LEGARE Chapter 1 AGP Inverted: An Alternate History of Watchmaking on the Wrist

What if the history of watchmaking had followed a different path? What if certain forgotten inventions had never been abandoned? It is around this particularly seductive idea that LEGARE builds its identity. For its first chapter, the young Swiss house revives an astonishing double balance pocket watch imagined in 1932 by Albert-Gustave Piguet. But rather than reproducing it, it imagines what it could have become nearly a century later. This is the LEGARE Chapter 1 AGP Inverted.

There are several ways to create a watch brand. One can invent a story, seek an immediately identifiable aesthetic, or attempt to offer a new complication. Wei Koh and Guillaume Tetu chose a fourth path: setting out in search of paths that the history of watchmaking could have taken… but ultimately abandoned.

A form of mechanical archaeology, in short.

This is indeed how the founders of LEGARE like to define their approach: rediscovering forgotten watchmaking possibilities and then giving them a contemporary existence. The name itself comes from the Latin legare, ‘to hand down as a legacy.’ Founded in late 2024 and based in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the house intends to build each of its creations around a ‘What if?’

And to open its first chapter, it went searching for a particularly delicious story.

Albert-Gustave Piguet before Lemania

The name Albert-Gustave Piguet is not entirely unknown to enthusiasts of fine mechanics. He is intimately associated with Lemania, where he became technical director, and above all with the development of the famous CH 27 caliber, better known as the Lemania 2310. An architecture that would go on to have an extraordinary lineage, notably giving rise to the Omega 321 caliber and powering some of the most important chronographs in watchmaking history.

But before all that, Albert-Gustave Piguet was a young watchmaking student. In 1932, he was only 17 years old when he studied at the École d’horlogerie de la Vallée de Joux. As part of his training, he made an astonishing pocket watch fitted with two large independent bimetallic balance wheels linked to a mechanical differential. The principle is as intellectually elegant as it is mechanically ambitious: rather than entrusting the running of the watch to a single oscillator, two balance wheels work independently. The differential then takes on the task of averaging their rates before transmitting that information to the gear train. Only six watches of this type are said to have been made between 1932 and 1934, in three different movement sizes. A remarkable experiment… which would nonetheless have no real industrial descendants. At least not immediately.

An idea that never completely disappeared

The interest of this story goes far beyond Albert-Gustave Piguet alone. These two balance wheel and differential school watches left a lasting mark on the watchmaking culture of the Vallée de Joux. Several decades later, Philippe Dufour in turn took an interest in this principle when he devised his famous Duality. Presented in 1996, it also used two independent balance wheels linked to a differential tasked with averaging their rate. It is said that Dufour discovered the principle through a Vallée de Joux school watch before miniaturizing the whole thing to fit it into a wristwatch.

This adds further depth to the LEGARE project. Because the Chapter 1 AGP Inverted is not presented as a reproduction of Albert-Gustave Piguet’s watch. It offers an imagined evolution of it. The question posed by Wei Koh and Guillaume Tetu could ultimately be summed up as follows: ” What would this architecture have become if Albert-Gustave Piguet had decided, in 1932, to pursue its development for nearly a century? ” The Chapter 1 AGP Inverted is their answer.

Two hearts, but no resonance

A first glance at the watch could naturally bring to mind certain contemporary timepieces working on the principle of resonance. That is not the case. The two balance wheels of the LEGARE remain independent. They seek neither to communicate nor to synchronize with each other. Each oscillates at 21,600 vibrations per hour, while a planetary differential receives their information and continuously establishes the average. The differential also takes part in distributing energy between the two oscillators. The distinction is important.

In a resonance watch, the oscillators seek to interact in order to progressively synchronize their frequencies. Here, it is precisely their independence that is sought. The differential becomes the mechanical arbiter tasked with making the most of their respective behavior. Two hearts, then, but a single pulse transmitted to the hands. And this is probably where the Chapter 1 becomes truly fascinating.

A completely inverted movement

LEGARE did not simply miniaturize the 1932 principle. The LC1-AGP-01 caliber was inverted in order to place its two regulating organs on the dial side. The mechanical spectacle thus becomes an integral part of the display. The two balance wheels occupy the lower part of the watch while the barrel sits above them. The center of the barrel and those of the two balance wheels form an almost perfect triangle, while the gear train is arranged vertically at the heart of the movement. The differential finally drives the small seconds placed at 6 o’clock.

This exposed movement could easily have descended into a disorganized mechanical display. That is not the case. A sapphire ring preserves genuine time reading with a printed minute track, Roman numerals, and applied indexes. The blued, mirror polished steel hands stand out clearly above this particularly demonstrative architecture. The mechanics are therefore not merely shown. They become the dial.

Tourbillon escapements to gain a few precious millimeters

Getting two balance wheels to coexist in a 37.5 mm watch is obviously an additional challenge. LEGARE and Purtech, its movement partner, chose for this a decidedly unusual architecture: each of the two balance wheels is paired with a laterally arranged lever escapement, a construction usually found in certain tourbillons or in older movements intended for chronometry competitions. This arrangement makes it possible to obtain a caliber of just 13 lines, or 29.33 mm, compact enough to fit into the case chosen by the brand.

LEGARE states that this is the first simultaneous use of two escapements of this type in a single watch. The two hairsprings also feature Breguet or Phillips type terminal curves and are mounted in opposite directions at 180 degrees, with the aim of reducing certain positional errors linked to the imperfectly concentric development of the hairspring. Now that is real watchmaking substance.

37.5 mm: complication can also remain elegant

The other excellent surprise comes from the proportions. The Chapter 1 AGP Inverted is housed in a Grade 5 titanium case measuring 37.5 mm in diameter for just 9.95 mm in thickness, sapphire crystals included. Its water resistance is rated at 5 ATM. At a time when certain displays of Haute Horlogerie have long assumed that complex mechanics automatically justified imposing cases, this relative discretion deserves to be highlighted.

The silhouette borrows certain codes from hand made cases of the 1930s and 1940s: a stepped bezel, particularly pronounced flanks, angular lugs, and a play of polished or satin finished surfaces. The result carries a faint retro scent without ever falling into neo vintage territory. And the titanium serves as a reminder that we are indeed in 2026.

Elegant or Darth: two interpretations of a single movement

Two versions inaugurate this first chapter. The Chapter 1 AGP Inverted Elegant presents its movement in untreated nickel silver. The bridges display Côtes de Genève while the bevels and countersinks benefit from mirror polished surfaces. The Darth, distinctly more contemporary in expression, adopts a black rhodium treatment over a finely sandblasted surface, still contrasted by mirror polished bevels and countersinks.

These are therefore not simply two colors. The two watches have noticeably different personalities. Elegant maintains more of a dialogue with the historical piece and traditional Vallée de Joux watchmaking. Darth transforms the same mechanical construction into a much more graphic and almost futuristic object. In both cases, finishing appears to have been placed very high on the specifications. The escapement bridges notably feature genuine hand made inward angles. The bevels are wide and mirror polished, as are the countersinks surrounding the screw heads. Several steel elements also receive a specular black polish. An elegant way of recalling that an old idea only truly matters today if its execution lives up to its history.

A networked Swiss Haute Horlogerie

LEGARE also plays it straight when it comes to the manufacturing of its watch. And that is appreciable enough to be pointed out. The caliber is developed and produced with PURTEC / TEC Group. The case and buckle are machined by UM2, before being finished by Polissage des Franches-Montagnes. The dials come from FABRIKA, the sapphire components from SEBAL, and the hands from WAEBER HMS.

Product development, sourcing, final assembly, and quality control are coordinated by GLS2F in La Chaux-de-Fonds. The brand specifies that all of these partners are located within a radius of about 100 kilometers around Neuchâtel. LEGARE offers two further details: the straps are made by Jean Rousseau, while Alfred Chan is credited as the design partner. This transparency is interesting. Above all, it recalls a reality of independent Swiss watchmaking that Maximilian Büsser once revealed: knowing how to bring together the best specialists around a project is also a skill in itself.

Wei Koh and Guillaume Tetu, two complementary profiles

This ability to bring people together is obviously not unrelated to the two founders’ backgrounds. Wei Koh is one of the best known figures in the international watch press. Founder of Revolution and The Rake, he has spent a quarter century in contact with brands, independent watchmakers, and collectors. Guillaume Tetu, for his part, knows the industry from the inside. Co-founder and former CEO of Hautlence, former global head of watches and jewelry at Ralph Lauren, he now runs GLS2F, a company specialized in watchmaking development.

The partnership between the two undoubtedly explains a great deal about this Chapter 1. To one, watchmaking culture, knowledge of collectors, and this obsession with certain little known stories. To the other, experience in the development and industrialization of a complex watchmaking project. The result is not a watch created to artificially tell a story. Here, it is the story that seems to have prompted the creation of the watch.

Fifty watches to open the first chapter

Each of the two versions will be produced in a run of 25 numbered pieces, for a total production limited to 50 watches for this first chapter. The price is set at 81,944 CHF excluding taxes. The hand wound caliber features 34 jewels and offers a power reserve announced at more than 50 hours. We therefore step straight into the territory of independent Haute Horlogerie and micro production. But the real question is perhaps not so much whether this first LEGARE is expensive. It is rather what the brand will manage to do with its concept.

In search of a time… that never existed

Because this Chapter 1 AGP Inverted ultimately holds something even more interesting than its double balance wheel. It plants an idea.

Watchmaking loves looking back at its past. Reissues, tributes, and reinterpretations have become commonplace. LEGARE proposes a noticeably different approach: not reproducing what existed, but imagining what could have existed. This is why this Chapter 1 could almost be described as a watchmaking alternate history. Albert-Gustave Piguet did indeed design his double balance wheel pocket watch in 1932. But the watch it could have produced after nine decades of continuous development never existed. LEGARE has just invented it.

This first creation will probably not please everyone. Its very present mechanics, its price positioning, and the extreme exclusivity of its production naturally make it an object intended for a few discerning collectors. But it has a much rarer quality: it makes you want to know what comes next. Because after opening a first chapter devoted to Albert-Gustave Piguet, only one question now remains: Which other forgotten idea from watchmaking history will LEGARE go looking for to write the next chapter?

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