The PHILLIPS Hong Kong Watch Auction: XX takes place on 23-25 May, 2025, at our West Kowloon headquarters. The auction includes more than 280 of the world's finest watches – and though we are loath to boast, we truly think it's one of the best catalogues we've ever put together. We'll be highlighting a number of the most interesting lots and stories featured in the sale right here, including the watches highlighted below.
– By Logan Baker
Krayon is a modern independent Swiss watch brand built on a simple yet ambitious idea: turn complex calculations into wearable mechanics. Founded by movement constructor Rémi Maillat in 2013 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, Krayon immediately made waves among enthusiasts. Maillat – essentially an engineer of watch movements – set out to create timepieces that do things no wristwatch had done before. His first creation would establish Krayon’s reputation as a technical powerhouse and earn the young brand industry acclaim. From the beginning, the philosophy was clear: blend mathematical precision with traditional haute horlogerie to offer information beyond just hours and minutes. In the brand’s own words, it’s about “the ability to materialize mathematical calculations into fantastic horological creations.”
What does that mean in practice? It means using gears, cams, and hands to display phenomena like sunrise and sunset times – calculations that normally require complex tables or computers – all on a watch dial. It’s a bold, cerebral approach. But Krayon’s style isn’t dry or academic; it comes across in a friendly, “you’ve never seen this before” spirit. Maillat’s first watch was proof that even in the 21st century, a determined independent watchmaker can surprise the industry with something genuinely new.
The Everywhere
Krayon’s debut model, unveiled in the mid-2010s, was aptly named Everywhere. This watch does exactly what its name suggests: it can tell you the time of sunrise and sunset anywhere in the world. That astounding capability had never been realized in a mechanical wristwatch before. Typically, sunrise/sunset complications are made for one fixed location (since the length of day varies with latitude and longitude). Maillat’s Everywhere solved this by essentially building a tiny mechanical computer into the watch. By inputting parameters – date, latitude, longitude, and time zone – via the crown and pushers, the Everywhere can calculate and display the exact sunrise and sunset times for your chosen location and date. Imagine setting your watch for, say, Geneva today, New York tomorrow, Tokyo next week – the Everywhere lives up to its name.
Technically, the Everywhere is a marvel. Inside its 42 mm case beats the Krayon Universal Sunrise Sunset (USS) caliber, a movement comprising a staggering 595 components. Every one of those parts was custom-developed for this purpose. Despite its complexity, the movement is surprisingly compact: just 6.5 mm thick. In fact, Maillat engineered it with an 18k gold micro-rotor for automatic winding, preserving slimness without sacrificing convenience. The USS caliber runs at 3 Hz with a 72-hour power reserve and is so novel in its mechanism that three patents were filed to protect it. The watch itself measures 42 mm in diameter and 11.7 mm in thickness – large on paper, but a triumph of packaging given what’s inside. Early examples were cased in precious metals with solid gold dials, underscoring that this is high-end watchmaking through and through.
On the dial, the Everywhere displays local time in the conventional way, but also indicates sunrise and sunset hours with an elegant visual cue. A 24-hour ring and moving markers (along with an adjustable flange for latitude) work together to show the times at which the sun will rise and set for the set location. Essentially, a shaded sector on the dial expands or contracts to illustrate the length of daylight versus night – a poetic representation of your position on Earth. Setting the watch involves adjusting to your latitude/longitude and date (there is even a discreet calendar scale to account for the equation of time throughout the year), after which the Everywhere will reliably indicate dawn and dusk. It’s as much an astronomical instrument as it is a watch, yet it all fits on your wrist.
Importantly, Krayon didn’t neglect traditional craftsmanship amid this innovation. The Everywhere is finished to an exceptional standard. Peek through the display back, and you’ll find hand-polished bevels on bridges and screws, gleaming chamfers and brushing that catch the light. In later versions, Krayon introduced a signature aesthetic on the movement: German silver bridges with arched Geneva stripes inspired by a map of the Neuchâtel region – a subtle homage to the brand’s home, visible only to the owner. It’s details like this that remind you the Everywhere is as much art as science. It’s no surprise that this groundbreaking watch earned Krayon immediate acclaim – notably the Innovation Prize at the 2018 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG), the Oscars of watchmaking, recognizing the Everywhere’s unprecedented achievement. For a first creation from a new independent, that’s like winning Best New Director with your debut film.
The Anywhere
Following the success of the Everywhere, Krayon introduced the Anywhere, a follow-up model that distilled the same sunrise/sunset complication into a more focused, daily-wear package. Instead of computing sunrise and sunset “everywhere,” the Anywhere is designed for one specific location – effectively a custom sunrise/sunset watch calibrated to the owner’s chosen city. By limiting the complication to a single fixed latitude and longitude (set during assembly or by a watchmaker), the movement could be made smaller and the operation simpler for the end user. In practical terms, that means you enjoy the same magical indication of dawn and dusk times, but you don’t need to adjust the watch each time you travel. Many collectors will pick their home city or a place meaningful to them, and the Anywhere faithfully charts the course of the sun for that locale every day.
Technically, the Anywhere uses a “pared-back” version of the Everywhere’s caliber, sharing the DNA but optimized for a fixed location. The watch is noticeably more compact – the case is a very wearable 39 mm in diameter and 9.5 mm thick, giving it the proportions of a classic dress watch. Inside is the hand-wound Caliber C030, still comprising an astonishing 432 components despite the reduction in scope. (This gives you an idea of just how complex the Everywhere was – even the simplified version packs over 400 parts!) The movement in the Anywhere forgoes the micro-rotor automatic winding in favor of manual wind, which allows the 9.5 mm slim case and puts the beautiful mechanism on full display. And what a display it is: the finishing is as exquisite as on the Everywhere, with broad Geneva stripes, perlage, and mirror-polished anglage decorating the bridges and plates, all visible through the sapphire caseback. Krayon didn’t cut corners here – the Anywhere maintains the haute horlogerie standards set by its predecessor.
Functionally, the Anywhere provides a more streamlined but still comprehensive take on the sunrise/sunset complication. The dial layout is clean and classic, typically with central hour and minute hands and a tasteful 24-hour ring or sub-dial to distinguish day vs. night. Sunrise and sunset times are indicated via graduated scales or arcs on the periphery, much like the Everywhere, but pre-set to your chosen latitude. There’s also a subtle month indicator (part of the movement’s calendar mechanism) to account for the seasonal shift in daylight length. Once set, the watch automatically adjusts the sunrise and sunset display as the months progress – all you need to do is keep it wound and set to the current date. In essence, it’s a bespoke ephemeris for your wrist.
Krayon showcased the Anywhere in a variety of styles, underlining the model’s importance. The inaugural versions were cased in precious metals (white or rose gold) with refined dial options like deep blue or silvered finishes. Later, Krayon demonstrated its creative range by releasing special editions: for example, a collaboration with a Dubai retailer featured Eastern Arabic numerals on the dial and a desert-inspired color scheme, housed in stainless steel – a rare modern steel Krayon, limited to 15 pieces. There’s even a “Lady Anywhere” with a lighter design, proving the complication can be made elegant for all wrists. This versatility in aesthetic options – from classic guilloché dials to artistic handcrafted métiers d’art editions – means the Anywhere can be as unique in looks as the location it’s set for.
While the Anywhere is “simpler” than the Everywhere, calling it simple would be wrong. It remains a complex, poetically useful complication that connects the wearer to the natural cycle of day and night. Collectors took note, and so did the industry: the Krayon Anywhere won the GPHG Calendar & Astronomy Prize in 2022, a prestigious accolade that confirmed Maillat’s sunrise/sunset concept was far from a one-hit wonder. In the Anywhere, enthusiasts found a watch that is easier to wear daily, yet still satisfyingly esoteric – a conversation piece blending romance (the daily sunrise) and technical rigor in equal measure.
The Anyday
After mapping the sun’s journey, Krayon turned to a more down-to-earth complication for its next act – but, in true Krayon fashion, gave it an ingenious twist. Introduced in early 2025, the Anyday is described as “the first mechanical agenda” by the brand, essentially a day-date watch reimagined as a monthly planner. On the surface, the Anyday displays the date and day of the week – one of the most useful complications for everyday life. However, it does so in a way that lets you see the entire month at a glance, rather than just today’s date. If you’ve ever flipped through a paper calendar to see which day a date falls on, you’ll appreciate what Krayon has done here.
The dial of the Anyday is where the magic happens. Around the edge of the dial is a transparent sapphire ring marked with all the dates of the month (1 through 31). A small half-moon crescent hand points to today’s date. But instead of printing every date in the same color, Krayon uses a clever color-coding: weekdays are displayed in one color (blue on the inaugural model) and weekends in another (white) via an underlying tinted disk. This means that as you look at the dial, you can instantly differentiate Saturdays and Sundays from Monday–Friday. In one quick glance, you know not just the date, but the day of the week for any date this month – hence the “mechanical planner” moniker. For example, you can see that the 15th falls on a Wednesday, or that an upcoming 22nd is a Saturday, without any mental calculation, because the watch lays it out for you. Moreover, the date ring operates on a five-week layout, which even provides a preview of the next month: a set of four small transparent dots appears after the “31” to represent the first four days of the upcoming month. As the current month ends, the Anyday’s date pointer jumps back to “1” and those dots subtly indicate which day of the week the new month will start on. It’s a brilliantly intuitive system – once you get used to it, you wonder why no one did this before.
Despite the novel display, using the Anyday is as straightforward as any high-end calendar watch. The date and day advance automatically each day. At the end of shorter months, you’ll need to manually correct the date (it’s not a perpetual or annual calendar, so February will require a reset). But thanks to Krayon’s engineering, all adjustments are quick and happen with precision. In fact, the Anyday features an instantaneous jump mechanism: the date hand and the day-of-week indicator switch at midnight in a snap, rather than slowly creeping, ensuring the information is always perfectly aligned. To achieve this, the movement employs a pair of intricately shaped cams with jeweled roller levers, visible through an aperture at 6 o’clock on the dial side. Watching these components interact as the date changes is a delight for mechanics nerds – it’s a little ballet of levers, all in service of your calendar planning.
The Anyday’s movement, Caliber C032, is hand-wound and constructed with the same care as Krayon’s other calibers. It has 378 components in total – an impressively high part count for a “simple” calendar, reflecting the complexity of the mechanism – and a 72-hour power reserve, beating at 3 Hz for stability. The case is again 39 mm in diameter and around 9.5 mm thick, in 18k gold, so it wears comfortably on the wrist. If the Anywhere was reminiscent of a classic dress watch, the Anyday is even more so; it’s refined and understated, belying the intellectual cleverness within. Krayon’s design language carries through: the inaugural version features a rich blue dial with the brand’s signature “Y”-shaped geometric guilloché pattern in the center (a motif that echoes the points of a compass or perhaps the sun’s rays – fitting for a watch born from the study of days). The hour markers are hand-polished and faceted, the dial furniture exudes quality, and of course the movement visible on the back is finished to the nines. Those German silver bridges with Neuchâtel-inspired Geneva waves make an appearance here too, giving the movement an artisanal sheen; anglage (beveled edges) outline each component with mirrored gleam, and the whole assembly has a silvery tone with pops of red rubies and gilded wheels for contrast. It’s the kind of finishing that seasoned collectors associate with the top tier of independent watchmaking. In short, the Anyday maintains Krayon’s standard of casually spectacular complication – it takes a familiar function (the calendar) and elevates it into something intellectually engaging and uniquely useful, all while keeping the execution friendly and wearable.
Why You Should Care
In a watch landscape filled with reissues, homages, and incremental improvements, Krayon stands out for its originality and audacity. This is a small Swiss brand (practically a one-man think tank at its core) that dared to ask, “What else can a mechanical watch do?” and answered with solutions no one had seen before. For collectors, Krayon offers a few key things. First, genuine technical innovation – the kind that pushes horology forward. The Everywhere and Anywhere brought an emotional and practical complication (sunrise and sunset) into the realm of high-end watchmaking, earning top industry honors in the process. These watches connect the wearer to the rotation of the Earth in a visceral way; there’s a romance in knowing exactly when the sky will lighten or darken, tailored to wherever you are or the place you love. It’s a complication that engages the mind and the heart. The Anyday continues this spirit by rethinking how a date display can work – making a mechanical watch double as a monthly planner is both whimsical and useful, and it shows Krayon isn’t a one-trick pony tied only to astronomy. This consistent thread of innovation is something collectors deeply appreciate. In an era when many luxury watches differ only in style, Krayon delivers substance.
Second, Krayon marries innovation with horological legitimacy. These pieces aren’t cool concepts executed poorly; they are beautifully engineered and finished at the highest level. From the finely adjusted cams to the hand-finished bridges, a Krayon watch rewards loupe inspection. Collectors who might normally chase famous names will find that Krayon delivers that same feeling of quality and craft one expects from the likes of the Holy Trinity brands or renowned independents. There’s also the exclusivity factor: production is extremely limited (each piece is essentially made to order or in tiny series). You won’t run into another person wearing the same Krayon at your next watch meetup – unless you both happen to be at a Krayon event. This rarity, combined with the ingenuity, gives Krayon watches a high cachet among those in the know.
Finally, there’s a philosophical aspect. Krayon embodies a forward-thinking, almost academic approach to watchmaking – but one that remains user-centric. Rémi Maillat isn’t creating complications for complication’s sake; he’s providing information that enriches the wearer’s experience of time. It’s about engaging with the natural world and your schedule through your watch. That’s a poetic notion that resonates with collectors who view watches as more than status objects – as personal tools and companions. A Krayon watch invites you to interact with it: setting the location on the Everywhere, interpreting the color-coded calendar on the Anyday, or simply marveling at the fact that your wristwatch knows the sun’s secrets. There’s an intellectual satisfaction in that, akin to owning a piece of functional art.
In conversational terms, Krayon is the kind of brand a seasoned enthusiast gets excited to explain to others: “You’ve never heard of Krayon? Let me tell you – they made a watch that can show sunrise and sunset anywhere on Earth!” It’s friendly, it’s smart, and it’s refreshingly original. The style of the watches themselves is understated and classical, so the wow factor comes from the complication and the backstory – which is exactly how many collectors like it. You don’t need to shout to the world that your watch is special; you know it, and fellow collectors who spot the name “Krayon” on your wrist know it. It’s like a secret handshake among horological enthusiasts.
In summary, Krayon may be a young independent, but it has quickly carved out a niche at the pinnacle of creative watchmaking. From the sunrise-tracking Everywhere (the 2018 GPHG Innovation winner) to the personalized Anywhere (bringing celestial complication down to one’s hometown), and now the Anyday “mechanical planner” simplifying our calendars, Krayon has shown a range and depth that belies its size. Collectors should care about Krayon because it represents what makes watch collecting fun: discovery, innovation, craftsmanship, and a good story. These watches remind us that even in a digital age, the old-world charm of gears and springs can still do very modern, very magical things.