Cyrus – Independent watchmaking: the incredible Cyrus vertical Tourbillon

Cyrus, thanks to its master watchmaker Jean-François Mojon and his Manufacture, brings out a vertical interpretation of the tourbillon complication. It was a daring move… And the Swiss watch brand even dared a skeleton version.

The vortex, the invention that defies weightlessness

The date of the patent application is 26 June 1801. According to the late watchmaking professor Jean-Claude Nicolet from La Chaux-de-Fonds, the first person to receive the Gaïa Prize in 1993, the famous watchmaker Breguet’s invention was intended for the mobile chronometer mounted on gimbals that sat in the cabin of ship captains, enabling them to position themselves accurately at sea, to know their latitude to within a few metres, other than by means of sextants pointing to the stars and advanced mathematical calculations.

However, the use of this invention, which became a mother complication, as fascinating to look at as it was really efficient in terms of improved precision, was mainly destined for pocket watches, and then, from the 1920s, for wristwatches. The master Nicolet, trainer of a number of brilliant watchmakers of our time, pointed out that in these two cases, especially on the wrist, the multiple positions to which the mechanism would be exposed would never really allow it to achieve the desired effect.

The fact remains that the most agile contemporary watchmakers, the rare ones able to handle this subtle complication that is ultra-complex to produce, have promised to constantly improve the principle. Some have mastered it and set it in a horizontal position, others have tilted it or placed it at the heart of an independent sub-mechanism turning on and around itself in all directions (gyrotourbillon). Over the last thirty years, there has been a veritable race to perfect the technique as well as the storytelling, since the word ‘tourbillon’ affixed to a timepiece has become quite a marketing argument.

Chronode, the Cyrus Manufacture in Le Locle

In Le Locle, he is an engine manufacturer who makes people dream. Stable, discreet, consistent and above all ultra-creative: Jean-François Mojon founded Chronode in 2005 and makes calibres for brands. Complications, of course, but also basic movements, such as the recent launch of its new automatic calibre, the C102.

In other words, ‘engines’ whose initial design allows them to be enriched with additional functions, also known as small complications. Above all, constructions that lend themselves to remaining reliable and precise in volume and industrialisation modes.

In terms of the design and production of calibres, the Chronode range is therefore wide. And when the Cyrus family (founded in 2010) decided to create a true Manufacture for their brand, they became co-owners of Chronode, which became part of the CYRUS Watches Group of Companies. Jean-François Mojon, founder and co-owner, is the director and the brilliant author of all CYRUS timepieces.

First in history, Vertical Tourbillon by Jean-François Mojon

Jean-François Mojon rightfully embarks on a new interpretation of Breguet’s famous historical mechanism. Original, disruptive, under his golden fingers and his inventiveness, a first in the history of watchmaking was born. For the Swiss watch brand Cyrus, whose slogan is the conquest of innovation, he places the tourbillon on a vertical axis in the centre of the dial of a Klepcys model. He thus breaks the traditional codes, while demonstrating a mastery of the fundamentals. “As soon as one lays eyes on the Klepcys Vertical Tourbillon, one is irresistibly attracted by the originality of the dial with its three-dimensional architecture, spanned by a curved microblasted vertical bridge with bevelled and polished profiles. Its exclusive shape has been specially designed to blend harmoniously with the symmetrical lines of the timepiece and highlight the central tourbillon, which makes one complete revolution in one minute,” explains the brand in its launch press release.

Klepcys Vertical Tourbillon, the skeleton version

In 2019, with its skeletonised version, Cyrus is adding a new level of boldness to its vertical Tourbillon. The brand decided to skeletonise its exceptional movement. To dig finely, to engrave to the point of breaking, to remove a maximum of shavings of material without ever deteriorating the performance of the movement and the precision, is a matter of artistic expertise similar to that which gives birth to the complications. In its cushion-shaped case, rather masculine given its 44 mm diameter (excluding the crowns), the hand-wound calibre CYR 625, a veritable work of art of micro-mechanics with a power reserve of 100 hours, protected by a sapphire crystal specifically dedicated to this Klepcys, can be admired from all angles. Especially since a sapphire crystal also covers the transparent back.