Vault

VAULT was founded in Zurich in 2013 by Mark Schwarz, whose own path into watchmaking was unusually varied: trained as a skilled tradesman, he went on to earn an MBA and hold senior positions in the financial sector, with six years as a serving Swiss police officer in between, during which he faced genuine life-and-death situations. It was in a beer garden after one particularly close call that Schwarz worked out what time meant to him — that it was precious, impossible to control no matter how hard one tried, and experienced differently by everyone. Swiss investor Venture Kick backed the idea with seed capital, and VAULT became a real company; the debut V1 followed in 2017, developed with the horological expertise of Andreas Strehler's UhrTeil AG.

The concept is a genuine departure from ordinary watchmaking: rather than a crown that simply advances the hands, a VAULT watch is set by rotating the entire case, an homage to the 19th-century time-lock safe, a mechanism that, once armed, cannot be interfered with from outside. As the case turns, the movement and dial rotate together but at different speeds — in later models the dial turns at 11/12 the speed of the movement — so the position of the hour and minute indications shifts every time the watch is set, meaning two VAULT watches showing the same time will rarely look identical. Schwarz calls it the 'shape-shifter complication,' and the case itself, deliberately styled after the imposing steel door of a bank vault, is where the brand takes its name.

Behind the concept sits a small, close-knit team: engineer Philippe Schmid, a former elite soldier, devised the patented 133-part 'hour gear transmission' that drives the dial, widely regarded as one of the most complex watch dials ever built; designer Laurent Auberson, who has also collaborated with Strehler on the Cocon and Sauterelle à Lune Perpétuelle, shaped the V1's aesthetic; and Marc Jenni, an independent watchmaker and AHCI member since 2012, handles much of the finishing. The proprietary V01 automatic movement built by UhrTeil AG runs on an inertia-regulated balance at 21,600vph with 50 or more hours of reserve, its rhodium-plated centre plate riding on six steel rollers so the whole assembly can rotate 360 degrees in either direction while the time is set.

VAULT has pushed hard on case materials: the V1+ CTI, machined by René Gschwend's RGB X-Tech, was the world's first watch case in carbon-titanium composite; the V2+ White CC followed as the first to combine carbon fibre with white ceramic. The V2+ Red CC (2019) went further still, in a carbon-ceramic composite case machined into a tonneau shape and finished by Bernhard Zwinz, a watchmaker formerly of Philippe Dufour's workshop who has since revived the Winnerl name; rather than sapphire, its C-shaped hour disc is cut from honeycomb-textured titanium, driven by a planetary gear system in which each hour numeral sits on its own travelling gear. The base V2 starts at 37,500 Swiss francs, with case and movement variants priced considerably higher.

Increasingly, VAULT's real business is bespoke commission work, personally overseen by Schwarz from first conversation to, wherever possible, hand delivery. The V2+RCT (2022) was built for Albert Zeller, CEO of Super-LumiNova maker RC Tritec, in a 'Dark-Matter' composite of recycled carbon fibre bound with 35 percent plant-based epoxy resin, developed with case partner Fatcarbon; its PEEK hour disc was hand-filled with high-concentration Super-LumiNova using a technique from Stefano Nassisi of Les Cadraniers de Genève, its honeycomb rotor cut from brass for winding efficiency, and its strap made from salmon skin with 18k pink-gold stitching. The V3+ ONYX, a sport-oriented commission over a year in development, gave the brand its first crown guard and a DLC-coated grade 5 titanium case redesigned from the ground up by Auberson.

The V1-X, meanwhile, turned the format into an art project: working with Auberson, VAULT used the sapphire disc that normally indicates the hours as a literal canvas, capturing a paint splash whose shape — like time itself — could never be fully controlled, lit at night by orange Super-LumiNova applied by RC Tritec. The designer's signature is worked directly into the splash, a deliberate statement against an industry norm the brand has said it finds hard to accept: that watch designers are so rarely credited by name for what they create.