3 Questions About the Tribute 1 Fumé for Armin Strom Founder, Serge Michel
First of all, I am a big fan of Fumé style dials. For me, there is something truly fascinating about the fumé ocean; the deep blues with highlights at the centre give an appearance of depth and replicate the hues not only of the ocean, but of the lakes that dot the Swiss landscape, like Lake Biel, which is a stone’s throw from our manufacture.
The most complex aspect of developing the dials has been the quality control, ensuring that the dials represent the same tonal range. It took time to develop the technique and to confirm that it was a repeatable process. Our other main challenge was to choose the colours, testing different ones and deciding how we wanted to move forward. It was not an easy process and the colours had to match the feel of the Tribute 1.
The first fumé dials appeared in the 1970s and were quite popular at that time. The know-how was lost and has been redeveloped with more recent creations of fumé dials, inspired by the patina on vintage watches. We felt it was important to bring this feeling to the Tribute 1 as a classic haute-horology timepiece. A fumé dial gives a watch a feel and character all its own; I would say the dial really gives the watch a soul. With four new fumé dial options and a guilloché mainplate by Kari Voutilainen, Armin Strom continues to reimagine the classic dress watch in the context of a distinctly modern Swiss-German design ethos.
