Rexhep Rexhepi was born in Kosovo in 1987 and arrived in Switzerland as a refugee at age 11 during the Balkan conflict. He took up watchmaking as a teenager, completed his apprenticeship at Patek Philippe, and spent formative years at F.P. Journe and at BNB Concept. In 2012, at the age of 25, he founded Akrivia in Geneva's Old Town with his brother Xhevdet, producing his first tourbillon references in 2013. The early pieces (AK-01, AK-04, AK-06) were complicated, sporty watches that established the atelier but did not yet produce the reputational breakthrough.
That arrived in 2018 with the Chronomètre Contemporain I, an austerely classical time-only wristwatch with off-centre small seconds and a hand-finished movement visible through the caseback. The CCI won the Men's Watch Prize at the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix, anglage was bevelled by hand to a standard immediately compared to Philippe Dufour, and the watch was re-signed with Rexhepi's own name (RR) rather than the Akrivia brand. Chronomètre Contemporain II followed in 2022 with a seconds-at-six variant and an enamel dial; retail was CHF 58,000 but the secondary market immediately multiplied that figure.
Also in 2022 Akrivia released a collaboration with Gérald Genta (via the relaunched brand) to mark the 50th anniversary of the Royal Oak, a unique piece that sold at auction for CHF 5.4 million. Current annual production is approximately 20 watches across the RR-signed Chronomètre Contemporain line and the complicated Akrivia-signed RRMR, RRCC, and AK-06 pieces. Rexhepi is now routinely named alongside Philippe Dufour, F.P. Journe, and Roger Smith as one of the most important living hand-finishers.
