What is a pièce unique, and how does commissioning one actually work?

A pièce unique is a watch designed from zero for one owner, built a single time, and then retired — the design is never made again for anyone. It is not a customised version of an existing watch, and it is not a limited edition. Here is how it differs from both, and what actually happens between the first email and the finished watch.

How is it different from a customised watch or a limited edition?

Customisation starts from a design that already exists. You choose from what is on offer — a strap, an engraving, a colour — and after your watch is delivered the model carries on being made for other people. There is nothing wrong with that. But the design was there before you, and it stays after you.

A limited edition is also a design that exists independently of you: one design, made a fixed number of times, each owner holding the same watch with a different number. Our Signature Series with Tom Aspinall works that way — an edition of 28, numbered on the 3/4 plate.

A pièce unique starts on a blank page. There is no base model to modify and no options list to inherit. One is not a number we picked for effect; it follows from the design being made for one particular person. When the watch is delivered, the design is put away.

Does "from zero" mean every part is made from raw material?

It can. Whether it does is the client's call — and this is the part I want to be careful about, because it is the sentence people repeat.

For our series watches we say out loud what we buy in. The base calibre is a Swiss ETA 6498, which we modify and refinish ourselves. The leather straps are made for us by a Finnish leather artisan. The boxes come from a specialist. Sapphire crystals and gaskets are bought.

In a pièce unique, that line can move. If a client wants every part made from raw material, including the movement, we are willing to take it on. Willing is the exact word, and I want it read exactly. I helped build a wall-clock movement from the ground up during an Erasmus+ project with a French horology school in Morteau; the headmaster's written statement from February 2025 credits me with a central role in the build. A wristwatch movement from scratch is a different scale of work, and we have not delivered one. If that is what you want, we will tell you plainly what it would mean before you commit to anything. I would rather lose a commission than promise work we have not done.

How does a commission start?

With a conversation, not a form. Write to reach@reigi.fi. I take those first conversations. Tell us what the watch is for, who it is for, whether there is a person or a date or an object behind it, and what you have disliked about the watches you have owned. That last one is often the most useful thing you can say. Nothing is drawn and nothing is owed at that stage. Some of these conversations turn into commissions and some don't, and both are normal.

Who draws it — you or us?

You do. When a commission opens, the client gets a private page of their own. We built it ourselves and call it the dream visualizer, and the unusual part is who holds the pen.

In it you choose the shape and the size, the metal, the dial, the hands, what the watch should be able to do, how the movement is finished, the strap, the engraving — and the drawing on the screen changes as you choose. It keeps real time while you look at it. There are no prices in it and no catalogue to shop from. You can save the link, leave it for a week, change your mind, show it to someone whose opinion you trust, and write free text where the options run out. When it looks like yours, you send it in. That drawing becomes the starting point of the commission — the thing we sit down with and argue about properly.

The page is not public and it cannot be bought. It opens with a commission. Once the build begins, that same page is where you follow the work.

When is the price agreed?

After the design, not before. A watch that does not exist cannot have a price list, so the price is set together with the final design. From there the terms are our ordinary commission terms: a 50 % reservation confirms the commission, paid by bank transfer; shipping is insured; the watch carries a five-year warranty from delivery with its first full service included, and a 14-day return period, unworn and in original condition. The terms in full are on the site.

Who is this not for?

Anyone in a hurry. Anyone who wants a menu with a price beside each option. Anyone who wants us to decide for them — we will give you our opinion, sometimes bluntly, but the direction has to be yours or there is no point doing it this way. And if you are not comfortable committing money to an object that does not exist yet, that is a reasonable position, and you should buy a finished watch instead. There is no version of this where the watch exists first.

We take these rarely — one person builds everything here. Saying yes to one commission means saying not yet to another.

Describe the watch to us at reach@reigi.fi — or come to Jyväskylä by appointment and do it in person, which is usually better.