3D printing luxury watches: ALB & Sculpteo

Posted By Alexia Toulmet on Jul 29, 2014 | 2 comments

Several years ago, the designers of the French Brand ALB Watches decided to meet a challenge. They wanted to mix traditional craftsmanship, and modern technologies in order to design their luxury watches. Now all of their products integrate 3D printed components, printed through Sculpteo’s services.

From the beginning, Vincent Candellé-Tuheille and Simon-Pierre Delord, founders of the brand, had the same approach:

“ We wanted to create upmarket designs, using high quality components, such as Swiss movement, or great quality interlocking parts. It was essential to find a harmonization between art, craft and technology. The brand universe gradually found its way, but 3D printing quickly became an obvious choice”.

Having both 3D modeling background, the designers knew it offers great liberty of creation. Which was essential for their watches. As Simon-Pierre Delord explained us, “ALB’s main goal was to create a space in the watches dedicated to personal expression, that would allow us to tell stories”. What better way to achieve it than 3D printing?

“ 3D printing allows us to model up, and work the matter without constraints. We’ve been seduced by the materials Sculpteo offers, by their originality, their texture and their properties. For example, we could develop a new painting process which would allowing us to create a good looking impression of volume. That’s how we started working with Sculpteo coming up with multiple tests. Sculpteo’s team helped us to utilize all of the subtleties and potential of 3D printing.”

Now, they use 3D printed components to produce all of their watches. “It became so essential in the way we design our watches that we can’t imagine of using another technology.” Their mission is accomplished for sure since all the parts are entirely hand-assembled.

If you want to learn more about their adventure take a look at the watches available, or at their website. Or if you have a great project in mind, requiring some advice don’t hesitate to shoot our sales team a message.

Vincent Candelle Thueille

Simon Pierre Delord