Description
Every few years an independent debuts with a CV that makes the watch almost secondary. Atelier Pieters is one of those. Maarten Pieters spent his career inside the machine of Swiss haute horlogerie — at THA (the Journe/Flageollet/Halter complications workshop), then leading Omega’s complications department where he worked on the Omega Central Tourbillon, then fifteen years as Director of WOSTEP, the school that trains much of the industry’s watchmaking talent. Together with Jessica Pieters, herself a WOSTEP instructor and manager, he has now founded his own atelier in Neuchâtel, and the first watch is exactly what that résumé promises.
The Atelier 1 Founders’ Series is a 43.5mm platinum hand-wound tourbillon built around the fully in-house calibre T2-03RM, offered in two colourways — “Minuit” in anthracite and turtle-dove grey, and “Jour” in a rose-gold hue with blue accents — each strictly limited to 8 pieces. The atelier's production capacity is around four watches per year, with first deliveries scheduled for November 2026 at CHF 148,500 excluding VAT. Reservations opened on 27 July.
Design
The three-piece polished 950 platinum case is 43.5mm across and 13mm tall, with a domed sapphire crystal and a flat sapphire exhibition back. The dial architecture is openly technical: hours and minutes with milled, diamond-faceted hands, small seconds, the tourbillon carriage on display, and the signature complication — dual planetary power-reserve displays, one on the dial side and a second on the movement side, both driven by planetary gearing. The watch is delivered on a 20mm hand-stitched ostrich-foot strap with a platinum pin buckle, an unusual and deliberately tactile choice.
Specifications
- Model: Atelier 1 Founders' Series, colourways “Minuit” (anthracite/turtle-dove) and “Jour” (rose-gold hue/blue)
- Case diameter: 43.5mm
- Thickness: 13mm
- Case material: polished 950 platinum, three-piece construction
- Crystal: domed sapphire; flat sapphire exhibition caseback
- Water resistance: 30m
- Movement: calibre T2-03RM, in-house hand-wound tourbillon, 36.6mm x 6.75mm, 35 jewels
- Frequency: 21,600vph (3Hz)
- Power reserve: 50h, with dual planetary power-reserve displays (dial side and movement side)
- Escapement: anti-magnetic Ni-P pallet fork and escape wheel; free-sprung variable-inertia balance with 8 masselottes and Breguet overcoil
- Functions: hours, minutes, small seconds, tourbillon, twin power-reserve indications
- Strap: 20mm hand-stitched ostrich-foot leather, platinum pin buckle
- Limited edition: 8 pieces per colourway; production capacity approximately 4 watches per year
- Price: CHF 148,500 (excl. VAT)
- Availability: reservations open; first deliveries November 2026
What's Exciting
Plenty of new independents assemble a debut around a supplied calibre and call it a manifesto. This is the opposite: a from-scratch 36.6mm tourbillon movement with its own anti-magnetic Ni-P escapement components, a free-sprung Breguet-overcoil balance, and a genuinely novel twist in the twin planetary power-reserve displays — one for the wearer, one for whoever is admiring the movement side. The four-watches-a-year cadence puts it in Dufour/Rexhepi territory of scarcity, and the WOSTEP connection matters: this is a watch built by the person who literally trained a generation of the industry’s finishers and complication specialists. If the hand-finishing survives scrutiny at this price, Atelier Pieters becomes a name to watch for the next decade.
History
Maarten Pieters’ path runs through some of the most quietly influential rooms in modern watchmaking: THA in the late 1990s (the complications atelier that also shaped F.P. Journe and Vianney Halter), Omega’s complications department during the era of the Central Tourbillon, and from 2008 the directorship of WOSTEP in Neuchâtel, the Swiss watchmaking school whose graduates staff ateliers across the industry. Jessica Pieters taught and managed at the same institution. The pair founded Atelier Pieters to build watches at educational-bench standards of hand craft, and the Atelier 1 Founders’ Series — announced 27 July 2026 — is their first production watch under their own name.
