Done Watches
DONE Watches was founded by Thierry Clottu, a Neuchâtel-trained microtechnology engineer specialising in watchmaking construction who spent two decades developing timepieces for houses including Perrelet, TAG Heuer, and L.Leroy before starting a brand of his own. The catalyst dated back to a chronograph he received at twenty, its open caseback revealing the mechanism inside for the first time; at a pivotal moment in 2015, wanting to see a project through without compromises imposed by someone else's structure, he began work on what would become DONE, funded through a Kickstarter campaign that, in his words, 'resonated far beyond Neuchâtel.' The brand launched in 2016, its name a contraction of the desire to act — DO — and the canton that gave it its identity — NE, for Neuchâtel.
The house's guiding principle is simple: understand the mechanics, then reveal them. Every DONE watch is built around open casebacks and purposefully redesigned bridges, skeletonised, in Clottu's words, 'with rigour rather than excess' — nothing exposed by chance, everything visible with intent. Clottu still personally answers every customer enquiry himself, with viewings by appointment at the brand's workshop in Cormondrèche; assembly, casing, and final inspection are handled by Pivodax SA, a watchmaking partner in nearby Dombresson with over 40 years in the trade, backing every watch with a two-year international warranty.
DONE's collections form a continuous lineage, each answering a question the last one raised. The now-discontinued MECHANICA Classic, a hand-wound proof of concept, laid the foundation; it was followed by the MECHANICA Skeleton series (B01 through B03), built around a heavily reworked ETA 6497-1 'Unitas' — on the B02, a 43.8mm grade 5 titanium case housing the slow 2.5Hz balance behind bridges finished in an interplay of grained and polished surfaces, priced at 3,495 Swiss francs. Automatic 40mm and 35mm collections followed, refined, Clottu says, through 'dozens of iterations' on proportions based on wearer feedback, alongside automatic skeleton versions in both sizes balancing transparency against everyday legibility; the entry-level C01, on a Sellita SW400-1 finished with Geneva stripes, perlage, and a DONE-signed rotor, opens the range at 990 francs.
The current flagship, NINE IN TEN, launched in 2026 as the brand's ninth project for its tenth anniversary and, by Clottu's own account, his most personal work to date. Its 40mm bi-compax chronograph runs a La Joux-Perret L111 developed jointly with the La Chaux-de-Fonds manufacture and reworked into a semi-skeletonised, anthracite-and-ruthenium-finished movement that puts its column wheel on full display; two domed 'box' sapphire crystals, front and back, solve the format's usual height problem while nodding directly to vintage chronograph proportions, the rear crystal following the curve of the oscillating weight. COSC-certified as a chronometer and delivered with a leather travel case, it is priced at 4,950 Swiss francs; reviewing it for Monochrome Watches in December 2025, Xavier Markl called it 'a cool chronograph mixing vintage touches, a modern display and great attention to detail.'