Worn & Wound
Albishorn Introduces the Type 10, the Next Chapter in their “Imaginary Vintage” Thought Experiment
One of the most interesting new watches (and new brands) to surface at Geneva Watch Days this year was the Albishorn Maxigraph, made in collaboration with Massena LAB. Now, just a few months after their debut, Albishorn is back with their second effort, the Type 10. This might seem like a rapid pace for a brand to be moving at, but once you understand Albishorn’s backstory, it begins to make a little more sense. The brand is the brainchild of Sébastien Chaulmontet, a watch industry veteran who is currently Director of Innovation and Marketing at Sellita. There are probably few individuals in the watch space better positioned to make a quick start than Sébastien, and after chatting with him briefly about his brand and his plans for it at Geneva Watch Days, it’s no surprise to see the Type 10 surface now, and it will be even less of a surprise to know that Sébastien has a an even longer term release roadmap planned out well in advance. The conceit of Albishorn, you’ll likely remember, is that of a brand that creates “vintage watches that never existed.” These are not vintage reissues, or even inspired, necessarily, by actual vintage watches. Rather, the watches that will make up the Albishorn collection will exist as thought experiments, imagining parallel histories in which a watch like the Type 10 or the Maxigraph could have been designed, but weren’t. It’s a subtle but important twist on the notion of a vintage inspired watch, and one that, I think, shoul...
