Challenge Chrono
Model History
The Challenge line is the collection Cvstos launched with in 2005, and it remains the heart of the Geneva brand's catalogue to this day. The first chapter, presented the same year as the brand's founding alongside a dual time-zone indication and a tourbillon, was a chronograph with a generously sized tonneau case: a shape choice that was no accident, conceived by founders Sassoun Sirmakes and Antonio Terranova to sit better on the wrist than a round case and to offer more surface for dial design and a view of the movement.
Over time the Challenge family has grown to include numerous variants — from the carbon Chrono II to the Tourbillon executions with a figure-eight-shaped bridge, to the Purity series with cases entirely machined from colored sapphire — but the underlying approach has remained that of the original model: an open or semi-skeletonized dial revealing bridges and wheels, lightweight materials such as titanium and carbon alongside gold and steel, and a deliberately technical, sporty aesthetic.
Over the years the line has also hosted editions made in collaboration with sports figures, such as certain series dedicated to professional tennis players, though these variants have never formed a standalone collection: they remain, in fact, special executions within the broader Challenge family.
Technical Specifications
Main Executions
The brand's name, Cvstos, derives from the Latin "custos", meaning guardian or keeper: a reference the founders wanted to tie directly to the Challenge line, conceived from the start as the "keeper" of the company's stylistic identity — that tonneau case which, for twenty years, has set a Cvstos watch apart from any other at a glance.