I-A725
Or How to Put Aerobatics on Your Wrist
The name comes from my father’s last acrobatic plane. The one in which he decided it would be character-building to let me fly.
This watch is what happens when you mix mild terror, mechanical sympathy, and unresolved admiration into stainless steel and call it a chronograph.
How to Make an Automatic Chronograph Less Thick
(Without Lying)
Automatic chronographs are, by nature, chunky. They are mechanical layer cakes with ambition and very little interest in dieting.
So the work became an exercise in controlled deception. Reducing visual mass in the case-ring. Compressing transitions between bezel and mid-case. Keeping tolerances tight enough that nothing feels like it’s floating inside a metal soup bowl.
The aim was not to cheat physics, only perception. Spread the volume. Break the lines. Let the watch feel thinner than it statistically is. The technical drawings you’ll see on this page are less decoration and more evidence of a prolonged argument with millimetres.
It is still an automatic chronograph. It simply behaves better in public.
A Birthday, a Plane, and Escalation
The design started as a unique piece for my father’s 70th birthday. Sensible people stop at “unique piece.” I did not.
The I-A725 is the refined version of that original watch. Same bones. Same tension. Fewer compromises. It carries the same controlled aggression of an aerobatic plane on the runway: compact, coiled, pretending to be calm.
The dial is disciplined but slightly theatrical. Balanced subdials. Crisp scales. No nostalgia cosplay. The supplier liked it so much he ordered one for himself, which in the watch industry is roughly equivalent to a standing ovation delivered very quietly.
For the brand’s 25th anniversary, I am considering a 3N gold version. Not tasteful gold. Not restrained gold. Proper, slightly offensive gold.
If you are going to celebrate 25 years, you might as well roll inverted and commit.
When it almost became
a Racing Watch
The early sketches leaned heavily toward motorsport. Tachymeter scales grew more aggressive. The typography tightened. The whole thing began to look like it wanted to shout about lap times and pit strategy.
It was technically coherent. Just not honest.
The I-A725 carries the name of an acrobatic aircraft, not a touring car. Aviation is about spatial awareness, balance, restraint under pressure. Racing is about proximity and impact. The early designs felt fast, but in the wrong language.
So I removed some urgency. Relaxed the scales. Opened the dial. Let it breathe. What remained was less dramatic, and more accurate. Which, in aviation, tends to be preferable.
