Ateliers Associés Backs Mickaël Gaspar’s Souscription

Founded by William Massena and Louis Westphalen-Lemaitre, Ateliers Associés aims to help independent watchmakers build sustainable brands through funding and shared technical and commercial expertise. Its first partner is French watchmaker Mickaël Gaspar.

Unveiled at IAMWATCH in Singapore, Mr Gaspar’s Souscription has been a decade in the making. It represents the first project backed by the incubator that plans to support up to four new watchmakers each year in exchange for minority stakes in their businesses.

Initial thoughts

The history of independent watchmaking is littered with the names of once-promising brands that lacked the capital and commercial expertise to become self-sustaining enterprises. Industry veterans William Massena and Louis Westphalen-Lemaitre founded Ateliers Associés to address that problem. The pair bring complementary experience spanning watch collecting, auctions, product development and the commercial demands of running a brand.

The firm’s first partner is Mickaël Gaspar, a 29-year-old French watchmaker who trained at the Lycée Edgar Faure in Morteau, a notable source of emerging independent talent. Its alumni include F.P. Journe Young Talent Competition winners Rémy Cools, Théo Auffret and Thomas Aubert.

His training also included stints at Breitling and Sellita before joining MH Horlogerie in Les Brenets, near Le Locle. His Souscription, however, grew out of a project begun during his studies in Morteau. His goal was to develop a watch that would teach its wearer something about mechanical watchmaking. This is a quality many great watches share — their components are arranged so that the movement itself tells a story about how and why it was made.

That philosophy explains the layout of the Souscription, which brings the balance, pallet lever and retrograde date mechanism to the dial side. An aggressively domed sapphire crystal accommodates the exposed mechanics and allows them to be viewed from the side as well as head-on. Conveniently, the date is corrected via the crown rather than a pusher.

Considering the heady state of the market, Ateliers Associés should have no problem placing the 20-piece souscription series, even though the price point of CHF69,000 would have seemed high for a stainless steel time-and-date watch a few short years ago.

Investing in independents

Ateliers Associés draws on its founders’ experience on both sides of the business: understanding what collectors want and helping watchmakers bring it to market.

Having led TimeZone during a seminal moment for online watch discourse, Mr Massena helped shape the way collectors engage with watches online. He later led Antiquorum before founding Massena LAB in 2018, which has produced limited series with independent watchmakers including Habring², MB&F, and Vianney Halter.

For his part, Mr Westphalen-Lemaitre oversaw the relaunches of Gérald Genta and Daniel Roth at LVMH after stints at Hodinkee and Breitling. His experience at LVMH is particularly relevant to Ateliers Associés’ mandate, since Daniel Roth is an archetypal example of what can happen — both good and bad — to a celebrated watchmaker’s name after its founder is forced out.

Ateliers Associés plans to support up to four new watchmakers each year, providing funding and a shared team with expertise in everything from technical development and sourcing to pricing, sales and after-sales service. In exchange, Ateliers Associés takes a minority stake in each venture.

According to the founders, the watchmaker retains control of the company, along with its name, designs and calibres. The firm is initially financed by its founders and a circle of private investors and collectors, with a dedicated vehicle to fund prototypes and first series being structured for 2027.

Outside investment from the outset raises a familiar question: what makes a watchmaker independent? A watchmaker who shares ownership with investors is no longer the sole owner, but that alone does not establish who controls the business or its creative direction.

Ateliers Associés says its minority stakes are designed to preserve that control in the watchmaker’s hands. For collectors drawn to a watch as the expression of its maker’s ideas and skills, the product will probably matter more than the capital structure.

The Souscription

Mr Gaspar’s debut watch, the Souscription, pairs a retrograde date with a dial-side balance in a stainless steel case measuring 39.9 mm across and 13 mm high. The inverted construction puts the finishing on full display, with brushed and polished steel components contrasting against the frosted dial plated in rose gold.

The hands are black-polished and curved by hand, adding to the depth of the display. Super-LumiNova on the hands and scales brings a surprisingly modern touch to an otherwise traditional presentation.

The Souscription is powered by a hand-wound movement built on an unspecified Swiss ebauche, with the slow 2.5 Hz beat rate and 46-hour power reserve providing a few clues, but the work undertaken in Mr Gaspar’s atelier extends beyond adding the retrograde mechanism and decorating the bridges.

The staffs and pinions, for example, are turned on a traditional lathe, and the balance wheel, which oscillates freely on a hand-formed overcoil hairspring, is made and poised in-house — an uncommon undertaking. In total, each Souscription requires about 250 hours of machining and finishing, including sandblasting and bevelling the bridges by hand.

Curiously, the running seconds sub-dial is positioned on the case back side, driven by a secondary gear train. This quirky detail is not unprecedented, and it brings motion to a view that, with the balance relocated to the dial side, would otherwise appear largely static.

Key facts and price

Mickaël Gaspar Souscription

Diameter: 39.9 mm
Height: 13 mm
Material: Stainless steel
Crystal: Sapphire
Water resistance: 30 m

Movement: Cal. 234
Features: Hours, minutes, seconds, retrograde date
Frequency: 18,000 beats per hour (2.5 Hz)
Winding: Manual
Power reserve: 46 hours

Strap: Calf leather with stainless steel pin buckle

Limited edition: 20 pieces
Availability: Direct from Ateliers Associés
Price: CHF69,000 excluding taxes

For more, visit ateliers-associes.com.