CONSTANTIME Featured by MrWatchMaster: Transylvanian Watchmaking

Independent watchmaking can begin anywhere. For CONSTANTIME, it begins in Târgu Mureș, beneath the vaults, fortifications and centuries of craftsmanship that have shaped Transylvania.

In recent weeks, this story has reached an international watchmaking audience through MrWatchMaster, which has explored CONSTANTIME from two complementary perspectives: first through Genesis, our inaugural mechanical watch, and then through the story of the person and workshop behind the brand.

For us, these features are more than press coverage. They offer an outside perspective on an idea that has been at the heart of CONSTANTIME from the beginning: a watch should carry something of the identity of the place where it was created.

[IMAGE 1 -- COVER / HERO: strong frontal or three-quarter image of CONSTANTIME Genesis, with the blue dial clearly visible.]

Genesis: Born Beneath the Vaults of Transylvania

On August 26, MrWatchMaster introduced Genesis under a title that captured its origins particularly well: “Constantime Genesis: A Watch Born Beneath the Vaults of Transylvania.”

The feature looks beyond specifications to explore the environment from which the watch emerged — the medieval citadels, fortified churches and architectural forms of Transylvania, and the way these influences have been translated into contemporary watchmaking.

This connection to Transylvania was never intended as decoration.

The architecture surrounding us provided a vocabulary of shapes, proportions and surfaces that gradually found their way into Genesis. The dial takes inspiration from the vaulted ceilings found in Transylvanian fortified churches and medieval buildings, while the polished Roman numerals and sword-shaped hands interact with light to give the watch its distinctive character.

But perhaps the most important part of the Genesis story happens inside our own workshop.

The dial is individually manufactured and finished in the CONSTANTIME atelier, as are the hands. These components give Genesis some of its strongest independent character and express our intention to gradually bring more of the creative and manufacturing process in-house.

At the heart of Genesis is the DB9 manual-winding movement, based on the architecture of the ETA 6497, with approximately 45 hours of power reserve. The 41 mm watch is deliberately produced on a very small scale: only 25 individually numbered pieces.

Genesis was never conceived as mass production. It is the first chapter in a much longer journey.

[IMAGE 2 -- after this section: Genesis in a Transylvanian architectural context.]

Behind the Watch: The Story of CONSTANTIME

The second perspective offered by MrWatchMaster turns from the watch itself towards its creator and the unconventional path that led to CONSTANTIME.

My route into watchmaking did not begin in a traditional watchmaking school.

I came to it through entrepreneurship, craftsmanship, experimentation and an enduring fascination with understanding how things are made. Alongside my work as a chocolatier, I have always been drawn to machines, tools and the process of transforming an idea into a physical object.

That curiosity gradually led from designing and building equipment to experimenting with manufacturing technologies and, eventually, to watchmaking. In 2011, I built my own 3D printer; later came CNC equipment and an increasingly capable workshop in which ideas could be tested and turned into physical components.

The first ideas that would become CONSTANTIME began taking shape years before the first watch was completed. What followed was a process of learning, experimenting and progressively developing the ability to make and finish more components within our own workshop.

MrWatchMaster’s profile presents this as an unconventional journey, but one in which creativity, precision and working with one’s own hands provide a common thread.

That journey continues today.

[IMAGE 3 -- here: Constantin A. Mureșan working in the CONSTANTIME atelier.]

More Than a Place of Origin

Transylvania is where CONSTANTIME was born, but we do not want the word simply to indicate an address on a watch.

Our ambition is for it to become part of a recognisable horological identity.

That does not mean reproducing historical objects or relying on folklore. It means looking at the architecture, materials, history and character of the region and asking how they can be translated into contemporary watchmaking.

Genesis was our first answer. Future watches will provide different ones.

This is also why increasing the work carried out inside our atelier is so important to us, as we explore in more detail on Our Story. The objective is not to replace Swiss mechanical watchmaking, which remains an important part of our watches, but to combine it with an increasingly distinctive Transylvanian contribution.

The relationship between local identity and Swiss mechanical technology closely reflects the direction in which CONSTANTIME is developing.

The Next Chapter Is Being Made

Genesis represents a beginning rather than a finished statement.

We are continuing to develop new techniques in our Târgu Mureș atelier, exploring dial and hand manufacturing, finishing, movement decoration and modification, while gradually increasing our ability to create components that carry a recognisable CONSTANTIME signature.

A proprietary case architecture is also part of this development, with the longer-term ambition of producing future cases in Romania.

The objective is gradual.

With every new watch, we want a little more of what the owner sees and touches to have passed through our hands.

Not because everything needs to be made under one roof, but because independent watchmaking becomes meaningful when the finished object carries the decisions, experiments and personality of the people who created it.

[IMAGE 4 -- optional: macro/detail of in-house work.]

An Independent Story Worth Telling

Seeing CONSTANTIME presented to an international watchmaking audience is important to us.

But what matters most is what has been recognised.

Not simply another mechanical watch, but an attempt to create something with a genuine sense of origin.

A small independent atelier in Târgu Mureș can work with Swiss mechanical movements while developing its own dials, hands, cases and finishing techniques. It can look to Transylvania for inspiration without remaining trapped in its past. And it can gradually develop its own vocabulary within contemporary independent watchmaking.

That is the journey CONSTANTIME has begun.

Genesis was the first chapter.

And the next chapters are already being made in our workshop in Transylvania.

Read the Original MrWatchMaster Features

Constantime Genesis: A Watch Born Beneath the Vaults of Transylvania
https://mrwatchmaster.com/constantime-genesis-a-watch-born-beneath-the-vaults-of-transylvania/

MrWatchMaster Meets… Constantin A. Mureșan
https://mrwatchmaster.com/mrwatchmaster-meets-constantin-a-muresan/