Hautlence

Hautlence was founded in Neuchâtel in 2004 by Renaud de Retz and Guillaume Tétu, watchmaking-industry veterans from Longines, Jaeger-LeCoultre and TAG Heuer; the name is itself an anagram of "Neuchâtel," a nod to Swiss watchmaking's home canton. Its debut HL line built a reputation on exposed, architectural time-display mechanisms, jumping hours on trailing chains and retrograde minutes among them, cased in a distinctive rectangular "TV-shaped" silhouette, and the brand survived the late-2000s shakeout that thinned the independent scene it emerged into. (Hautlence; Phillips)

Cataloged watches