Czapek & Cie

François Czapek, born in what is now Czechia, settled in Geneva in 1832 and partnered briefly with a young Antoine Patek before founding Czapek & Cie in 1845 with Juliusz Gruzewski — supplying watches to clients including French emperor Napoleon III. The original house traded until the late 1860s before fading from history. It was revived on December 12, 2012, by Xavier de Roquemaurel (now CEO), art expert Harry Guhl, and watchmaker Sébastien Follonier, who funded the relaunch through an equity crowdfunding campaign — one of the first in haute horlogerie — that drew over 200 shareholders. The first model, the 33 bis Quai des Bergues, referenced a 19th-century Czapek pocket watch and won the GPHG Public Prize in 2016.

Czapek's four core collections are each built around their own dedicated, in-house-developed calibre. The Quai des Bergues offers a seven-day power reserve with day-of-the-week and power-reserve indicators; the Place Vendôme Tourbillon Suspendu combines a suspended tourbillon with a second time zone; the Faubourg de Cracovie, launched in 2018 and named after Czapek's historic Warsaw boutique, houses an integrated chronograph; and the Antarctique, launched in 2020, is the sports-luxury line built around the SXH5 — Czapek's first fully in-house movement, with a 60-hour power reserve and an open-worked architecture, paired with dials made by long-time partner Metalem using their signature 'lamé' striated technique.

The Antarctique Rattrapante (2021, also SXH5-based) moved the split-seconds chronograph mechanism to the dial side, with two column wheels visible at 12 and 6 o'clock, and the R.U.R. Tribute to Karel Čapek (2024, Calibre SXH6) continued that line with a robot-themed dial referencing the word's coining origin. Movement development has involved partners including Chronode (Jean-François Mojon), Altokalpa, and Micro Precision Systems. In 2022 Czapek opened its own manufacturing facility in Geneva — described by de Roquemaurel as as much a matter of survival as strategy — and is developing a new Calibre 10 architecture. 2025 marked the brand's 180th anniversary, celebrated with the Antarctique Révélation Spectrum, a collaboration with Revolution built on the fully skeletonized Antarctique Révélation.