There are many watches inspired by specific items, ideas, and even historical events. But the young Swiss watch manufacture Vault, whose watches were inspired by a bank safe mechanism, stands out among them all. It was not only an unusual source of inspiration that ensured the success of this brand: the most interesting thing here is the highly unusual implementation of this idea involving a unique way of reading the time.

Vault was founded in 2013 by Mark Schwartz and Philippe Schmid. Sharing the idea of ​​creating something magical, the partners introduced their debut model – the V1 watch which shares similarities with a bank safe and delivers time to its owner in a personal way.

The most important feature of the Vault V1 watch is the way the time is displayed and set. While in a traditional watch, the hands move along the dial, in the Vault's unique invention there is only one hand - the minute hand, which doesn’t move at all. The dial itself is movable: it is set in motion by a complex system of gears. That is why looking at the dial, you cannot help but notice that the hour markers are not located in their traditional places.

The hour markers are mounted on discs that rotate around the dial, and the hours are shown by a rotating partially darkened sapphire crystal disk, which reveals the hour as it rotates over the numbers. 

Sharing the idea of ​​creating something magical, the partners introduced their debut model – the V1 watch which shares similarities with a bank safe and delivers time to its owner in a personal way.

The indicator of each digit is a movable gear. Accordingly, when the user adjusts his watch, he sets the complex mechanism of the indicators of the dial in motion but does not change the position of the hour hand. The process of setting the time in the Vault V1 watch is the magic of the bank-safe mechanism in its purest form! The V1 model, released in a limited edition of 8 pieces, was just the beginning of the brand’s ambitious plans.

In 2020, the company presented the Vault V2+ RED CC watch. This watch still featured a unique way of displaying time, based on planetary gears, where each hour marker is a planetary mechanism that moves around the dial. On top of that, the watch received an unusual case made of a completely new material - a composite based on carbon and ceramics. This material consists of several layers of carbon and ceramic, interconnected by a polymer. This combination gives the case a black-and-red striped pattern, as well as the lightness and strength of carbon with the added hardness of ceramic. No one in the world has ever created a watch with such a carbon-ceramic composite case.

The eye-catching, extraordinary appearance of the case is quite consistent with the complex mechanism of the dial. Minutes are indicated just like in an ordinary watch - by a minute hand. But when it comes to hour indication, everything gets interesting. The hour indication is carried out by twelve gears, with Arabic numerals printed on them and located around the dial. The gears are covered with a titanium disk featuring a honeycomb structure, equipped with a triangular hour indicator. The movement was manufactured exclusively for Vault by Andreas Strehler’s company Uhrteil AG.