It was back in 2000 that Federico Restrepo dreamed up a watch design while he was flying at twice the speed of sound, that is to say at Mach 2 speed on board the legendary and no longer Concorde. His AF002 (read flight Air France 002) from Paris to New York took to the skies and as it reached speed, Restrepo looked through the porthole. « I realized at that precise moment that the surface of the Earth was not spherical but formed a very beautiful ellipse, » he commented. On board he took out his drawing book which always travels with him and he began to draw watches with a new design, a design that adopted an elliptical shape which would go on to inspire the watches of the Restrepo brand. 

The French-Colombian designer drew an elliptical case and a dial retracing the ellipse of the Concorde’s flight instruments at 6 o’clock. The result: The Restrepo watches and the latest in the family, the Restrepo Ellipse Mach 2 Chrono model. Bringing together science, art and technology the Restrepo watches were 20 years in the creation process. The perfect elliptical shape had to be created. High precision automatic movements had to be fitted into the case. Enamel coated dials, index details with advanced layered effects had to be selected and for the hands and some of the indexes, the placing of Swiss Super Lumina finishings. 

These unique Swiss-made watches are ensconced in a steel case outfitted with an enamel dial and Swiss hands. Each watch comes with a tailor-made strap with a stainless steel butterfly buckle. The Restrepo Ellipse Mach 2 Chrono model follows on the heels of other ellipse-shaped models — Restrepo only makes ellipse-shaped watches — with intriguing name like Darkwarrior and Octopus, among others. The Restrepo Ellipse Mach 2 Chrono has been brought out in a limited and numbered series of 99. Before embarking on creating his own upscale timepieces Federico Restrepo had worked for 35 years designing for leading brands in the luxury industry. Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette. https://www.restrepo-watches.com/