Crème de la Crème: The Romain Gauthier Insight Micro Rotor LIMITED

A lesson in high end finishing, Romain Gauthier’s Insight Micro Rotor demonstrates what the highest end segment of the market can achieve in the way of craftsmanship and hand work. The design of this piece is quite distinctive, and Romain Gauthier’s approach to watch layout and execution is given a special highlight here. Stripping away all semblance of extraneous complication, the Insight Micro Rotor MON00-360 is an excellent representation of what Romain Gauthier is all about.

Romain-Gauthier-Insight-Micro-Rotor-Limited-Edition — Romain Gauthier Insight Micro Rotor Limited Edition

History

Romain Gauthier was born in 1975 in the Vallee de Joux, an epicenter for watchmakers and horologists. While he was destined to become enthralled by mechanical timepieces, early on, Romain’s passion was for music, and he enrolled in a technical school, hoping to manufacture speakers and amplifiers. In 1998 in college Romain began studying precision mechanics constructing components on lathes. Following his graduation Gauthier took his first job working programming and operating machines at a watch movement constructing factory. Having worked extensively with watches, within just a few years of beginning his work, Romain Gauthier wished to start working on his own designs. Between 2002 and 2005, Romain Gauthier’s boss provided him access to the company’s tooling after hours. Romain took advantage of this opportunity and began producing a movement in his free time. Finally in 2005 Romain Gauthier founded his brand and hired a watchmaker to help finish the movement he had developed. Since the 2007 debut of the brand at Baselworld, Romain Gauthier has presented a number of watch designs and in-house movements, each prioritizing traditional finishing and design, albeit with a distinctly Romain Gauthier flavor.

Design Details

The Romain Gauthier Insight Micro Rotor MON00360 is designed with an open, clean aesthetic in mind. Unlike many other open dial layouts, in this case, other than an isolated escapement wheel, window into the rotor, and small view of the keyless winding works, the movement of the watch is left obscured. The frosted palladium-finished baseplate is visible, and provides a clean contrast with the brushed steel carcass.

Everything possible is of the most elaborate quality. The shrunken dial at 12 is made from oven fired enamel, one of the most fickle materials to exploit in the manufacturing process. These dials have such a high fail rate that they simply are not found on lower end watches. The ability of a manufacturer to utilize the material is a subtle flex. More often than not, enamel “look” dials are constructed from lacquer instead. Blued hands complement blued numerals around the dial. The supporting structures surrounding the dial, micro rotor and balance are finished in the manner of fine movements. In place of striping, however, the flat surfaces are brushed and massive anglage has been finished to perfection.

Looking down at the bottom by the balance, the support is one of the single most complicated components a watchmaker could have to finish. It looks deceptively simple, but the inside corners that must be hand polished are very hard to reach, and they abound on this piece. Furthermore, the component is perfectly symmetrical, which means that any inaccuracy in the process is glaring. This is not machine anglage. This is genuine hand work, and it has been executed brilliantly.

Looking at the screws on this watch, you will notice that rather than a conventional flat head, this piece is outfitted with screws with a squiggly notch. This provides premium torque on the screw head with a custom screwdriver, and allows the watchmaker greater purchase on the screw so as to avoid slippage, or damage of the black polished screw head. Everything on the dial side looks simply so clean and perfect. It’s the type of thing you can only appreciate when looking at it.

The case is a complicated piece of metal work as well. The bezel features an ogee profile that’s scooped at the base and then convex at the top. Then, the case flanks have been hollowed out. The lugs are assembled separately, soldered on, and then polished to hide the seam, a practice found on many more extreme lug profiles. When you actually look at the watch as a cohesive unit, the watch seems simple, but when analyzing the individual ingredients of that package, it becomes obvious that each detail has been carefully and painstakingly considered prior to the creation of the watch. It’s an intricately executed timepiece.

Inner Workings

The Romain Gauthier Insight Micro Rotor is powered by a micro rotor automatic winding movement. This gives much of the visual of a manually wound piece, but with the convenience of automatic winding. In this case, by the way, the rotor is fashioned from white gold, a relative rarity within the industry. It’s quite common to see 22k yellow gold, but white gold is seldom seen. The movement exploits twin barrels to deliver 80 full hours of consistent power reserve. Additionally, the innovative movement features a full bespoke balance wheel and pallet fork system to maximize accuracy and resilience. There’s extensive black polish and thick anglage across the components of the movement. This movement aesthetic is very characteristic of the Romain Gauthier approach to movement design and execution.

Versus the Competition

The first piece that comes to mind in place of the Romain Gauthier Insight Micro Rotor on the more affordable end would be the Breguet Tradition collection. We’ve covered this group of pieces in the past, but similar to the Insight Micro Rotor, the Tradition has relegated the dial to the top of the watch display, with a great view into the movement structure surrounding it. Unlike the Insight Micro Rotor, which intended to keep the rest of the front view of the watch uncluttered, Breguet takes the opposite route, looking to expose as much of the movement architecture as possible, while preserving the aesthetics of the original souscription watches the collection is based on.

The other piece that comes immediately to mind for providing a smaller time display with exposed balance is the MB&F LM101 Legacy Time Machine. Like the Insight Micro-Rotor, this piece has an extremely high level of finish, pure white dial with blued hands, and a complete bespoke balance. Both independent makers, I see the LM101 and the Insight Micro Rotor as two separate manifestations of the same vision, seen through two unique lenses.

Finally, to showcase the diversity of the Romain Gauthier collections, consider the C by Romain Gauthier, a titanium integrated bracelet sports piece with some serious finishing. We’ve highlighted earlier the fact that the Romain Gauthier philosophy is one of finish prioritization first and foremost, and this approach permeates through the full range of offerings from the brand. With a shifted handset, offset subsidiary dial, and two o’clock crown placement, as a result of the in-house movement construction, Romain Gauthier has been able to play around with design more flexibly, typically building movements to suit designs rather than the other way around. This is one of the hallmarks of independent watchmaking, and both the Insight Micro Rotor and the C by Romain Gauthier demonstrate this point.

Personality

The collector that buys a Romain Gauthier is looking for an accent piece that provides an entirely different take on watch design and construction. Likely a lover of independents and high horology, finish quality and hand craftsmanship will be of primal importance to this collector.

Alongside these motivations, there is an emerging group of impassioned collectors that are looking to invest in brands that produce very small output pieces like Romain Gauthier. While this particular variant is a limited edition of 10 pieces, every watch that comes from the Romain Gauthier manufacture is in a sense a limited edition, since the total production hovers around 100 pieces maximum for an entire year. That’s a level of attention you don’t receive elsewhere. Every watch that comes out of the Romain Gauthier factory has been analyzed time after time, finished extensively, tested for accuracy, and carefully monitored. This is the opposite of a mass produced product, and reminders of this exclusivity ooze from the watch at every angle.

Final Thoughts

One of the most rewarding pastimes is looking at the work of independent watchmakers. Brands like Romain Gauthier have instilled confidence in me that my generation of watch enthusiasts will have makers prioritizing a boutique production model with small output and a transcendental respect for traditional finishing and innovative design. Romain Gauthier is one of the best movement finishers on the market, and watches like the Insight Micro Rotor prove it. Big things will come from Romain Gauthier in the future, and we can’t wait to see what’s next. In the meantime, we’ll enjoy the Insight Micro Rotor.