I think that if anyone asks me today one more time would make my own watch, then I'd have to think about it. It was a mammoth project and I am glad that I was not aware of it at the beginning, because then there would be Corazón Del Mar maybe not. My main focus was to make an absolutely high-quality watch. Many new brands would like mostly with a favourable price encourage the customers to buy and then, in addition to inexpensive materials also cheap works. My goal was, from Start to create a watch that is in no way inferior to a luxury watchd, aeven if it did not make the overall project any easier. But my watchmaker and I are simply absolute enthusiasts and passionate watch lovers. So we couldn't help ourselves, otherwise we would have given ourselves away.
First came the Thought at, at most many, already finished parts in order to so to keep costs within reasonable limits without sacrificing quality. So I procured cases, suitable for ETA respectively Sellita Worksdial, hands, etc. and built me a first prototype. After we had experimented a lot, we came to the conclusion: Yes, it should be feasible! My wish was it, from Start to mine Include Youtube communityn und so on 24.11.2016 I published a video in which I presented my intention to create my own watch. The response was extremely positive, which encouraged me very much.
The right Names for a watch brand is not easy to find. Ultimately, a beautiful name is also very subjective, because personal taste plays a role here too, and there's no arguing about that. That's why it was important for us to find a name that we liked. My watchmaker suggested that since we had the "Heart of the Sea" on the rotor with the sapphire, we should base the name on it. First we thought of "Coeur du Mer" but that would have been grammatically incorrect, because it is correctly called "Coeur en la Mer" and with that it sounded too feminine. As I had spent my childhood and youth in Spain, I translated the name into Spanish: "Corazón Del Mar“! We liked it well and the name was born. There was one thing... consciously: There would be no name that everyone would like. And that's exactly why it was important to us that the name had to please primarily ourselves, because we identify with our brand.
Even if I wanted to use a given case at the beginning, I wanted to individualize it. The idea came to us to mill out the side edges and to create an inlay z. B. from Aluminium to use. Since you can color aluminum, this would have will produce an interesting, colourful effect. But since aluminium reacts with steel and it becomes Efflorescence can come, this option has been later rejected.
In general, of course, I had to deal with my Ideas because I had a lot to live up to. yes no guarantee that my watch would later be sold successfully. So all my ideas had to be realizable without losing house and home. From a revised Omega Ploprof I had pointers in my drawer. Since I liked this pointer style very much, I used them in my prototype. When you look at our hands at the Melanocetus today, you can see that this was a design element that we liked from the very beginning and that has also found its way into the final watch.
But per The longer you work on such a project, the more ideas you get and these ideas become more ambitious. So it also happened that we had to start with our ready Dial were no longer satisfied. Especially the dial is mainly responsible for the character of a watch and we wanted to Own develop. Our distant, but It is our firm goal to become a true manufactory, where almost everything is produced by hand. So the idea for the dial printing went directly towards "we do it ourselves". The fact that between the enthusiastic thought and the first one that satisfies our demands Dial pressure one a great odyssey, the was not clear to us at that time.
I'm an experienced Designer, but a Dial for a watch I had still never designed. It's a different matter whether you are designing a logo or a website where a tenth of a millimetre doesn't matter or a dial that also has to fulfil its technical function. The whole project became more and more complex, nerve-wracking, exhausting and every time we thought we were already on our toes, there was another hurdle to overcome. Of course we have accepted all this with pleasure, because where can you put your passion for Watches better than by developing your own watch?
In the meantime, we had succeeded in making our cut-outs in the housing with a considerable amount of effort. We also experimented with different materials for the inlays. In the end they became ceramic inlays. These have no technical sense whatsoever, they serve purely for visual purposes and are an interesting change from the usual standard cases. However, due to the hardness of the ceramic, they also offer a not inconsiderable protection for the side flanks.
So while we were still working on the design of the case, more and more advance orders for our watch came in, so that we have reached a size here that allows us directly to get in contact with factory manufacturers. So it came about that we developed our dream factory, the Sellita SW200, directly could obtain. This Works are supported by very to many famous Luxury brands used as base works, among others by Hublot. At Works there are often different quality levels and since we only wanted the best for our watch, we have chosen the highest level including blued screws.
The longer we worked with our "standard housing", all the more more we reached our limits. Also the web width of 21 mm disturbed us extremely. As a rule, most watches have standard widths of 20, 22 or 24 mm. Here exists a wide Selectionl on belts in the accessories market. With the intermediate sizes, as just 21 mmthe choice is extreme limited. But we didn't want to limit anyone.
Also, the case from the design too much to other brands and was not independent enough.
Although we knew that it would not be easy, we decided in January 2017 to finally put the project on its own legs and announced that we would start our own case produce let want to. It was also clear that this would not be possible without a minimum number of paid pre-orders, as we had to have a minimum order quantity of 200 cases manufactured. Nevertheless, we wanted to try it and had the firm belief that it could work. Sometimes a bit of luck is needed, because we found by chance a very experienced partner from Switzerland, who had worked in the 80's/nineties had made the cases for Breitling. So a man of infinite experience. With his knowledge and his contacts so we wanted to have our cases made, but it was and it all fell through with the advance orders. At this point I would like to take the opportunity once to all first-time customers. We had yes bar one large photomontage of the clock, how it should look like, nothing more to show. The infinite confidence that the over 70 Vorbesteller-Pioneers gave us, was aextraordinary. In a few days we had already received the necessary number of orders and we did everything we could to make the Corazón del Mar MELANOCETUS an exceptional and extremely high quality watch.
6 months later, the first sample cases arrived and not only met our expectations, but more than exceeded them. So the next milestone was reached. However, we had been experimenting with dial printing for weeks. He wanted simply do not meet our high standards and endless hours passed until our print result was not only was flawless, but perfect. Not . onlythat the sieves and their hole sizes played an important role, also the consistency of Color was decisive. The Color was again mixed from different components, which only led to the desired result in exactly the right mixture. In the meantime we had a large Glass filled with misprinted dials, which we lovingly called our "glass of knowledge". Because every failed dial revealed our mistakes and helped us a little bit further on the way to the perfect print.
Later, when we had finally printed our sheets successfully, we received impressive praise from a specialist who had years of experience in printing, because he could not believe that we had managed to do this alone. Unfortunately we met this expert a few weeks and many nights too late.
Our vertical range of manufacture is an absolute plus, because itself manufactures many a larger brand hardly anything themselves. We could have made it easy for ourselves and had the movements assembled in Switzerland by a formwork maker. For those who don't know, a movement is not put into a watch, this is called "shuttering". A lot of people do this and then advertise with the label "Swiss Made". But our goal was a real "Made in Germany" and we exceed these criteria. We finish in Germany the Housing, shell the works, fill manually the hands with Super-LumiNova, print the dials, make the cabochon bead, set the gems, decorate the rotor, dry the cases in vacuum and fill them with argon and many more.
I experience it unfortunately often, that many only superficially deal with the technical data of a Clock and then compare apples with pears. So we must always compare it to cheaper Watches ...just because the same piece of work was used. Let's ask the question the other way round, what makes our watch so unique and valuable?
- A completely independent design. Both our casing, our dial, our bezel etc. were all individually designed by me personally and are not mass-produced.
- The ceramic side inlays are an optical highlight, protect the flanks from scratches and are a unique selling point that cost us a lot of money and development time.
- The system with the cabochon half pearl is extremely elaborate. The beads are cut by hand. The case is dried in a vacuum and then flooded with argon. Each watch is alone in the drying process for 24 hours. All this work is carried out in our manufactory and requires time and expertise.
- The sapphire on the rotor is not only a particularly beautiful stone, but is also set by hand in our manufactory and embedded on the rotor.
- The hands are filled with Super-LumiNova by hand in our manufactory.
- The dials are printed by hand in our manufactory!
- Every watch is built by hand only after the order has been received, individually for the respective customer! This is almost unique! With us watches are not ready for months in stock!
If you take all this into account, our Melanocetus is an absolute bargain from 1250 €!
Star Wars? No, our stuffed hands in the darkt :)
After we had cleared all the hurdles, was the Momentwhere we had our first own Clock, the Melanocetus...a magical Moment. Countless hours of work, blood and sweat were forgotten as the second hand slowly ran on the dial and brought our baby to life.
But one thing we knew of course still don't! How would all those buyers react who are now, for the first time. Clock would see? What if the Clock if we were suddenly hit with a bunch of resignations? A tense wait after the dispatch of the first Watches ...we had to face. We prayed that our customers would like the watches at least as much would like us. With a certain amount of response. of course calculated and at the end be bust it's been almost 100 reservations.
to build 100 watches with care, for a Two-man team...it was quite something! Nevertheless, at the end of 2017, 5-10 watches went on the road almost daily. Then came the first reactions and what can I say, they were absolutely exuberant, a madness. We were showered with praise, you could hardly believe. In the end, NO ONE buyer withdrew from all pre-orders. I published the Reviews to and then on the Corazón del Mar website. Later you could rate directly through our shop system and until today not a single rating under 5 stars has been received. This is almost surreal for us and so how our customers praise the watch and so detailedh, whey can see their ratings writeI'm afraid that you'd think we'd be making these evaluations itself write. But I can assure you that not a single review has been written by ourselves, they are 100 % all real customer reviews from real buyers!
