In 1998 the Swiss watch brand Exaequo Genève went out of business, ending production of its Softwatch, a cult favorite inspired by the misshapen clocks in a Salvador Dalí painting.
Now Exaequo is back, with new ownership, and offering a new version of the watch that looks as if it is melting on your wrist — a design its website said reflected “the aesthetics of the Surrealist movement and the concept of fluid and unconventional time.”
The Swiss brand initially had closed after Dalí’s representatives sued it for putting the artist’s signature on the watch dial without permission, according to those familiar with the brand history. But since then its Softwatch, which sold for a couple hundred dollars when it was released in 1990, has become a collector’s item. (An engraved model that Paul McCartney gave to a sound engineer sold in 2019 for $4,480.)
“It’s super-wearable and really nice in terms of how it sits on the wrist,” said Andrea Casalegno, a watch brand consultant and horology influencer who, under the name I Am Casa, has compiled an online history of the Softwatch. “It’s historical, it’s got great design. It’s got it all, in my opinion.”
Chris Zocchi, working with investors that included the Italian watch company U-Boat, revived the brand last year. And, because of his extensive knowledge of the original watch and his passion-filled posts about it on social media, Mr. Casalegno, 26, was appointed as an ambassador for the new Exaequo.
Mr. Zocchi wrote in a message that Mr. Casalegno’s “genuine passion for this design and his following of people who appreciate Exaequo are certainly valuable assets.”
The new timepiece, called the Melting Watch, debuted in April at the Time to Watches fair in Geneva. Its distorted oval case — with a dial that is 28 millimeters wide and 47 millimeters long — was in stainless steel or plated gold, with dials and leather straps in several colors; its quartz-powered movement was made by Ronda.
The watch is sold on the brand’s website for 450 to 480 euros ($490 to $520), Mr. Casalegno said.
He said the initial design was inspired by Dalí’s 1954 painting, “The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory,” a recreation of his 1931 painting “The Persistence of Memory.” The distorted clocks in the paintings are considered to be among the most recognizable symbols in Surrealist art, according to several histories.
“The founder of the brand back then saw this ‘twin’ painting and wanted to bring it to life in the form of a wristwatch,” said Mr. Casalegno, referring to Philippe Muller, who patented the original design and released numerous versions of it until the brand closed.
Mr. Casalegno said he initially had mixed feelings about the design’s revival — he has become widely associated with it in watch circles, some even crediting him with a revival in its appeal. “Andrea has had a huge influence on the rise in popularity of the Softwatch,” Jasper Lijfering, owner of Amsterdam Vintage Watches in the Netherlands, told GQ magazine in 2023.
But Mr. Casalegno decided to join the business, he said, because he considered members of the new team to be genuine fans of the watch who “understood the power of this relaunch.”
An avid watch collector, Mr. Casalegno first discovered the Softwatch online in 2019. Like many of its fans, he initially was drawn to it as an affordable alternative to the Cartier Crash, a timepiece with a similarly misshapen case, vintage models of which have sold at auction for $250,000 or more.
Over the years, he said, he has acquired dozens of the watches. “I honestly feel a passion, because on the wrist it’s just really cool,” he said. “Everyone asks you about it, from watch people, to unknown people at the bar. It connects people, and it’s a watch that an energy of its own, in my opinion.”
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