Ressence – Masters of Horological Creativity Watch Review
Ressence burst onto the independent watch scene in 2010. Masterminded by Benoît Mintiens, a son of Antwerp and an industrial designer, the brand does not subscribe to convention, instead viewing watchmaking from a very different angle. In this two-part feature, Angus Davies, immerses himself in the world of Ressence before getting ‘hands-on’ with one of its popular models, the TYPE 1 Round.
Image – Ressence TYPE 3 Eucalyptus
The need for trained watchmakers
In 1996, at the Labour Party Annual Conference, Tony Blair, then leader of the Labour Party, stood in front of the assembled audience and delivered a speech. Few people will remember the contents of this speech, save for three words, “Education, education, education”; a mantra that will forever be etched in British political history.
Setting aside whether Mr Blair, after becoming the Prime Minister of the UK in 1997, advanced education or not, the importance of learning should never be forgotten.
Image – Ressence TYPE 8 C
In the world of horology, aspiring watchmakers seek to develop their knowledge and skills by attending watchmaking school. This esoteric domain can provide a fulfilling career and, for the most accomplished, the profession can confer both fame and fortune. However, irrespective of where a watchmaker sits within the professional strata, their skills are highly prized. Indeed, whether a bench-dweller assembles, regulates, repairs or services timepieces, their precious talents are in great demand; skills that are needed for the watch industry to survive and prosper.
Image – Ressence TYPE 2 Night Blue
Outsiders sometimes see things differently
The only problem with being a trained watchmaker is that the educational environment where students amass knowledge demands they subscribe to accepted practise, adhere to industry norms and conform to rigid standards. In many cases, this culture is justified and helps avoid individuals making costly mistakes.
However, occasionally an industry needs an outsider to stop, question and potentially challenge entrenched ideas.
In 2009, Benoît Mintiens, an industrial designer from Antwerp, with no experience of working in the watch industry, visited Baselworld. Already very experienced in the world of industrial design, Mintiens portfolio included trains, fast-moving consumer goods, baby strollers, shotguns, medical equipment, etc; however, despite always being interested in timepieces from a young age, he had never designed a watch.
Image – Benoît Mintiens
Exploring the various exhibition halls and dismissing the pomp and grandiose exhibition stands, Mintiens confessed to being a tad disappointed after seeing many of the watches on display. He felt they lacked originality. This set Mintiens on a course that would later see him create watches that broke with convention and showcased his remarkable prowess for design.
Image – Ressence Zero Series
One year later (2010), Mintiens had founded Ressence and returned to Baselworld with prototypes of his inaugural model, the Zero Series. The watch shunned the customary co-axial hour and minute hands, instead employing a system that presented various indications orbiting a convex dial.
Image – part of ROCS (Ressence Orbital Convex System)
Indeed, Mintiens had conceived an ingenious means of indicating hours, minutes, etc. Termed ROCS (Ressence Orbital Convex System), his inventive mechanism consisted of a module, positioned atop a conventional ETA calibre. Later, in 2013, Ressence released the TYPE 3, ‘the first liquid-filled mechanical watch’. This model also incorporated magnets to transmit energy from the comparatively dry base movement to an oil filled chamber located above that housed the ROCS module (I will return to this later).
Image – part of ROCS (Ressence Orbital Convex System)
Magnets and liquids; it prompts the question would these models have been created by a watchmaker? Sometimes, it needs outsiders to disrupt the status quo.
Image – part of first generation ROCS system with aluminium bridges
Ressence – a Belgian in Switzerland
Born and bred in Antwerp, Mintiens decided to establish Ressence’s headquarters in his home city. However, when it came to manufacturing his groundbreaking models, Mintiens looked to Switzerland. He was mindful of the country’s world-class watchmaking expertise and its vast network of suppliers and associated trades. Moreover, when it comes to a luxury watch, the words ‘Swiss Made’ imbue a product with a notable degree of prestige.
Image – Ressence TYPE 1° Round Night Blue
Today, the watches continue to be made in Switzerland. However, prior to sale, they are forwarded to Antwerp where they are subjected to the ‘R500H’ testing regime. Evaluated over a 500-hour period, the battery of tests includes the following: rate regularity control, water resistance, power-reserve control, shock resistance, temperature resistance and aesthetic control. The brand’s products may be neoteric and non-conformist, but they still meet the same stringent criteria associated with fine, albeit conventional, watchmaking.
Image – Ressence TYPE 8 Round Cobalt Blue
Ressence – it all begins with the wearer
As I have already intimated, Ressence models are not the product of a watchmaker designing watches, but rather an industrial designer making watches. This is not a matter of semantics but represents a significant difference within the market and differentiates Ressence from the rest of the industry.
Image – Ressence Zero Series
Indeed, it was this essential ingredient that influenced the design of the Zero Series and every ‘TYPE’ model thereafter. Rather than being influenced by what has gone before, Mintiens began with the simple question, ‘What does the wearer need?’
From the get-go, he focussed on readability. As citizens of the 21st century, we are very accustomed to looking at computer screens. These rectangular displays impart information clearly and free of ambiguity. Inspired by this lucid and efficient means of communication, Mintiens sought to replicate this logicality in wristworn form, albeit the display had to be powered by a mechanical watch movement.
Ressence – discs not hands
Functionality underpins everything Ressence stands for. Mintiens has spent most of his adult life considering how the human mind assimilates information. He has thumbed many academic texts examining psychology and, long before he established Ressence, expended many hours in his earlier roles considering the interaction between inanimate objects and humans.
Image – Ressence Zero Series
When creating the Zero Series, Mintiens chose to incorporate four indications. One large disc, displaying the minutes, plays host to three sub-discs, each imparting information while orbiting the dominant disc. The hands on all four discs are static and sit flush with the surface. This planetary arrangement sees the sub-discs orbit the main disc, each moving against a corresponding track to convey meaning.
Image – Ressence TYPE 1° Round Night Blue
The Belgian designer elected to use this approach as the human mind can assimilate information better when it is presented at the same height as opposed to the usual hands-above-dial approach. I can attest that having worn a TYPE 1 (the successor to the Zero Series), reading the dial proves highly intuitive.
Image – Ressence TYPE 1 Slim
I suspect as a child, nobody said, “No” to Mintiens. He certainly doesn’t seem deterred when pursuing ideas that most watchmakers would think impossible. Consider the display, the planetary discs are, depending on the model, spaced a mere 0.030mm – 0.050mm apart. This means, the Ressence team must give due consideration to the thickness of the galvanic treatment colouring the various discs. Just a smidgen too thick and the discs could annoyingly stutter or fail to rotate. Moreover, Mintiens wanted to smoothly integrate the discs within a curved dial, almost kissing the underside of sapphire crystal, positioned above. In the case of the TYPE 1, that distance is a mere 0.25 mm, an infinitesimally small tolerance to work with.
Image – Ressence TYPE 3 Black
Ressence TYPE 1 M – the use of colour
In November 2023, Ressence released the TYPE 1 M, a round watch suffused with a myriad of colours. At the time of its launch, the use of colour may have been described as playful, energetic and fun, but the rationale for using several hues was far from frivolous. In several interviews, Mintiens has described colour as being a ‘communication vector’ that is more efficient than text or digits at conveying meaning to the brain. Moreover, when the TYPE 1 M was launched, he explained that the use of colour was not random. The colours are arranged in a hierarchical form, with green and blue being used for hours and minutes, the primary functions, and yellow and red for the less important indications ie the seconds and day of the week.
Image – Ressence TYPE 1 Round Multicolour
While the dials are eminently stylish and the sight of the discs circumnavigating the display proves captivating, everything is motivated by intelligibility and function. Furthermore, anything found on a conventional watch that could potentially inhibit understanding or distract the wearer is absent from Mintiens’ designs.
Image – Ressence TYPE 1 Round Multicolour
Ressence TYPE 3 – the first liquid filled mechanical watch
Back in 2013, Ressence unveiled the TYPE 3, ‘the first liquid filled mechanical watch’. Inspired by a liquid filled compass, Mintiens sought to produce a watch with liquid positioned under the dial, thereby augmenting readability. His idea was that if the model contained oil, located just beneath the sapphire crystal, it would reduce light distortion.
Image – Ressence TYPE 3 Eucalyptus
It all sounds very logical until you think about how a watch movement works. While the pivots sit in jewels that contain a minuscule and precise amount oil, the movement components must, generally speaking, remain comparatively dry. For example, in order to deliver isochronism, the balance must oscillate at a particular frequency without the impediment of dust or liquid.
Image – Ressence TYPE 3 Eucalyptus
Ressence had the ingenious idea of bisecting the case to create two discrete chambers, separated by a membrane. One chamber would house the base movement. In the case of the TYPE 3, the base movement is an upgraded ETA 2824/2. This chamber is effectively the same as you find in any conventional watch.
Image – Ressence TYPE 3 Eucalyptus
Meanwhile, in the TYPE 3, the second, upper chamber contains 3.57 ml of oil and the brand’s patented ROCS system, albeit with a twist! The ROCS 3, an evolution of the original ROCS system, features a series of magnets that are attached to the canon pinion (dry side). As the magnets move, they influence the behaviour of similar magnets positioned above the membrane (oil side).
Image – Ressence TYPE 3 Black
The idea underpinning the TYPE 3 necessitated bold engineering and was the product of much protracted thought. The upgraded base movement is combined with a bespoke module composed of 215 parts. The originality of the TYPE 3 was recognised in 2013 with the award of the ‘Horological Revelation Prize’ at the GPHG (Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève).
Image – Ressence TYPE 3 Eucalyptus
This innovative technology would later see service in the TYPE 5, ‘the first mechanical dive watch completely readable underwater’. However, I must point out that when it came to the oil and magnet combo employed on the TYPE 5, it also had to perform under intense pressure, operating in deep water (ISO-certified to a maximum water resistance of 100 m).
Image – Ressence TYPE 5 Night Blue
Ressence – ergonomic design
With some watches, the case plays a subordinate role to the dial. Indeed, at times I’ve worn watches where the case seems perfunctory and devoid of wearer comfort. But with Ressence, ergonomics has clearly been an important consideration for the Belgian designer.
Image – Benoît Mintiens
The case of most Ressence models is round (the TYPE 1 is also offered in a square housing). Recently, when cradling a TYPE 1 Round, I noted its smoothly honed contours, reminiscent of a pebble shaped by nature. Having worn a TYPE 1, I can attest the watch delivers a gentle, nuzzling wrist-fit.
Image – Ressence TYPE 1° Round Night Blue
The absence of a conventional crown is another reason for the TYPE 1’s agreeable fit. With the exception of the Zero Series, all Ressence models eschew a conventional crown. The hands are adjusted by rotating a lever recessed within the caseback. In addition, the mainspring can be manually tensioned by manipulating the caseback, should the automatic watch have been left unattended for a few days.
Image – Ressence TYPE 1 SQUARED Night Blue OW
However, Mintiens is clearly a thinker. Not content with conceiving his caseback-crown, he would later unveil the ‘eCrown’ (2019). This technology first appeared on the TYPE 2, ‘the first mechanical watch that sets itself’. Through a connection with a smartphone one can ‘teach’ the TYPE 2 two separate time zones, obviating the need for manual manipulation of a crown or caseback-crown, providing a user-friendly method of setting the time indications. The TYPE 2 remains a mechanical watch; however, not requiring any form of connection to any device to function perfectly. Moreover, the technology can detect the watch is not being worn, halt the automatic movement, preventing the mainspring from becoming fully depleted. Once the watch is reaffixed to the wrist, it syncs with the phone, the balance bursts into life and the mainspring is once again energised with continuous wear.
Image – Ressence TYPE 2 Night Blue
Coming next
In my next article, I get hands-on with a TYPE 1 Round and continue my Ressence journey, discovering more about life with a watch that was conceived by an industrial designer; a watch that brims with creativity.
Image – Ressence TYPE 1° Round Night Blue