These three instruments decide whether a watch ships or not.
One at a time, not in batches.
Case, dial, hands and strap are fitted by hand, then every watch is regulated individually. That’s what limits our volumes: a series can stay out of stock for weeks rather than ship unregulated.
Seiko calibers, repairable anywhere.
We buy our movements from Seiko: Seiko NH35, NH34 GMT, NH70 skeleton, VK63 meca-quartz. They aren’t in-house calibers, and that’s deliberate: any watchmaker knows how to open them and parts are available everywhere. An in-house movement would cost three times as much and couldn’t be repaired anywhere but here.
See our Seiko movementsNone of this can be automated.
A Seiko automatic movement is regulated by hand, one position at a time. That’s what takes time, one watch after another.
Five steps.
A watch that gets stuck at any of them doesn’t leave. It goes back on the workbench, or it’s pulled from the batch.
Visual inspection
Checked under a binocular magnifier. Dial, hands, indices, sapphire crystal.
Water-resistance test
Pressure test, 5 ATM (50 m).
Movement
Timegrapher test in 5 positions. Regulated if needed.
Adjustment
Power reserve set within tolerances.
Caseback
Screw-down, gaskets and engraving checked.
Around the workbench
- Receiving — References and batches checked on arrival.
- Packing — Modus watch box, warranty card, certificate.
- Shipping — Secure packaging, tracking number sent by email.
The watches that
leave this bench.
Six series, all through the same workbench.
