Description
This is one of the most significant independent watch releases of the decade. Rexhep Rexhepi — Kosovan-Swiss master watchmaker, founder of Akrivia, and one of the most celebrated living horologists — has unveiled the RRCHF Chronograph Flyback. It is the first chronograph ever released under his own name (distinct from the Akrivia brand), and the first movement to use Akrivia's new in-house escapement. For a watchmaker whose annual production hovers around 50 pieces, every release is an event. This one is the one we've been waiting for.
The RRCHF is a hand-wound flyback chronograph with a horizontal clutch and column wheel — the classical architecture, executed to the highest level. The calibre runs at 21,600 vph with a 72-hour power reserve, and it is built from 320 parts held by 30 jewels. Hours and minutes are relegated to a small off-centre subdial at 12 o'clock, giving the stage over to the chronograph: the thin, oversized central seconds sweeps across the dial, a small seconds sits at 8 o'clock, and a 30-minute counter at 4 o'clock snaps forward instantaneously at the passing of each minute. The layout is pyramidal. The focus is total.
Design
The RRCHF case measures 38.8mm across and just 9.7mm thick, with a 48.8mm lug-to-lug. For a fully integrated in-house flyback chronograph, that is remarkably thin — slimmer even than Rexhepi's own 9.9mm Chronomètre Antimagnétique. The case is available in two versions: 950 platinum with a stormy blue Grand Feu enamel dial on a light grey strap, and 18k rose gold with a black Grand Feu enamel dial on a taupe strap. Both share the same architecture: a double-stepped bezel, sharply bevelled elongated lugs, and rounded-rectangular pushers that echo the mid-century chronograph vocabulary of masters like Jean-Pierre Hagmann.
The dial is pure Rexhepi: Grand Feu enamel as the base, with pale grey-tinted sapphire subdials floating above. The signature Akrivia alternating inward-outward minute track wraps the chronograph seconds scale. Every bevel, every internal angle, every polished chamfer on the movement is finished by hand — the kind of work that is genuinely invisible to most people and unmistakable to those who know.
Specs
| Brand | Rexhep Rexhepi |
| Model | RRCHF Chronograph Flyback |
| Movement | Calibre RRCHF, in-house, hand-wound flyback chronograph |
| Architecture | Column wheel with horizontal (lateral) clutch |
| Frequency | 21,600 vph (3 Hz) |
| Power Reserve | 72 hours |
| Parts | 320 components |
| Jewels | 30 |
| Escapement | New in-house escapement — screw balance, Phillips terminal curve hairspring |
| Functions | Hours, minutes, small seconds, flyback chronograph with instantaneously jumping minute counter |
| Case Materials | 950 platinum / 18k rose gold |
| Diameter | 38.8 mm |
| Thickness | 9.7 mm |
| Lug-to-Lug | 48.8 mm |
| Case Construction | 52 components |
| Water Resistance | 30 metres |
| Crystal | Sapphire (front and caseback) |
| Dial | Grand Feu enamel — stormy blue (platinum) or black (rose gold), grey-tinted sapphire subdials |
| Strap | Light grey leather (platinum) / taupe leather (rose gold) |
| Price | CHF 150,000 (both versions) |
| Production | Approximately 50 pieces per year total across the brand; allocation-based |
| Release | April 2026 |
What's Exciting
Everything. Start with the instantaneously jumping minute counter: a mechanism driven by a ratchet-toothed wheel indexed by a lever and pawl, engaged with a snail cam on the chronograph seconds wheel. Once per minute, the pawl advances the minute wheel by exactly one tooth, and the hand snaps to the next index with no dragging, no hesitation. This is a complication that, historically, only a tiny handful of manufactures have ever offered. Pair it with a flyback mechanism — which simultaneously disengages the clutch, resets the heart cams, and retracts the minute-recording gear in a single pusher press — and you have engineering flex of the highest order.
Then there is the thinness. A horizontal-clutch, column-wheel, in-house flyback chronograph in 9.7mm is a miracle of integration. Rexhepi achieved it by building the chronograph directly into the mainplate rather than layering it on a separate module — a choice that demanded the entire movement be designed from scratch. And then there is the new in-house escapement, debuting here for the first time on any watch under either the Akrivia or Rexhep Rexhepi banner. Add to that the Grand Feu enamel dial, the 52-part case with finishing beyond reproach, and the fact that this is the first complication to bear only Rexhepi's own name. At CHF 150,000, in a market where lesser indie chronographs have crept towards the same ballpark, Rexhepi calls it "an honest product, an honest price." He's right.
Sources
- Monochrome Watches — Hands-On: Rexhep Rexhepi Presents the RRCHF Chronograph Flyback
- SJX Watches — Up Close: Rexhep Rexhepi Chronograph Flyback RRCHF
- Revolution — Rexhep Rexhepi on Building the RRCHF
- Time and Watches — Rexhep Rexhepi unveils the Chronograph Flyback
- Swisswatches Magazine — RRCHF: When Design Shapes the Movement
- Robb Report — Rexhepi's First Eponymous Chronograph
- Revolution — Legends of Independent Watchmaking: Rexhep Rexhepi
History
Rexhep Rexhepi was born in 1987 in the village of Zheger in Kosovo. When war broke out, he travelled as a child to Switzerland to join his father, arriving at the age of 11. At 15, he began an apprenticeship at Patek Philippe, where he spent five formative years. From there he moved to the legendary complications workshop BNB Concept, and then to F.P. Journe — two of the most demanding ateliers in Swiss watchmaking. In 2012, at just 25, he founded Akrivia in Geneva.
The early Akrivia years produced bold, technically adventurous watches under the AK series — the AK-01 Tourbillon Régulateur, AK-02 Tourbillon Monopoussoir, and so on, culminating in the AK-06 Openworked Tourbillon Hour Minute. In 2018 Rexhepi debuted the Chronomètre Contemporain I (RRCC I) — the first timepiece to carry his own name rather than the Akrivia label, and a pivot from modern-architectural to classical-restrained design. It won the Men's Watch Prize at the GPHG 2018, cementing Rexhepi as one of the most important independent watchmakers of his generation. The RRCC II followed in 2022, and the Chronomètre Antimagnétique (RRCA) — made for Only Watch 2024 and sold for CHF 2.1 million — laid the architectural groundwork for what would become the RRCHF.
The RRCHF acronym is simple and transparent: Rexhep Rexhepi Chronograph Flyback. It is the first chronograph he has ever released, the first movement to debut Akrivia's new in-house escapement, and the first complication to carry only his own name. In Rexhepi's own words, a few years ago this watch could not have existed — the knowledge, the small touches, the atelier's capabilities had to grow into it. The RRCHF is the sound of a master watchmaker, age 39, arriving fully at his powers.
Gallery
Images to be added — platinum with stormy blue enamel dial, rose gold with black enamel dial, caseback showing the in-house calibre, wrist shots, macro of the jumping minute counter, dial detail of the grey-tinted sapphire subdials.
