Celadon Haute Horlogerie

Celadon Haute Horlogerie is the Chinese watchmaking flagship of Benjamin Chee — a Singaporean of Fujian ancestry who studied law in London, where antique shops and their mechanical watches ignited a lifelong passion for heritage craft, and then moved to Shanghai after graduation to reconnect with his own Chinese cultural roots. There he discovered traditional crafts of extraordinary refinement that were slowly dying out as their practitioners aged and no apprentices appeared. That realisation became a mission: to preserve these techniques by making them the foundation of a serious, internationally competitive watchmaking brand. In 2012 Chee founded Celadon, beginning with a 100-piece inaugural edition called the Imperial Plum — powered by higher-grade movements made by the Beijing Watch Manufactory — which sold out within a year. Over the decade that followed, Chee expanded into three parallel brands: Celadon (celebrating Chinese craftsmanship), Milléchron (honouring classical watchmaking elegance), and BCHH — Benjamin Chee Haute Horlogerie — his flagship brand established in 2019, which makes Chee the founder of Singapore's first haute horlogerie brand and which collaborates with European independents including Svend Andersen and Italian clockmaker Alessandro Rigotto. The BCHH Celestial Voyager 'Sunset over Cappadocia,' a celestial complication created with Andersen Genève, was nominated for the GPHG. Within the Celadon umbrella, Celadon Haute Horlogerie (launched in full in 2021) is the premium arm, and it is here that the most significant work happens. All dial designs across the entire Celadon portfolio are personally conceived and created by Chee himself.

The technical foundation of Celadon HH is a partnership with Lin Yong Hua — one of only three Chinese watchmakers recognised by the AHCI — whose workshop is in Shenzhen, whose own independent pieces are celebrated among specialist collectors, and who has developed movements CH1, CH5, and the more recent CH4414 exclusively for Celadon. The CH1 is a manual-wind calibre designed from the ground up, beating at 18,000 A/h (2.5Hz) with a 45-hour power reserve, featuring a three-quarter plate in the tradition of classical pocket watches, decorated with mirror polishing, Chinese circular scroll stripes in place of Côtes de Genève, gold chatons, hand-bevelling, purple-heated screws, and a spoked centre wheel. The centre star wheel carries a small LYH signature; the barrel wheels under the mainplate are sunburst-finished; the movement plate bears the engraving 'passing on traditional culture is an important mission' — which may be customised or removed per the client's preference. The CH5, named the Phoenix — after the mythological bird representing the Empress of China — takes the architecture further: the finger bridges, balance cock, and click are designed to evoke the crested head and sweeping tail feathers of the phoenix, and the movement is decorated to the same standard with the addition of a Breguet overcoil as standard. The CH4414 introduces a jumping hour module.

The Century's 42mm 'moon case' in 904L stainless steel is itself a subtle exercise in cultural reference: Lin designed the left side of the case to evoke the silhouette of classical Chinese arch bridges, while the right side, where the flat flush-set crown sits, is shaped to suggest the circular Moon gate — the traditional circular door opening in Chinese garden architecture, symbolising harmony and completeness. Buyers may specify movement finishing colour (rose, yellow, or white gold plating), hand type (standard, transition blue, or fully blued), Breguet overcoil, bespoke engravings, strap, and bespoke dial. Waitlist is six to twelve months.

The dials are the work of Grandmaster Xiong Songtao — a third-generation descendant of a family whose ancestors served as enamellers to the Emperors of China for many generations and whose Beijing atelier continues a craft that arrived in China from Persia in the 15th century and has been practised for over 600 years. Songtao's cloisonné technique differs from the European tradition in its use of gold wire measuring only 0.04–0.07mm in diameter — thinner than a human hair — which must be hand-laid on a solid silver dial base to create the outline of the image before the coloured enamel is applied. That wire-laying process alone takes approximately 50 hours per dial. The enamel is then applied in successive layers and fired 25 times at 900 degrees Celsius, with a success rate of approximately 10% — meaning that nine out of every ten fired dials are destroyed in the process, and only one survives to become a watch dial. Each surviving dial is accordingly unique.

Dial subjects have included Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' (a GPHG 2021 Petite Aiguille candidate, which Songtao executed using the cloisonné technique to reproduce the impressionist brushstroke effect), 'Peacock and Peonies,' 'Mandarin Duck' (the Tang Dynasty symbol of eternal love), 'Duo of Swallows,' 'Temple of Heaven,' and 'Seven Wonders of the World' (depicting the Great Wall, Taj Mahal, Petra, the Colosseum, Christ the Redeemer, Machu Picchu, and Chichén Itzá). The Imperial Four Nobles series — created in collaboration with Revolution magazine — depicts the Four Gentlemen of classical Chinese painting: plum blossom (resilience), orchid (grace), bamboo (integrity), and chrysanthemum (perseverance), each representing one season. Celadon also employs guilloché and the exceptionally rare paillonné technique — translucent enamel layered over tiny silver or gold motifs — a métier practised by almost no watchmaker other than Jaquet Droz among Swiss houses. Celadon's signature peacock-tail hands with openworked tips, heated to a uniform purple, are handmade by Lin Yong Hua. The Century Cloisonné is priced from USD 12,900 (CH1) or USD 29,000 (CH5), with customisation options adding USD 2,000–3,000 per selection. The Maison Celadon line serves as a more accessible expression of Chinese craft for everyday wear.