When launching the Biver brand in 2023, father-and-son duo Jean-Claude and Pierre Biver chose to begin their journey with the Carillon Tourbillon Minute Repeater. This highly complex watch combines two masterpiece complications and established a distinctive design language and approach to watchmaking, both central to the brand. It served as a launch pad for Biver’s core ideas and uncompromising attitude. It is an example of what a Biver watch can be at its very best and a prologue for what is yet to come.
Now, Biver writes the next chapter in this story with a return to watchmaking basics. The Biver Automatique is a threehand, automatic watch meant for daily wear. It combines influences from the past with a distinctly 21st- century look and it establishes a foundation on which future watches and complications can be built. It is a watch that looks simple at first glance and reveals its complexity over time – it rewards the patient and surprises the curious.
“A watch showing just the hours, minutes, and seconds is the most essential form of our art. Distilling complexity down to its purest, simplest incarnation can be its own kind of masterpiece, found in its absolute perfection and discipline,” says co-founder Jean-Claude Biver. “If you want to play the piano, you must first master scales and classical music before you can learn to play jazz.
Pared down to its most basic functions, a wristwatch tells the time. The Biver Automatique has three central hands and shows the hours, minutes, and seconds. Nothing more, nothing less. This simplicity is deceptive, though.
The solid 18k white and rose gold dials are each housed in a case made of the corresponding colour metal and each features an array of hand-applied finishes. These give them depth and dimensionality, suggesting a two-tone finish and showing off each material’s inherent possibilities. This is further emphasized by the applied 18k gold markers and matching hands (both with anthracite finishes for better legibility), the applied and black-polished “Biver” signature at 12 o’clock, and the applied 18k gold railroad track around the perimeter. As the light shifts and changes, these dials reveal their complexity and richness, looking slightly different each passing moment.
All of this is housed in a platinum or rose gold case measuring a classic 39mm across and just 10mm thick. The brightly polished bezel and brushed lugs echo the straight and circular finishes found on the dials, extending the long brushing lines and giving each watch a cohesive feeling throughout, whether it’s worn on a leather strap or the signature five-link Biver bracelet.
A Brand New Calibre
At the heart of the Biver Automatique is the brand new Calibre JCB-003. Developed in close collaboration with partners at Dubois Depraz, it was designed from the ground up to be a foundation not just for this watch but for future watches as well. This meant creating the most technically sound movement possible, with all the necessary architecture to make it adaptable as Biver grows and explores other complications.
The movement combines a simple three-hand time display, including a central seconds hand, with an automatic winding system that utilizes a 22k gold micro-rotor and allows for hand-winding via the crown as well. This offers collectors the opportunity to have that tactical relationship with their watch, especially if the 65-hour power reserve has been exhausted and it is being put on from “empty.” A zero-reset mechanism also snaps the seconds hand back to 12 o’clock when the crown is pulled to the time-setting position, allowing the wearer to precisely set the time down to the second.
“The Calibre JCB-003 is a cornerstone on which we are building the Biver brand,” says co-founder Pierre Biver. “From the beginning, it was engineered with high performance and elevated decoration in mind. Our approach reflects a deep appreciation for movement architecture and a desire to balance the best of watchmaking past, present and future. The creation of this calibre is the first step in creating a distinctive type of Biver horology.”
The shapes of the bridges are sculpted to reveal elements of the drive train, barrel, and winding system, and each features a combination of guilloché, anglage, and black polishing to give it unique character. In particular, the clou de Paris guilloché patterns that adorn the bridges vary in scale, swirling out from the center of the micro-rotor and contributing a sense of dynamism to the calibre’s overall appearance. No surface is left untouched and the calibre quite literally radiates light, representing the care and attention paid to each element.
Step Into The AtelierHard stone dials are central to Biver’s ethos of connecting each watch to eternity. With that in mind, the brand will produce a limited quantity of Automatique timepieces each year with stone dials. This will be called the Atelier Series and each unique watch represents the very essence of Biver watchmaking. Each stone will only be available for a limited time and in small quantities, allowing the brand to tell different stories through different stones over time.
To inaugurate the Atelier Series, Biver is introducing two stone dial Automatique models: The platinum case paired with rich black sanded obsidian and the 18k rose gold case paired with Pietersite, a dark blue stone with swirls of white and orange. Each offers a different take on the Automatique, blending technical mastery with a bit of visual poetry.
“We want the Automatique and the Calibre JCB-003 to bring more people into the Biver community,” continues Pierre Biver. “Hopefully they communicate our values, our ideas, and our taste to a new group of collectors and enthusiasts across the world, laying the foundation for years of exploration to come.”
