BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
Czapek is marking the tenth-year anniversary of its revival this year, and 180 years since the name came to be in the watchmaking world. We’ve already seen their latest creation, but you can refresh your memory by clicking here. Here’s a brief recap of their story so far.
The Czapek name as we know it today begins with Polish watchmaker František Čapek, also sometimes spelled as Franciszek Czapek or François Czapek, who was born in 1811. He fled to Geneva, Switzerland, as a refugee in 1832 and set up shop there, having been trained in watchmaking in Poland. Over time, he would gain a reputation for his watchmaking and would partner with fellow Polish watchmaker Antoni Patek to form Patek, Czapek et Cie. This relationship would last until 1845, when the two split, and Antoni went on to form Patek Philippe.
Xavier de Roquemaurel at GPHG 2016
The Czapek name appears on his own watches from 1845 (when the split happened) to his retirement sometime in the mid-1860s. Exactly what happened to František Čapek after this remains unknown to this day, although the folks at Czapek are doing their level best to work it out. With this, the Čapek name disappeared until entrepreneurs Harry Guhl and Xavier de Roquemaurel revived Czapek with the assistance of master watchmaker Sébastien Follonier in 2015.
Although we don’t know precisely what happened to František, we do have plenty of his watches to look at to see where he was headed with his designs. Case in point: the Czapek pocket watch number 3430, which would serve as the format for the first new watch — the Quai des Bergues. The Quai des Bergues would bring to life the unique display of the pocket watch, including a small seconds display and a combined power reserve/day-of-the-week indicator on the dial. Even the pocket watch’s movement outline would be recreated by the fledgling company in the form of the calibre SXH1.
Czapek says that they had loads of interest when they debuted their new Quai des Bergues watch at 2015’s SalonQP in London, followed by more interest at the 2016 edition of Baselworld. However, this interest did not translate into sales, a particularly big problem for Czapek as they didn’t have an exceedingly wealthy backer to bail them out if needed. They decided instead to do something virtually no other luxury watchmaker did at the time: sell directly to the consumer through the internet. What’s commonplace now was quite daring in a pre-COVID world, but it worked, and they soon had more orders than they could handle, as at the beginning, all of Czapek’s team were crammed into one room, all the space they had.
This didn’t stifle their creativity, though, and their second watch, the Place Vendôme Tourbillon Suspendu ‘Ici et Ailleurs’, was a collaboration between them and Jean-François Mojon to make something bold and daring. This was followed in 2018 with the introduction of Czapek’s first chronograph range in the form of the Fauborg de Cracovie watches, with their Calibre SXH3 movements being developed and customised for them by Manufacture Vaucher in Fleurier. In case you’re wondering, Calibre SXH4 was actually a “sands of time” art sculpture, rather than a traditional movement.
In 2020, the Antarctique sports watch was introduced, featuring the new in-house Calibre SXH5. Despite being launched in the middle of the worldwide COVID lockdowns, the Antarctique would prove to be a big success, so much so that Czapek had to close their order books for a while to deal with the backlog. Czapek says that by the time they had moved into their own manufacturing premises by late 2022, they had over 2000 orders to deliver, so they focused on those before allowing more orders. Nowadays, things are much calmer and they’re very happy to take on new requests.
The in-house calibers SXH6 and SXH7 expanded the popular Antarctique lineup, with the SXH6 being particularly popular as it exposed the chronograph components to the wearer on the watch’s dial side, something very few brands do. Czapek collaborated with Chronode, Jean-François Mojon’s firm, to bring the SXH6 to life. In keeping with their theme of collaboration, they worked with master watchmaker Bernhard Lederer on the Calibre SXH8, a rare double-impulse escapement. We interviewed Czapek’s CEO, Xavier de Roquemaurel, last year and spoke a bit about this; check it out here. The SXH7 is a re-imagined version of the SXH5, to make the skeletonisation work they had to change several parts of the movement so it functioned properly but also comfortably took on the new openworked look.
The year 2024 saw the next prominent release from the brand with the launch of the Promenade collection, which uses the sportier calibre of the Antarctique but gives it a small seconds display and puts it in a surprisingly fashion-forward case. The dials on these watches are very special — definitely something to see in person when you can.
At Watches & Wonders 2025 we saw them introduce the Calibre SXH9 within the Antarctique Flying Tourbillon watches. As well as being attractive and different, the Calibre SXH9 also has the distinction of being the first movement that was not only designed and constructed in-house by the team, but also mostly machined there too. The Calibre SXH10, introduced just the other day, also follows this principle.
Latest model: The Time Jumper
While Czapek is slowly but surely doing more and more work in-house as it brings in new staff with new skills, the brand is keen to stress that it intends to remain part of the watchmaking community in Switzerland, and will continue to work with the various specialists around it. With their playful yet authentic approach to watchmaking, where they see the connection between brand and buyer as extremely important, they can afford to be more creative than most and set the definition of what a Czapek watch is. Perhaps in the future, all Czapek watches will look like the Time Jumper pieces, or maybe they’ll sell us invisible watches we can’t feel, that’ll be a good money spinner. It seems like wherever Czapek ends up they’ll have fun doing it, which is most of the story and something they share with their particularly loyal fanbase.
