Description

The Micro Rotor watch shows the hours and minutes on a main dial, with a small seconds sub-dial set into it down at six o'clock. And that's it. The rest of the space is used to display the engineering and finishing that has gone into the watch – and boy does it have a lot to show.

On the face of things, the Insight is a very simple watch. It measures 39.5mm across and 12.9mm at its thickest point (more on that second part in a minute).

It's also automatic, wound via a micro-rotor, and it tells you just the hours, minutes, and seconds. But, as we know, simplicity can sometimes hide great complexity, and that's exactly what's going on with this watch.

The frosted mainplate has a large aperture cut out at nine o'clock, where you'll find a huge, sweeping bridge holding up the namesake micro-rotor. By giving each component soft brushed or frosted finish and then a sharply beveled edge, each is clearly defined and seems to jump out against the component behind it. The result has an almost graphic quality to it.

The movement is 32.1mm x 6.8mm and made of 206 components (28 of which are jewels). There are two barrels that run in series, which provides more consistent power to the regulator through the full 80-hour power reserve. For the automatic winding system, Gauthier opted for a 3.86g solid gold micro-rotor, which is more massive than what you'd typically find on a watch of this size. For that reason, it has bridges on both sides to provide additional stability and reliability.

The movement is quite exceptional with hand-beveling, hand-polishing, snailing, straight- and circular-graining, and even hand-frosting throughout.