BY HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN
I think it’s hard to argue that now isn’t the best time to be a watchmaker since at least the Quartz Crisis of the 1970s and 1980s, if not before. We’ve gone from very few firms being left to carry the burden of keeping mechanical watchmaking alive, wondering if they have a future, to a revolution of watchmakers big and small making mechanical watches for everyone. Although Krayon isn’t a brand-new atelier like one we featured recently, having been established by Rémi Maillat (formerly of Cartier and others) in 2017 means it’s very young in watchmaking terms. The Patek name from Patek Philippe has been adorning watches since 1839, and they’re by no means the oldest watchmaker going.
In their short lifetime, Krayon has wowed us with extremely complicated, extremely innovative (and extremely expensive) takes on traditional calendar watches. The Everywhere, their debut piece, could work out and display the time of sunrise and sunset at any point on the planet. Their second watch, the Anywhere, is a stripped-down version of the same concept with an exciting new design. The third act is always a bit of a tricky one, but for Krayon, their new Anyday watch seems to have pulled off a flawless landing.
Let’s go over the basics. The Anyday features a 39.0mm x 9.5mm 18k white gold case presented on a blue calfskin leather strap with an 18k white gold pin buckle. The case is polished but otherwise relatively simple in its appearance, it gives way to the hidden complexities of the dial.
As you’ve hopefully picked up by now, Krayon has been building a reputation for its creative interpretations of traditional calendar complications and the new Anyday is no different. What we’re seeing here is the first mechanical watch to tell you what day of the week the dates for the next month will fall on. Krayon says this makes it the world’s first mechanical “planner” watch and it’s fairly simple to follow what they mean.
Around the elegantly decorated blue dial (did you spot that the engravings are the Y from the Krayon logo?) is a ring of numbers from 1 to 31 and they are either backed by dark blue or light blue. The numbers backed by dark blue are the dates on which the weekdays will fall. For example, the watch currently displays March 2025, and as I write this it’s Monday the 17th of March. When you look at the 17th you can see it’s the first dark blue backed date, meaning the 17th lands on a Monday, and so the 18th is a Tuesday etc. The weekend is displayed by the light blue-backed dates, meaning that the 22nd and 23rd are Saturday and Sunday. The watch also displays this information for the first few days of the following month, indicated by the dots at the bottom of the dial. The silvery bull-horn-looking marker around the dial edge marks the current date.
Krayon says that this display system allows you to visualise the coming weeks ahead, which I guess is handy for the kind of people who can afford to buy it (CEOs and such) who will need to have their monthly calendar in order. The watch isn’t a perpetual calendar, though, although that would be cool. Krayon says, however, that setting the Anyday is no more complicated than any other watch as their unique display system is controlled through the crown.
I think they should be applauded for keeping the dial, which displays a lot of information, as simple as they have done. Think of watches from H. Moser & Cie or Parmigiani Fleurier, even the Rolex Sky-Dweller – part of the charm of those watches is the amount of information they tell you at a glance. I think that’s the Anyday’s biggest strength, too. Well, that and its movement. The calibre C032, which Krayon makes themselves, is both a technical tour de force with that calendar system, a 3Hz beat rate and 72 hours of power reserve. However, it’s also a piece of art. I really like the wavy finishing Krayon applies to its movements. All 378 pieces of the movement will undoubtedly be finished just as well as the plates you can see through the caseback.
The new Anyday is available through the retailers Krayon sells in which, honestly, isn’t many. They’re also a small watchmaker so they won’t be able to physically produce many. Happily, this isn’t a limited edition watch, and at CHF88,000, it’s their least expensive watch yet. I won’t say “most affordable” as using the word affordable next to a price tag like that sounds daft, but it’s a lot lower than the $600,000+ price of the Everywhere. So there’s that.
