Founded in 2013 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland, by watch design engineer Rémi Maillat, Krayon began not as a traditional maison but as a specialised engineering studio devoted to solving the most intricate mechanical challenges of contemporary horology. It swiftly gained prominence with its complex, custom made movements and groundbreaking creations such as Everywhere in 2017 and Anywhere in 2020, timepieces capable of displaying precise sunrise and sunset times tailored to the wearer’s geographic location, thereby redefining astronomical watchmaking through pure mechanical computation. From this formidable foundation of celestial mastery and intellectual audacity now emerges the Krayon Anyday Rose Gold, extending the brand’s philosophy from mapping the arc of the sun to reimagining the cadence of the calendar, and in doing so establishing a new benchmark in independent Swiss watchmaking.
The Krayon Anyday does not shout its ingenuity; it reveals it, layer by deliberate layer. The 39mm case, lugs, polished bezel, and a crown at 3 o’clock are sculpted in 18K rose gold and standing a remarkably restrained 9.5 mm thick. An anthracite grey dial feels modern and methodical with the darker palette not being merely aesthetic theatre. It sharpens contrast, allowing the calendar to breathe with heightened clarity. Here, readability is not an afterthought but the governing principle.
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The month unfolds with an almost architectural rhythm, orchestrated through two superimposed discs that have been hand painted by André Martinez, a craftsman based in Le Locle. Weekdays appear in anthracite, weekends in gold. There are no words, no windows, no abbreviations interrupting the dial’s equilibrium. Instead, colour alone communicates the cadence of time. Five days in one tone, two in another. A visual five and two tempo that the eye instinctively understands. The result is disarmingly intuitive. One glance, even fleeting, and the entire month declares itself without confusion. Practicality, too, is handled with elegance. By simply pulling the crown to position one, the wearer may turn it clockwise to advance the date or anti clockwise to correct the day of the week. There is no labyrinthine ritual, no arcane sequence to memorise. The intelligence of the mechanism is matched by the simplicity of interaction.
Yet, the true intellectual flourish lies in how Anyday addresses a subtle but persistent challenge of full month displays. When the 31st sits directly beside the 1st, the eye can momentarily stumble, mistaking continuity for reset. On paper, it is a minor inconvenience. On the wrist, it disrupts comprehension. Krayon’s answer is as poetic as it is practical: four discreet dots. These dots act first as a gentle visual buffer, an elegant pause between months. They prevent the 1 from visually colliding with the 31. But they do more than separate. They extend the logic of the calendar itself. By adding four additional positions to the traditional 31 day layout, the display expands to 35 positions, precisely five full weeks. The month is no longer constrained by conventional calendar architecture. It is presented as a complete, coherent cycle.
And those four dots at 6 o’clock extra positions carry meaning. They reveal the day of week rhythm for the first four days of the upcoming month, using the same weekday and weekend colour coding. Simultaneously, they anchor the closing days of the previous month, ensuring continuity rather than rupture. What has just passed and what is about to begin are visually connected. The calendar feels fluid, not segmented. Time, here, does not abruptly reset. It flows. The governing principle behind Anyday remains deliberately practical. Every month is treated as a 31 day month. The wearer therefore performs only five manual corrections per year, for those months with 28 or 30 days. It offers the straightforwardness of a classic calendar watch, yet with far greater clarity and far more information continuously visible on the dial.
At midnight, the mechanism performs its quiet theatre. Energy is accumulated steadily over 24 hours and then released in a fraction of a second. The day jumps forward instantly. The transition from the 31st to the 1st is equally immediate, preserving the calm and confident rhythm of the display. There is no creeping hesitation, no mechanical ambiguity. Only decisive motion. Beneath this composed exterior lies the in house Calibre C032, a movement composed of 378 components. At the core of its calendar system are two cams: one charged every 24 hours to drive the instantaneous daily jump, and a larger cam governing the date progression and end of month transition. It is engineering executed with intellectual clarity.
Finishing, as one would expect, is uncompromising. Sharp chamfers and inward angles articulate the bridges. Their inner contours echo the shoreline of Lake Neuchâtel. The main plate is animated by Krayon waves. The guilloché dial bears the unmistakable Y motif, a signature that anchors innovation in identity. The Anyday Rose Gold is not content with simply displaying the date. It rethinks how a month should be seen, understood and experienced. In doing so, it transforms a familiar complication into something quietly revolutionary: a calendar that feels less like a grid of numbers and more like the natural rhythm of passing days. Powering the watch is Caliber C032, a manual winding movement offering a 72-hour power reserve. Turing the watch showcases the sapphire open caseback. The watch is finished on an anthracite lizard leather strap, with a rose gold buckle and pin.
