"The off-centered dial was inspired by Lange & Sohne's Lange 1 as I thought it a very nicely balanced design."

Regarding the winding mechanism: from an engineering/mechanical point of view, distributing power from the crown via a long thin winding stem then turning it through 90° to the mainspring barrel appeared to be an overly complicated approach. Ubiquitous perhaps and well refined over the years; however, Romain was starting from a clean sheet of paper.

"I had the idea to put the crown under the watch and asked Philippe (Dufour) if there was any reason why I couldn't/shouldn't. He told me that both Jaeger leCoultre and Audemars Piguet had done something similar in the past and that he could not think of any reason against it."

" Their watches however could only be wound up while off the wrist and I wanted a crown that could be easily wound while the watch was being worn. That requirement plus the off-centered dial were my starting points for the movement design. I then decided on the escapement at six o'clock and a symmetry - wheels and bridges - between the balance wheel and the second wheel."

The following year (2003), Romain went back to Phillipe Dufour with the draft plans for his movement. Phillipe liked the fact that I used traditional Vallée de Joux style 'finger' bridges and made some suggestions which I took into account.

"Now all that was left was working out all the mathematics of the gear ratios and teeth etc. That took some time."

While Romain knew how to design machines, and watch movements are simply machines on a small scale, the minuscule scale of the components meant that he had to do quite a lot of study to ensure that what looked fine in theory would work well in practice.

From very early one there were parts that were fixed in size and shape. Romain started making those even while he was working out the intricate shapes of others.