Armin Strom is what happens when a guy who is really, really good at cutting holes in watches decides that is not enough and starts building entire movements from scratch instead. It is a small independent manufacture in Biel, Switzerland, with about 38 people, and they make some of the most technically ambitious watches in the world. You have probably never heard of them. That is kind of the point, and also kind of a shame.
The history
The original Armin Strom was a man, not a company, or rather a man who was a company. He set up shop in 1967 and spent decades doing one thing better than almost anyone alive: hand skeletonization. That is the art of cutting away everything from a watch movement that is not structurally necessary, then decorating what is left until it looks like jewelry. It is watchmaking as subtraction. In 1990 he earned a Guinness World Record for the smallest hand-skeletonized women’s watch, which is the kind of achievement that gets you exactly zero mainstream fame and total reverence from about four hundred people worldwide.
In 2006, two childhood friends took over: Serge Michel, the businessman, and Claude Greisler, the master watchmaker. They had a bigger idea than skeletonizing other people’s movements. In 2009 they opened their own fully integrated manufacture in Biel, which is deep in Swatch Group territory, a bit like opening an independent bookstore across the street from Amazon headquarters. In 2010 they released their first fully in-house movement, the One Week, with a seven-day power reserve. They have not slowed down since. Seventeen proprietary calibres and counting, every part designed, milled, finished, and assembled under one roof.
The thing about resonance
Here is where it gets nerdy, and I mean that as a compliment. In 2016, Armin Strom released the Mirrored Force Resonance, built around a phenomenon that watchmakers have been obsessed with since the 1600s: resonance. If you put two balance wheels close together, they will eventually synchronize and start beating in opposition, like two pendulums on the same wall finding each other’s rhythm. Breguet noticed it. F.P. Journe built a watch around it. Armin Strom figured out how to do it reliably in a production watch with a patented clutch spring connecting the two oscillators, and then put twin seconds counters on the dial so you can watch the synchronization happen with your own eyes. There is a pusher that resets the counters, which exists for no reason other than to let you prove to your friends that physics is real.
In 2019 they went further with the Minute Repeater Resonance, the first chiming watch ever built on resonance. Because apparently one world first was not enough.
Gravity Equal Force
Also in 2019, they released the Gravity Equal Force, the first automatic watch with constant force transmission. The short version: in most watches, the mainspring pushes harder when fully wound and weaker as it runs down, which means the watch runs slightly differently depending on how wound it is. Armin Strom built a mechanism that evens out the force, so the balance gets the same push whether the watch was wound an hour ago or three days ago. It is the kind of problem most brands just live with. Armin Strom has 38 employees and they fixed it anyway.
What they are
Armin Strom organizes everything into three pillars: System 78 (the entry point, relatively speaking), Resonance (the dual-balance watches), and Masterpiece (the no-expense-spared stuff). Everything is openworked, everything is hand-finished, and everything is made in-house, which in an industry where even big brands buy parts from suppliers is a genuine flex.
They are independent, they are small, and they are doing things the giants are not bothering to do. If you care about watchmaking as an art and a science rather than as a luxury product, Armin Strom is one of the most interesting companies alive right now.
Official site: arminstrom.com
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