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When you think of Ressence, the first things that come to mind are likely the brand’s forward thinking, non traditional design language, and their completely unique mechanical solution for telling time via a series of rotating circles as opposed to traditional hands. You probably don’t think of traditional craft – given the hyper-modern aesthetic of the brand, most of their signature designs forego the tenets of classical watchmaking. There are exceptions to be found, of course, in the Ressence’s library of one-offs and limited editions, but classifying their approach, on the whole, as somewhat “industrial” isn’t too far off the mark. That’s what makes a watch like the Type 8 Indigo so interesting. It’s one of those exceptions, and in it we can see the many different things a Ressence watch can be.
The Type 8 Indigo is Ressence’s contribution to the The Indigo Project, led by Shellman, the brand’s Tokyo based Japanese retail partner. The design of the dial incorporates a single indigo dyed silk thread, placed in a spiral pattern by a skilled artisan. Indigo dyeing is part of a craft tradition in Japan spanning centuries, and the watch is a tribute to both Japanese tradition and an impressive design object on its own. Because of the dye and the nature of the thread itself, a range of blue tones are visible on the dial. According to Ressence, the total length of the thread is 2.5 meters, and it measures just 0.2mm in diameter, which underscores the intricacy of the craft process.
Ressence chose the Type 8 as the canvas for this limited edition because of the dial’s inherent simplicity and expansiveness. The Type 8 is the Ressence reference that distills their time telling scheme into its simplest form, displaying just hours and minutes via a small rotating interior dial for the hours and a large rotating hand indicating minutes at the dial’s perimeter. This layout creates the physical space necessary for a design like this.
That said, there were certain technical challenges in producing the dial. According to Ressence, the distance between the dial’s surface and the inside of the sapphire crystal is just 0.25mm, so in order to accommodate the thickness of the thread each dial (which is made from titanium) had to have space carved out of its surface to properly “set” the thread. Moreover, there are some areas of the dial that simply won’t accommodate a reduction in thickness, which is why you’ll find two gray “pockets” on the outside of the dial.
As with every Ressence, the movement makes use of a ROCS (Ressence Orbital Convex System) module that sits atop a base movement. The case is 42.9mm in diameter in titanium (be sure to check out our hands-on review of the Type 8S here). The Type 8 is generally considered the “entry level” Ressense as it carries a significantly lower retail price than some of their more complex offerings, but this reference (limited to just 8 pieces) comes in quite a bit higher than a base model at CHF 25,000. Ressence
