Meet the Romain Gauthier Insight

With Insight Micro-Rotor, Romain Gauthier has created a high-end, automatic timepiece that offers the best of all worlds: Elegance and efficiency, precision and power, simplicity and splendor.

Insight Micro-Rotor’s hour, minute and small second indications are powered by a beautifully hand-finished, in-house caliber built from the ground up and boasting bi-directional micro-rotor made from 22k solid gold. This compact oscillating weight – visible dial side and through the display back – turns fluidly and noiselessly between two bridges, each fitted with a friction-minimizing, wear-resistant ruby bearing.

However subtly and in whichever direction the micro-rotor swings, it is working away, winding a double mainspring barrel that, when fully wound, offers a generous 80 hours of power. The two barrels are in series for more constant power to the regulator, meaning the movement’s rate holds up whatever the state of wind.

It is not just the mechanical efficiency that is elegant: Insight Micro-Rotor’s open dial is a harmonious picture of details, depth and mesmerizing animation.

Sweeping around the center are the small seconds surrounded by the hour-minute subdial at 12 o’clock, beating balance at 6 o’clock and, at 9 o’clock, the swaying micro-rotor, framed within a remarkable void created by a circular cut-out in the mainplate. A plaquette with Romain Gauthier logo provides a smart visual counterpoint to the micro-rotor, while the curvaceous, hand-beveled bridges evenly spaced around the periphery glint in the light, their arcs marrying with the inner contours of the case.

In a neat design touch, the bombé sapphire crystal covering the dial gradually rises towards 12 o’clock before steeply dropping again. And the case’s modest 39.5mm diameter ensures that Insight Micro-Rotor sits very comfortably, even on slimmer wrists.

The observer is treated to more views of the movement through the display back. Here the micro-rotor continues to steal the show as it sets the visible train of gears in motion, starting with the reversing gear that lends the mechanism its bi-directionality. The gears and ratchets stand out for their circular arms that feature eye-catching bevels. Meanwhile, the bridges are decorated with hand-made, hand polished bevels and jewel countersinks and are fixed in place using Romain Gauthier’s signature screws with aesthetic S-slot. The sinuosity of the bridges is superbly counterpoised by the four linear plaquettes adorning them.

Romain Gauthier has designed Insight Micro-Rotor’s movement to be highly visible so the viewer can gain an instant appreciation of the spectacular mechanics and fine finishing, giving rise to the name “Insight.”