A combination of the words "Renaissance" and "essentiel",is a young, independent brand with a unique approach tocontemporarywatchmaking. Founded by the Belgian industrial designer, Benot Mintiens in 2010, all of the brandswatches carry ever-changing regulator dials, in which the sub-dials and main-disc continually orbitoneanother.

Changing How We Read Time

While the layout of a dial and how we read it may now seem like second nature, we often forget that it is something that is taught to us, rather than it being entirely intuitive. Ressences watches use an orbital system that divides the dial into different subdials, indicating days, hours, minutes, and seconds, allowing the wearer to gather a more intuitive sense of time from the position of the sub-dials.

First debuted atBaselworld 2014, theType 1followedon from theType 3,asa reinvention of the originalType 1001, with a newcrown-less winding systemand thinner case. In comparison to theType 1001with its large crown and thick case size, and thewith its innovative oil-filled dial, theType 1expresses perhaps the most minimalist vision of the brand.

The Design

The "N" in Type 1N is intended to represent the night sky, distinguishing the dial byits deep, greyish-blue colour that is made from convex German silver and which blends into the case. The orbital display shows hours and minutes on convex discs, as well as the day of the week, with weekends outlined in yellow. All indicators are filled with generous quantities ofSuperluminova, for maximum low-light visibility.

With a highly-domed, sapphire crystal encasing the front side of the watch, theType 1has analmost pebble-like appearance, clearly influenced by current industrial design trends. The case of thisType 1Nis thinner still, due to the absence of a sapphire caseback, with the closed caseback also doubling up as a crown. On the caseback of the watch there is a small retractable lever, which, when setting the time, corresponds exactly to the movement of the discs on the dial (in a ratio of 1-to-1), with each rotation.

Meanwhile, the polished, grade 5 titanium case measures42 mm, yetwears smaller than expected, due to the absence of the external case seen in traditional watchmaking. The watch also forgoes a traditional crown, increasing the organic feel, with the user instead interacting with theretractable lever on thecase-back, to wind the movement and set the time.

The Movement

The watch is split into two modules; a lower half comprised of a customised self-winding ETA 2824/2 bauche, and a display module, or ROCS (Ressence Orbital Convex System). Composed of 107 parts, 27 gears and 40 jewels, the gears in the ROCS calculates the hours, seconds and day, taking only the minute as a reference from the movement. In the Type 1, there's a mechanical link between the movement and the ROCS display.

The Set

This Ressence Type 1N is accompanied by its original outer sleeve and box, in addition to a warranty card, instructional paperwork and a Ressence strap with corresponding buckle.

If sold within the United Kingdom, thisRessence Type 1Nwill be subject to 20% VAT.

Closer look