It is mind boggling to think that a design as avant garde as the Antiqua dates back to 1998 - a period where the epitome of classic elegance was a round 33-35mm wristwatch. Without the Independent Creative Horology movement, watchmaking would certainly be very different - or maybe even non existent. Halter started his career in Paris in the 1980s restoring vintage clocks and watches, he then moved to Switzerland, where he met contemporaries Francois-Paul Journe and Denis Flageollet. Together, the three future masters created a movement development manufacture named Techniques Horlogères Appliquées (THA). Later, in 1994, Halter would establish his own atelier, Manufacture Janvier SA, to pursue his own interests and take on work for larger companies.
It was during this work at Manufacture Janvier SA that a financial crisis halted much of Halter’s work. With an unforeseen amount of time to devote to his own pursuits, Halter decided to turn his talents to the creation of his own masterpiece. He had been approached by American graphic designer Jeff Barnes with a groundbreaking and unprecedented design for a wristwatch that would one day become the Antiqua.
Halter has an immense love of science fiction and space travel, and Jules Verne or H.G. Wells, and most importantly Star Trek have had – and still do- have an influence on his life. Visually, many of Halter’s watches channel elements of retrofuturism and steampunk, which were first identified as genres in the 1980s but draw their inspiration from the Victorian era and the American Wild West. Halter has his own interpretation of his style, naming it “Futur Antérieur” or “Past Future”, a tongue-in-cheek nod at the French grammatical tense (which correlates to the English future perfect tense) used to discuss a future action that will happen by a certain moment in the future.
The perpetual calendar Antiqua was presented at BaselWorld in 1998, it first inspired confusion before understanding dawned, and demand soon outpaced the production capacity. Each Antiqua required around 900 hours to finish, and the crown alone is comprised of 26 individual components including two rows of 12 individual, white gold rivets. Each dial is hand-crafted in either platinum or white gold, with the numerals engraved and then filled in with ink – all done in-house in Vianney Halter’s atelier. The riveted porthole apertures for the elements of the perpetual calendar display that comprise the Antiqua are purportedly inspired by Captain Nemo’s submarine from Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
Out of the 110 Antiqua models made by Halter, 48 were in pink gold. The present example in pink gold bears number 7 and is one of the earlier pieces made in 1999.