Description
Ressence's watches have never had hands, so the dial is the whole show — and for its latest art edition, the Belgian brand has turned that dial over to an artist. The Type 9 x Jules Wittock covers the entire convex titanium display of the Type 9 in one of Wittock's freehand mazes, engraved into the surface and filled by hand with white lacquer.
There are two versions: TYPE 9 JWE in emerald green on a titanium case, and TYPE 9 JWB in black on a black-coated titanium case. Each is limited to 30 pieces, priced at CHF 20,000 excluding taxes. Underneath the artwork it is the same Type 9 introduced in 2024 — Ressence's lightest, most compact model, at 39 mm, 11 mm thick and just 42 grams on the strap.
Design
Wittock's maze runs across every rotating element of the display — the main disc, the hours sub-dial and the surrounding surfaces — so as the discs turn, the labyrinth appears to shift and re-form around the time. The lines are about 0.2 mm wide, engraved and then hand-filled; on the green version the white lacquer contrasts against the coloured titanium, which shifts towards purple in the light, while the black version reads as a monochrome ink drawing. Super-LumiNova is applied to the time indications.
The case is the Type 9's smooth, streamlined titanium shell under a domed sapphire crystal, with the maze motif continued around the engraved caseback. The green model comes on a white calfskin strap and the black model on black, each with a titanium pin buckle.
Specifications
- References: TYPE 9 JWE (emerald green) and TYPE 9 JWB (black)
- Case: 39 mm diameter, 11 mm thick
- Case material: grade 5 titanium (JWE); black-coated grade 5 titanium (JWB)
- Crystal: domed sapphire
- Water resistance: 10 m (1 ATM) — splash resistant only
- Dial: convex titanium display with a hand-drawn Jules Wittock maze, engraved and hand-filled with white lacquer; Super-LumiNova
- Display: Ressence Orbital Convex System — rotating discs, no hands
- Movement: automatic, ETA 2892 base with the Ressence ROCS 9 module
- Frequency: 28,800 vph (4 Hz)
- Power reserve: 36 hours
- Weight: 42 g including strap
- Strap: calfskin (white on JWE, black on JWB), titanium pin buckle
- Limited edition: 30 pieces per colour (60 in total)
- Price: CHF 20,000 excluding taxes
- Availability: Ressence retailers and ressencewatches.com
What's Exciting
Most "art watches" are a guilloché pattern or a miniature painting inside a conventional dial. This one works only because Ressence's display is a set of moving discs: the maze is not a static picture but a composition that rearranges itself as the time changes. That makes it one of the few artist collaborations in which the art and the mechanism genuinely need each other.
It is also a sensible choice of canvas. The Type 9 is Ressence's most compact and wearable platform, and at 42 grams it is barely there on the wrist. The 36-hour reserve and 10 m water resistance are the usual Ressence compromises, and CHF 20,000 is a significant premium over the regular model — but for 30 pieces a colour of genuinely hand-finished artwork on a watch that looks like nothing else, the logic holds.
History
Ressence was founded by industrial designer Benoît Mintiens, and its signature is the ROCS system: time is displayed on rotating, convex discs that sit almost flush with the crystal, replacing hands altogether. The Type 9 arrived in late 2024 as the brand's most compact and streamlined model, stripping the concept back to hours and minutes in a 39 mm titanium case.
Jules Wittock is a Belgian contemporary artist known for drawing intricate mazes by hand, which are both decorative and solvable and sometimes hide messages within them. The collaboration keeps the project Belgian from end to end — a Belgian brand's most minimal watch carrying a Belgian artist's most maximal drawing.
