Philippe Dufour

Simplicity The name is the brief, and the restraint is the challenge. Launched in 2000 from Dufour's workshop in Le Solliat, in the Vallée de Joux, the Simplicity has become the watch collectors reach for when they talk about hand finishing: with so little on the dial, every bevel, polished angle and surface inside has to carry the watch. Dufour had already proved himself with complications, fitting a grande sonnerie with minute repeater into a wristwatch in 1992 and making the double-escapement Duality in 1996. The Simplicity showed that a plain watch made by hand could be just as demanding, and just as admired.