Pictured Above: Manime's 'La Fidele' Collection
A Glimpse Into Watch Production
Today, we wanted to take you behind the curtains of Manime. As the La Fidèle collection will soon be in stock, we wanted to show you the work that goes into producing our watches.
Édouard recently visited our manufacturer in China to ensure that production is making good progress - we'll be telling you all about that trip in an email next week.
If you'd like to learn a bit about how small watch brands operate - please read on below.
La Fidèle will be available for immediate shipping soon - so place your order below if you haven't secured your order yet!
It all starts with an idea...
The first step in our design journey - like many creative processes - starts with an idea.
We don't look at the market and create a product with mass appeal. As our brand ethos is based on creating timepieces that embody an 'all-round' approach, it's incredibly important to us that we create pieces that embody this ethos without compromising ourselves and giving in to mass-market appeal.
When Édouard (our Founder & Designer) sits down to create a piece, he usually starts by spending hours sketching multiple designs, and then taking his favourite elements from each design and turning it into one cohesive 'storyboard'.
Once this is complete, he'll move on to 'final sketches' that can be sent to our production partners. This usually encompasses everything from dial design, hands, indices, bezel, and bracelet.
Prototyping
Once Édouard's initial design is complete, he'll work closely with our production partners to bring the sketches to life using 3D renders.
He'll then sculpt the final design to check its fit and finish so that all of the design's shapes and edges work together to form the template of a cohesive timepiece. If any changes are required (which is quite often), this process is repeated until the final shape is complete.
He'll then work with our partners to source material samples - this usually involves approving and rejecting materials based on their quality, and how they fit in with the overall design.
Once this is complete, we'll craft our prototypes. These are thoroughly checked over and worn for several weeks by Édouard himself to make sure that the watch is comfortable for excessive wear, and, most importantly, to ensure that the design retains appeal to the wearer.
Once prototyping is complete, we'll create a limited run of watches in each colour to send to reviewers and press, before running our launch campaign.
Production
Once prototyping is complete, we'll run our marketing campaigns and Kickstarter / website pre-orders for the new watches.
This will typically involve reviews being released on YouTube along with unboxing videos and articles on watch sites.
Once pre-orders are in, we begin production on our watches and update our customers every step of the way.
We hope you enjoyed!
The La Fidèle collection is available for immediate shipping
Click below to view the colours and learn more about the collection.