“We chose 15,000 gauss because that’s the highest we could measure in Switzerland, which covers 99 percent of all magnetic fields”

with an MRI machine. We chose 15,000 gauss because that’s the highest standard we could measure with the anti-magnetic machine in Switzerland. Maybe the watch is more than that but it is at the very least resistant to 15,000 gauss, which basically covers 99 percent of all magnetic fields that you encounter everyday. Mobile phones, hair dryers, you name it. So it’s very relevant. Sure, we can do the same thing like in the olden days with some sort of a cage covering the watch, but that would be limiting the design. You can’t make a ladies watch or have a see-through case-back like this. It’s an entirely different technology. With the Master Chronometer, you can make any design you want, skeleton if you will, and it’d still be anti-magnetic. DA: How difficult is it to implement such a new standard for a movement? SU: We actually wanted to launch the collection at the end of last year, but it was delayed because we had to master the technology to pass this Master Chronometer certification. Just to give you an idea, we sent the movement to COSC first (the Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute) and they sent back the movement with the COSC-approved stamp. Then we placed the winding stem (rotor) on the movement for the automatic pieces. But that process already changed the movement’s properties a little. So we had to adjust the movement afterwards.

When the movement was put into a watchcase by a watchmaker, again we monitor the variation in performance. This was basically the third check,