VAULT Swiss – A Grand Touring Way of Telling Time

Knotty Nawadhinsukh Words by Knotty Nawadhinsukh

Just when thought there could not be any other way of making a wrist watch, someone then comes along and totally disrupts the way you can tell what time it is.

VAULT as the name implies, is designed and constructed to evoke the idea of a bank safe. After all, like money, time that each of us has (or maybe has not) is precious. VAULT works on the principle that time is a continuous motion and applying the revolutionary invention since the 19th Century—the time lock safe. Interestingly the time lock mechanism works on the same watch movements that allow a bank vault to be opened only at a specific time. Once the lock is set, its mechanism cannot be controlled externally.

By virtue of the way in which the time set and the mechanism moves, each VAULT timepiece will show the same time in a unique way—a constant reminder that each of us, as well as time itself, is unique.

What excited us at Grand Touring as much as the way it looks is that in the long history of mechanical watchmaking , no timepiece has featured a completely autonomous movement, until now. By making the movement fully independent, it has been possible to develop both a completely novel way of reading the time and an innovative method of setting the watch, which involves turning the entire movement in conjunction with a rotatable numeric dial.

This bold shift away from the conventional has enabled VAULT to create innovative and exciting timepieces which reflect the philosophy that time is precious, dynamic and unique.