Freak

Presented in 2001, the Freak was born from an idea as simple as it was radical: doing away with the crown, fixed dial and separate hands. The entire movement rotates on itself once an hour, acting itself as the minutes indicator, while the hours are read on a second moving structure; setting is done via the bezel, as there is no crown on the case. The project bears the signature of four people: Rolf Schnyder, its promoter and backer; Carole Forestier-Kasapi, who devised the concept of the rotating movement; Ludwig Oechslin, who perfected its mechanics; and Pierre Gygax, technical director, who solved the problem of friction by introducing a direct-impulse escapement made of silicon.

The Freak's silicon escapement was among the first industrial applications of this material in watchmaking: light, practically friction-free and requiring no lubrication, as well as being insensitive to magnetism. A choice that, paradoxically, brought back to prominence a material associated with the quartz crisis — silicon — turning it into one of the most imitated innovations in the industry in the years that followed.

From the original model the line has evolved in several directions: 2007 brought the Freak DIAMonSIL, with silicon escapement wheels coated with a layer of synthetic diamond for greater wear resistance; in 2019 the Freak X introduced, for the first time in the line's history, a traditional crown to make the concept more accessible to a wider audience; in 2023 the Freak ONE offered a simplified version with further refined finishes, remaining faithful to the founding model's layout without a fixed dial.