Armin Strom

Armin Strom, born in 1938 in Lotzwil, in the canton of Bern, opened a specialized workshop in 1967 in the old town of Burgdorf, initially dedicated to restoring pocket watches and clocks. It was here that he developed his specialty: skeletonization, the art of removing every component without an active function from the movement, leaving only the essential mechanics visible. His first masterpiece arrived in 1981, a gold pocket watch with a lapis lazuli dial, calendar and moon phases; in the 1990s he created what entered the Guinness World Records as the smallest hand-skeletonized women's watch in the world.

In 2006 Strom sold 51% of the company to entrepreneurs Willy and Serge Michel, retaining the remaining 49%; Serge Michel became CEO and appointed Claude Greisler as technical director. Strom retired from the business in 2011, remaining on as a consultant. In 2009 the manufacture moved to Bienne, where it developed its first fully in-house calibres, starting with the ARM09.

Under Michel and Greisler's leadership, Armin Strom shifted the focus of innovation from pure skeletonization to precision mechanics: in 2012 came the skeletonized ATC11 tourbillon, and in 2016 the brand unveiled its most identifiable invention, the Mirrored Force Resonance — a patented dual resonating regulator that brings the physics of acoustic resonance, first theorized by Christiaan Huygens in the 17th century, into a modern wristwatch.