It’s the first watch in the Swiss watch industry that is made out of 100% recycled and certified stainless steel. The recycled stainless steel has been used for the case, dial and buckle. The watches are designed and produced in-house at @watchangels, this process is done to minimize an objective sustainability index. This tool-watch #cbo1gmt reaches an 87.59% sustainable score. This watch just makes perfect sense to be featured here because this is an awesome take on watches in nature. A watch that was made with the conscious mind of helping to protect our environment. I absolutely love that and it’s exactly that what made me take notice of this brand.
About the man behind the brand:
“From a young age Cedric Bellon was fascinated by sciences, nature and crafts. He first studied geology and then laureated in product design at L’Ecole de Design Nantes Atlantique. At the age of 26 he discovered watch design and sent some concepts to Swiss watch brands. Bell & Ross, TAG
Heuer and Longines gave him a chance and became his first clients. From then on, he was hooked by horology and made watch design his full-time career in 2005. Cedric is an advocate for sustainability in the watch industry.”
I absolutely love how @cedricbellonwatches carried the brushed details throughout this entire piece. From the dial to the case, right down to the god damn buckle! That right there is one of the best examples of commitment to design and follow through. The brushed details are what drew me into this watch, and what drew to CB’s watches to begin with from a design and detail perspective. The brushed details add so much to this skin diver goodness of a watch.
CB strives on its sustainability and environmental consciousness with their watches, so it only makes sense that the dial is clean of harmful paints or chemicals. The dial is just a clean, brushed to perfection backdrop. I love when the dial hits certain lighting you can see the vertical brushstrokes. I tried to capture this in some of these pictures. I also tried to capture the brush strokes on the hands which is most apparent on the second hand and the GMT hand. When I see this amount of commitment to design details on a watch it is a huge indicator of the passion of the watchmaker themselves.
Cedric is just as passionate about his watches as he is the environment and it’s so intoxicating that it draws in your attention. Your attention to listen to what he has to say about sustainability, the environment and his watches. For me, this combination adds magic and mystique to the watches and makes me appreciate them even more so. An appreciation that makes me want to study the watch even further and to understand it’s personality & soul.
Yes I said soul, because their are some watches that have such soul to their inception, their design and their execution. I can see and feel this in every single brush stroke that is on this dial, the case and even the buckle. Those who don’t know or understand what makes me tick will see this watch and be like “This isn’t one of those giant beasts of a watch that you always have” Size has nothing to do what draws me to a watch. The inner beast of the watch is what draws me in. The inner beast is the passion of the watchmaker, the commitment to details, the quality control, engineering and the overall execution. That’s what attracts me to a watch.
There is so much soul and personality that encompasses this watch that makes it larger than life to me. As I spend more time with this watch, studying it’s details, it is allowing me to gain insight into Cedric’s vision for his brand. The meticulous details, right down to the smallest of brush stroke tells a story. It tells a story of a man who is extremely passionate about watches and is just as passionate about the well being of nature itself. So maybe this watch connects with me on a multitude of levels, but regardless of that connection, there’s no denying that Cedric spent a lot of time designing this watch and executing those designs without compromising his love of the environment nor his love of horology.
You can see his passion in the brush strokes on the fixed bezel and on the lugs & the side of the case. The fine and uniform strokes are like that of an artist who’s brush on the canvas is bringing more life with each stroke. The brush strokes on this case give this case life and a sense of movement. I can say the same thing about the dial too. The finish on both the case and the dial are important details into understanding what this watch is all about. In my opinion these details are just as important as details like the screw down crown or the highly visible orange tip of the GMT hand.
The perfectly proportioned hands give life to this dial and the beautiful hour markers complement the hands like a work of art.
The CB01 GMT was the perfect companion for this mission. It was cool to have this watch in its proper setting. This dial is so incredibly legible in natural lighting it’s ridiculous….. ridiculously good! For those of you who feel the weight of watches, this watch is very light on the wrist but and not in a “feels cheap” sort of way either. It has nice wrist presence despite how compact the case actually is. There are some watches that their details get lost on the wrist because the case is quite tiny, but the CB01 doesn’t sacrifice any details due to it’s compact size.
The short lugs allow the watch to hug the wrist well. The small amount of polished finish gives a bit of detail against the mostly brushed finish case. I think the lugs are quite beautiful. One area I would suggest a change in order to provide additional strength to the drilled lugs design would be to swap out the quick release spring bars for some solid screw bars. When I make suggestions I am not dissing on a company’s design choices, I suggest things that I personally think would strengthen the wearing experience of the watch.
This watch has a screw-in solid caseback that is simple and beautiful at the same time. Sometimes you don’t need an engraving or unnecessary details like an exhibition caseback, sometimes just having what gets the job done is all that you need. That’s what I appreciate about this watch. That is one of the main mission points of this watch in my opinion. gives you what you need, nothing more in terms of unnecessary details and it’s done respectfully and responsibly in terms of its sustainability mantra!
Packed full of those little details that make a watch truly special, that is exactly the strong points of @cedricbellonwatches GMT01-90! It’s packed with thoughtful and well planned out details, that work together in perfect horological harmony. And much like this horological harmony, Cedric’s vision of sustainability allows this watch to work in harmony with nature itself. That harmony, that exact harmony is what adds something to this watch that is so incredible special and important to this nature loving watch geek!
I love the laser etched CB logo and the watch angels logo on the inside of the lugs. It was fun trying to photograph those tiny but awesome details. I also wanted to highlight the finishing on the lugs, chamfering and all! The short lugs obviously allow this watch to wear well within it’s dimensions.
I know case size is extremely important to some people and despite my personal feelings on case size, I can’t criticize a person for having personal preferences in that category. I just don’t want it to be so extreme that a watch is written off because of case size dimensions before the watch is physically experienced. Case: 39mm by 47mm lug to lug, 11.44mm thick, 42.75 from non crown side of the case to the outer edge of the crown.
This watch is a joy to wear because of all its wonderful details. It’s one of those watches that is a functional powerhouse but looks damn good while being a powerhouse.
The quality and quality control is top notch. Well exceeding a shit ton of hype brands I’ve owned over the years.
Engineering, quality and quality control are areas that are extremely important to me. They are the driving force behind whether a watch stays in my collection or gets kicked out. Cedric did a phenomenal job ensuring that each watch exceeds expectations in those categories.
This watch has such a cohesive relationship with nature. Cedric ensured this with his dedication to sustainability. “The most sustainable for the planet is, of course, no production at all. The next best alternative is to use what is already available insetad of producing something new. That’s why the CB01 encases only movements that have been sourced from unused stocks.” The CB01 GMT 90 uses a repurposed Soprod C125 automatic GMT movement.
“Its fascinating inception and history, so vast and so small… Our beautiful and only home. I cannot ignore it.”-Cedric Bellon
“Case, dial and buckle are made of 100% recycled and certified stainless steel, produced in Europe. An industry first born from a collaboration between Thyssen Krupp and Watch Angels.”
“From hand-tools to tool watch. In a world dominated by complex digital devices, hand-tools are soothing landmarks which are dedicated to a single purpose, made to age, and not predestined to obsolescence. They embody simplicity and sustainability.” I have several old hand tools that are close to 100 years old. I often think of all the things they must have built over their lifetime and the things that are yet to be built. The same thing that I think about the watches I own. I think of all the memories they have timed and the memories that they have yet to time. For this watch, I wonder where the movement originated from and think how cool that it’s ticking away inside the CB01.
The CB01 GMT90 is such a beauty of a watch from lug to lug and everything in between. As beautiful as this watch is to the eye, the more important details are in the function. A watch can be a perfect 10/10 aesthetically speaking but if the functions are rubbish, what good are the looks?!?
I appreciate a screw down ever so much, especially at work because I have to constantly put on and take off gloves. Every time I remove my gloves it pulls out the crown on my watch. Screw down crowns are essential for the watches I wear at work. Thankfully the crown on this watch functions without any of the slightest flaws. I had no issues with unscrewing/screwing the crown. The crown functioned smoothly for manually winding the Soprod movement and smoothly operated when setting the time, the GMT hand and the date.
This movement has a 42 hour power reserve and has been keeping extremely accurate timing well under the +/- 10 seconds a day gain/loss. What’s more important to me than extreme accuracy?!? Legibility! That is more important to me. From the time to the date, everything is quick, at a glance legible. That’s exactly how I prefer my watches. Sometimes a crucial but quick glance is all I can manage, therefore it’s very important to be able to tell the time, sometimes down to the second crucial. The hands are perfect in terms of length and width and the lume on this dial allows for great legibility in dark.
This watch is packed full of wonderful details. I have to say that there are some details that stuck out for me, more than others. For example, the fixed bezel. I love how precise the brush strokes are on this bezel. The signed crown is another lovely detail that adds to the overall finished look on this watch. Finally, the last detail that I completely admire on this watch is the brushed dial. In certain light the dial appears to be matte black but then in other light conditions you can see the brushed strokes that beautifully compliment the dial.
Cedric’s mission to maintain a high sustainability percentage on his watches has definitely made this more than just a watch for me. Nature is so important to me and my relationship with nature is something that I make a conscious effort to be respectful of 24/7. And from a watch perspective, this watch is so well executed from all of the aesthetic details, to the actual function. The quality control is top notch, rivaling & surpassing many hype brands. Rest assured that you won’t find dust specs or fingerprints under the crystal. Everything aligns exactly where it should be and each detail is applied with precision. If you are a nature lover and a watch nerd like me, this is definitely a brand you need to check out. I am quite impressed by Cedric and his creations.
WATCHES IN NATURE – GMT review and interview by Stephen Mazinger
- What initially made you interested in watches?
My taste for nicely crafted items.
From my childhood I was fascinated by utility products. Details, textures, finishes, materials, shapes and proportions all dedicated to a function, a use. Tools, watches, they embody the care with which they have been designed, developed and manufactured. I like to know furthermore that they are made to age, can be used for long and don’t require fuel or electricity. It makes them timeless products for timeless purposes.
- Do you remember your first watch? What was it?
Yes I do, it was in the eighties, a manual-winding watch from Kelton, a french brand offering affordable watches. My father gave it to me. It wasn’t very accurate but I was fascinated by this item that was working when I cared about it and stopped if I neglected it. A good lesson for a kid to learn that your actions and the lack of it too have consequences.
Late in the night I was used to listen to it, ticking fast and delicately, when my friends quartz watches were slowly and loudly ticking each second. I think I was lucky to enter the watch world by discovering it thanks to a mechanical one.
However the first watch that for me appeared as a marvel was a solid gold ultra-thin pocket watch my father got from his own grand-father. Actually it was a non-branded Cartier bought in England in the early XXth century. At that time brands exported watches without logo in order to avoid paying a tax on luxury products. These products were then cheaper and had quite a success thanks to it. The watch is magnificent. You can open the case-back to admire the decorated ultra-thin manual movement.
I still own it, it is more than a century old and it starts ticking at the first crown move. What a great clue about the quality of this watch…
- Where do you get your inspiration from when you start the design process for a new model?
With my clients I often have technical specifications and marketing guidelines, depending on what they need to create for their collections. The mood of the project, the universe the watch belongs to (sporty, dressy, classical, futuristic…) leads the creation time. Inspiration is mainly work brewed with the visual ”culture” the project is dipped in.
With CB, it’s a bit different. The aesthetic work (what the watch looks like) is quite close. Sustainablity however makes the whole process from creation to production much more complex. The watch industry is not made for such guidelines. Materials, tooling, industrial and chemical processes, supply chain, everything requires huge amount of energy, creates a lot of waste, pollution, and depends on a worldwide transport scale.
The first step was to start with what I had at hand (my industrial partners facilities, skills and toolings) and find a way to produce everything we can in-house and keep it as local as possible.
They produce watch case components, they know how to work stainless steel.
That’s why I started with a simple tool-watch, with a low machining time and a dial made out of the same material. Challenging but like this, we produce almost all the components in the same place. Here you can imagine that the sustainable guidelines influenced a lot the way CB watches were designed, especially with the dials.
I wanted them raw to avoid all the usual chemical processes. We only decided to go for a simple coating (PVD) on the GMT to offer different colors; and even here we cared about the environmental impact by working with a close supplier that allowed us to take advantage of its planned sessions: when one is not full, CB parts are added in the crowd of component to be coated.
The cherry on the cake was the 100% recycled stainless steel.
CB was the very first watch brand to be able to use it because it was made just for the brand! Here is what happened.
Watch Angels reached a Thyssenkrupp’s R&D laboratory in Switzerland to know if they had already such a material. They had something close but not 100%. However they liked the idea and decided to make a cast only for us. A challenge of it was that we can use only the expected alloy, otherwise it needs additives. We had then to find a way to collect 316L stainless steel exclusively.
In the end, we did it. Some watches projects around claim they use 100% recycled stainless steel, and it is a good thing that brands start to go on this path, but I think we are the only ones to have an official certification…
I am waiting also for different promising initiatives in that field. Energy and materials scarcity will increase, then we all must study how to produce less, to waste less, to use less. Both in terms of production and consumption.
– Why is sustainability so important for you on a personal level and on a wide scale level?
I feel bonded to nature. We all are made out of nature, being alive. We live in it, thanks to it. We depend on it. For everything. Nature provides everything we need for free. What we breathe, drink, eat, sea, where we live, play, grow. Caring about it seems the most important thing to do now.
Growing children who are aware of it may change the way the society works, they could do what my generation and the ones before did not. Questioning our ways of life, our choices, our motivations. I changed a lot of things in my personal life and I do my best to see my professional life change too.
From a wider perspective, I do not think ”save the planet” speeches are efficient. These are marketing or political words. The purpose of our generation and the next ones should be making everything possible to preserve decent conditions of life on Earth. The only place we have so far.
Basically we know what to do but we don’t know how in a globalized economy. Reconsidering our comfortable and opulent ways of life is hard. Questioning the economical structures is hard. Changing the political processes is hard. Sharing resources that start to scarce with more people is hard. Knowing how the world’s population will really evolve is hard. The topic is complex, dividing and quite emotional.
Producing watches also has an environmental impact, yet I try to show that it’s possible to do it in a more virtuous way by questioning the production processes and find out solutions to decrease their impact.
Finally I think it is important to keep a contact with unplugged items or devices such as mechanical watches: today they are some of the rare personal products which do not require to be connected to any network to work properly. No battery, no gas or fuel, no wifi. Just like hand tools: once a watch is produced, its environmental impact is close to zero for the next decades it can will work.
– Do you have a favorite watch brand outside of your brand?
I sure have several.
I admire the work of independant watchmakers. No matter the price range or if they are from Switzerland, Germany, Japan, USA or Finland, they often embody the creation and the craft by hand.
As a brand, Richard Mille does clearly not represent sustainable ways of life, but I am amazed by the creativity he had to push horology in the XXIst century.
And there is something special with Bell & Ross. They were one of my very first client and we still work together after 18 years. A nice collaboration with a small team (almost a family) under the design direction of Bruno Belamich, one of the two founders.
– Why did you choose to go with WA?
It is about industrial processes and awareness.
They are part of each project they work for by investing in the tooling and the sourcing, and they offer an online distribution platform. With this new system, I had the opportunity to start without buying a whole stock of watches (only what is pre-sold is produced > no waste) and I have access to a selling tool. The platform speaks mainly to watch enthusiasts, but the community is growing, enlarging the audience to new kinds of people.
Furthermore, they were openminded enough to question their own industrial processes (including sourcing, ie. the recycled stainless steel) and re-work them to fit with new environmental guidelines. Which is very rare yet.
It is probably one of the best ways to start such a watchmaking project
Thank you for reading! I appreciate the support.
Thank you to Cedric and Watch Angels.
For more info and how to order this watch, click the link below.
https://watchangels.ch/en/watches/cedric-bellon/
To read more about Cedric Bellon, click the link below:
Time to Blog Watches 