It’s not often that we get a new escapement design, rarer still to have it serve within the debut release from a new brand. That’s exactly what we find from Cleguer Horology and their Inspiration One Souscription, which boasts an innate escapement, falling somewhere between a natural and a Fasoldt escapement. The creator of the brand, and the novel escapement, is watchmaking engineer Mathieu Cleguer, who has spent the past decade honing skill with contributions to the likes of Akrivia and Breva. Clearly, Cleguer has bigger ambitions that are on full display with the Inspiration One.
The Inspiration One presents a striking design that feels right at home in the broadening landscape of independent watchmakers. The case and dial bear a trove of details, from the finishes and textures at work, to the overall architecture and depth of the finished product. The three main elements of the dial are the sub-dial hosting the hour and minute hand; the nearly 13mm wide balance wheel; and a portion of the mainspring barrel with attached power reserve indication. Each represents a different layer, and each tells the story of this watch in a different way. The design makes a big impression, though the actual footprint is restrained.
Even at this level of watchmaking, wearability remains a priority. The Inspiration One uses a titanium case that measures 38.5mm in diameter, and 12mm in thickness, with a steeply curved lug to ensure that the head of the watch wraps around the wrist without issue. Those lugs get a stepped design, and become their own design feature supporting the dial. But make no mistake, the real draw here is what’s happening within that dial.
If there’s one detail that immediately stands out about this watch, it’s the size of the balance wheel dominating the lower portion of the dial. It gives strong old-world chronometer vibes and for good reason, the idea behind the innate escapement making its debut here began with the natural escapement. The natural escapement uses a detent set between a pair of escape wheels sending a direct impulse to the balance. While this nearly eliminates the sliding friction, it suffers from parasitic energy loss between the meshing of the gears. The natural escapement was used in a small number of marine chronometers, but was never made fit for broad production, even when tackled by the likes of George Daniels and F.P. Journe.
The innate escapement uses the same dual escape wheels of the natural escapement, but does away with the detent between them. Instead, it uses a tangential impulse delivered through a lever, inspired by Charles Fasoldt’s design from the late 19th century. Fasoldt’s design utilized two escape wheels mounted co-axially with a lever that used three palette stones and a balance roller, ultimately resulting in less sliding friction (in favor of resting friction). If that sounds familiar to you, it’s because some of the design concepts would later be seen in George Daniels’ co-axial escapement currently employed by Omega (the idea is also curiously absent from his book “The Practical Watch Escapement”). The two differ functionally however, as the co-axial escapement delivers an impulse to the balance in both directions, while Fasoldt’s provides impulse in just a single direction.
What Mathieu Cleguer has done with his innate escapement, is combine the best elements of both the natural and the Fasoldt designs. At a glance, it doesn’t look entirely dissimilar to what we find in Rolex’s Dynapulse escapement, which was also something of a hybrid of old-school ideas and modern manufacturing. The Cleguer lacks some of that trick manufacturing capability, but the ideas on display here are just as important. Additionally, I’d add that the finishing and construction is much more inline with what I personally find appealing about watches and independent watchmaking. As in, it doesn’t look like something that could be manufactured at scale.
Flipping the watch over reveals another view of the dual escape wheels at work from the gear side as they connect with the going train. This allows a pretty compressive look at the working bits of this movement, allowing the wearer to fully appreciate the vision being expressed within the engineering concept. The result is a truly striking experience.
The Inspiration One is taking the souscription route, meaning it will be funded by buyers alone, and not outside investment. This allows Cleguer to remain truly independent and continue to express his own concepts in a manner that he sees fit. The price will be roughly $100,000 with availability starting later this year. Production will be limited to 12 pieces, and if this first watch is any indication, this is a brand with a bright future. Cleguer