In-Depth How One Chiming Watch From Christopher Ward Turned The Watch World On Its Head

The watch has a futuristic and three-dimensional feeling and the words Christopher Ward are nowhere to be seen on the dial, the design itself is doing all the work. Aesthetically it's reminiscent of hyper-modern brands like MB&F, with exposed works showing a chiming mechanism that charges up and strikes once at the top of every hour. It's a major departure from Christopher Ward's previous offerings, many of whose design cues were loosely inspired by modern and vintage watches from more expensive brands, with strong designs that punch above their weight.

Christopher Ward was founded in England in 2004 as the first online-only direct-to-consumer watch brand, one of the earliest "microbrands." By the company's 10th anniversary in 2014, it had merged with one of its Swiss manufacturing partners, Synergies Horlogères (SH) to vertically integrate manufacturing. Christopher Ward knows not only what successful watchmaking looks and feels like but how to make it accessible – the average price of one of their divers is just over $1,110.

Sonneries, watches that make sound, are usually the domain of brands charging 20, 40, or even hundreds of times this price. That Christopher Ward had made one for $3,595 was somewhat of a miracle. The first limited run of 300 watches, with its striking complication sitting above a beautiful sunburst blue "Azzuro" dial, sold out in eight hours. Collectors rushed to get on a waitlist. Four days later, a green-dialed "Verde" version was released, and this one sold out in three hours.

When I sat down with the team in November – first with CEO Mike France and then with product manager Jorg Bader Jr., designer Will Brackfield, and master watchmaker Frank Stelzer – I wanted to understand what felt like not only a seminal moment for the brand but for the watchmaking industry as a whole and what it might mean for the future. Had Christopher Ward finally cracked the code on how to make chiming watches affordable? Or had they been potentially affordable all along, and CW was just the first brand to price theirs humanely? 

This is the story of the chiming watch that shook the watchmaking world.

The Origins

The modules, built by Christopher Ward and SH to sit on existing movements from ETA or Sellita, were designed to make high-end complications more accessible. First came the JJ01, Jahnke's hyper-accurate jump hour module where the power is drawn back over an hour and released without impacting timekeeping. The JJ02 was a monopusher chronograph module, the JJ03 a world timer, and JJ04, a moonphase accurate to 128 years (a feat few brands can boast).

That left Christopher Ward well-positioned for such an experimental endeavor as the Bel Canto. It was the JJ01 that made set the stage but it was Seltzer, the brand's master watchmaker, who realized the implication of the module in a chiming watch.

"It's quite similar," says Seltzer, belying the complexities of modifying the design. "You have a lever which is in contact with a snail or a cam in the center on the minute wheel. And it takes the power, draws it over the hour, and once per hour, it falls and strikes a star in the center, pushing it one step forward and moving the jumping disc. So I had an idea. Why don't we take this lever, and instead of hitting the star we can strike a sound spring to make this nice gong effect?"

France clarifies it wasn't as easy as Seltzer lets on. "The new movement required more than 50 new components, it needs to be said," he says, "and I personally wouldn't have imagined it would be possible." 

With these modifications, Christopher Ward suddenly had a sonnerie au passage, a watch that chimes once to signal the passing of the hour, powered by an automatic SW200 Sellita base movement, called the new Calibre FS01. The movement was first used by German brand MeisterSinger for their own sonnerie released in 2021 for around $3800. And while that watch got some attention, it was nothing like what would follow.

The Bel Canto

The team knew they had something with great potential and, wanting to show it off, they thought about past projects with Chronode where they had given extra attention to finishing their movements. But this movement, in their words, was practical but "ugly," so there was a lot of work ahead.

Drawing off a love of three-dimensional design language like that made popular by MB&F, the team approached this project wide-eyed and a little naive, a trait they saw as a strength that allowed them to accomplish something so bold and risky.

"On the main range, we've kind of tried to consolidate the design language so our watches are very clearly 'Christopher Ward,'" Brackfield says. "But this was all about trying to step outside the box."

The team showed me early design drawings and it's obvious how much the aesthetic design changed over the course of the Bel Canto's development, which in turn meant huge headaches for Seltzer.

"It was quite important to us to have something symmetrical and have the time display split out from the chiming mechanism just so we could really show off those parts," Brackfield says. "But every time we wanted to move a component, the module would have to almost be completely redesigned. I think we probably went through 20 different iterations."

"Once we had kind of fixed all the parts, we went through and did the aesthetic work," he continues. "Something that I really like in watches is when you have visual volume. So the bridges at six o'clock are not flat which, it turns out, is actually extremely hard to finish. But that is kind of the wonder of the naivety that ended up being a plus."

There were also practical considerations to be particularly selective about which parts to show and which to hide.

"I think we had decided fairly early on that we wanted to kind of cut down a number of components you could see on the dial side and finish those as perfectly as possible," Brackfield says. "Once we had made that decision, we stuck with those components and hid everything else which could be made at a lower cost."

"But it's not a dial on the front side, it's the actual module platine [the plate where parts would be attached]," Brackfield continues. "If you hide things on the back, you're going to see the backs of screws or get holes in the platine. We still have a few small holes, but there were maybe 15 or 20 to start with. Then there's the fact that at this point we still didn't fully know if it would function."

The next step then fell to Seltzer who, working in his workshop in Switzerland, was tasked with making a prototype by hand using milling and CNC machines at his disposal.

"If you look at the hammer of the prototype, you can tell it's all improvised, it has the correct weight already, but the geometry is not 100 percent," Seltzer says. "For this kind of project, each iteration needed a few weeks of work."

By July or August, the team more or less knew how the watch would look and, having tested the chime, were about 90% of the way toward an acceptable sound. Sure it wasn't going to chime like a Patek Philippe Repeater or F.P. Journe Sonnerie, but no one was expecting that. To even create what they had hoped at the price they were aiming for was an achievement of its own.

While F.P. Journe claims steel is the best material for chiming watches, the team just knew intuitively that the hardest material is best.

"From the beginning, we said we wanted to go for a 41mm grade five titanium case," Bader says. "But we never really knew 100 percent if it would sound nice. But at the end of the day, I think we still had more than 80 different sound springs to test"

As it came time to assemble the watch, the team relied on talented partners to deliver the parts needed to make everything come together. Chronode (who has worked with major brands like MB&F) for the bridges, spring, and hammer. Armin Strom did the platine. After over two years of hard work and experimentation, they had a watch ready for its debut.

"I think if we did a proper cost analysis and reported all the finances through the process, I think this project would have been stopped earlier," Bader says.

But then they wouldn't have the runaway success the C1 Bel Canto ended up being.

The Release

There were some indications ahead of the launch that they had a hit on their hands. A customer flew in from Chicago to New York just to see the watch and was left speechless and teary-eyed.

 "He was not a wealthy man," said France, "So to have access to that kind of complication was quite a moving moment for him. Also, people in the watch industry, friends from other brands, were putting their names down for watches," France says.  "We thought we might have something going on here.'"

By keeping costs down through prototyping, design, and choosing the key components to both source and finish to higher levels, Christopher Ward had also done something remarkable in hitting a sub-five-figure price point, let alone $3,595. The team told me it was also important to Christopher Ward to stick to its brand values and maintain the same markup they use for all its models, regardless of the overwhelming response.

Then there's the design – the similarities to other brands which have been referenced here and elsewhere ad nauseam. The finishing is strong exactly in all the intended places – mainly above the blue (or green) platine. The case is well-finished and balanced. Small screws secure the back near the lugs for best resonance, while giving 30m of water resistance.

You can still see the origins of the JJ01 jump hour movement the new FS01-powered Bel Canto. Glancing at the dial – or rather the movement on the platine – over the course of an hour, you'll see the hammer "charge" over time, pulling back before being released at the top of the hour. Though the watch does not chime on request like a repeater, you can pull the crown out to set the watch and spin the crown around manually, causing the watch to chime over and over each time the minute hand passes 12:00 on the dial.

The watch has a mini-dial floating at 12:00 for time-telling – legible enough while not distracting from the rest of the design. The mechanics on the dial are set over a sunray blue or green that shifts in the light while exposed gears, bridges, and screws are polished or finished in anglage not normally seen at the price point. The gong wraps around the edge of the dial while the hammer, with the same attentive polishing, sits ready to strike near nine o'clock.

That hammer, as well as the red on/off indicator, evokes a shape of a bird – its tail lifting over the hour and a beak that points toward "sound" or "silence" with the press of the button at 4:00. That button allows you to stop the chime when you don't wish to hear it.

All of this added up to a captivating watch in pictures – captivating enough for the sales to blow past expectations. All 300 of the blue-dialed limited-edition sold out in eight hours.  They'd had a green dial planned, but thought they'd release it in February or March. But with the release and the growing waitlist they decided to release it nearly immediately.

Christopher Ward loaned me a sample watch, which I brought around to show friends and collectors at gatherings. Many were confused or surprised that the watch didn't chime on command, like a normal repeater, or were disappointed the chime couldn't beat out the din of a busy bar.  But what the chime does best is break the monotony of the day. One day I found myself frustrated, dealing with some asinine and already-forgotten issue. Then a light "ding" resonated from my wrist and put a smile on my face. When I took the watch off and got ready for bed, I often left it in the living room and, if I forgot to silence it, the "ding" would break the silence of the night through the walls and I'd smile again. It was like a little bit of magic instilling just a few seconds of wonder in the world.

As the watch started being delivered, it showed up in a wide variety of collectors' hands, including some of the most passionate and public collectors like Instagram's "NYCWatchGuy" whose collection includes impressive pieces by Urwerk, AP, and – yes – MB&F, among plenty of others. The Bel Canto seemed not one bit out of place in the collection and a lot of people seemed to get some small validation knowing that someone who could seemingly get anything also wanted the watch they liked. It's a testament to the watch being a masterpiece, not just for the price but in general.

"As soon as I put it on my wrist, I immediately knew Christopher Ward had a winner on their hands," NYCWatchGuy says. "It had the vibe of an Arnold & Son or an MB&F along with a chiming mechanism that I could show both watch and non-watch friends alike. It was truly a watch guy's watch for less than $4,000, something that nobody had really done before."

I asked the design team what it was like having their work mentioned in the same breath as someone like Max Busser. "When we have friends who are working at Arnold & Son, Patek, or even AP or something, and they tell us that their coworkers have come up to them to say 'Wow, shit, did you see that watch?' That's really special," Bader says.  He allows this project was a huge risk for them.  "But now  we can say, 'this works, so let's do this again.'"

The Future

Within two weeks of the release of the C1 Bel Canto, the brand had 7,000 collectors on a waiting list that continues to grow. For perspective, Christopher Ward produces about 20,000 watches a year. 

But even with the overwhelming interest in the Bel Canto, it's not as simple as shifting a third of production to one mode. The watch is particularly constricted by parts, so it will be reliant on suppliers to help them ramp up production.

"The plan," Brackfield says, "is to open up to as many people as possible and keep it available because it would be a shame otherwise."

But what about other things besides the now-proven success of the Bel Canto? Will we see more experimentation?

"You're almost asking the wrong guys because we always wanted to do things like this," Bader says. "This is the stuff we love, but we never could do before. So finally we have the permission to do more of these things."

"We were always really interested in stepping our game up," Bader says. "Now I think we really have the license to do that. I mean, this wouldn't be Christopher Ward if we didn't listen to the customers, and the customers are talking. It will take some time but I think already in 2024 we have another banger coming."

The blue and green dials that captured so many enthusiasts' attention won't be returning – sticking to the strict rules of limited edition watches – but the team showed me previews of upcoming ideas they've had for the Bel Canto design. Sadly, I'm not able to share details beyond the fact that Christopher Ward isn't set to rest on their laurels by just rotating through the standard Pantone palate as you might expect.

While there's no official word about production numbers for the year, Christopher Ward reps have told me they'll be breaking new ground in terms of production.

Collectors who missed out on the Limited Edition Azzurro and Verde dial Bel Canto but put themselves on the waitlist have already, quietly and privately (or so I'm told) been informed of new upcoming dial options and given the opportunity to pre-order and place a deposit. On January 19, that same opportunity will be opened to the public and the impact of the C1 Bel Canto will continue to grow.