Introducing Indie Watchmaker Mickaël Gaspar’s First Watch
French watchmaker Mickaël Gaspar, 29, has launched the Souscription, a retrograde date watch with the movement on the dial side. Swiss incubator Ateliers Associés backs the debut, the first of up to four independent watchmakers it plans to support.
French watchmaker Mickaël Gaspar, 29, has launched the Souscription, his first wristwatch, with backing from the Swiss incubator Ateliers Associés. It is a retrograde date watch with the movement on the dial side.
Introducing indie watchmaker Mickaël Gaspar also means introducing a new model for small brands. Ateliers Associés handles everything around the watch so he can stay at the bench.
The watch
The case is stainless steel, 39.9mm across and 13mm thick. A highly domed sapphire crystal gives clear views of the movement from all sides, and a mirror-polished bevel runs around the case band.
Under the crystal sits an inverted movement with a deconstructed structure and a strong three-dimensional effect. A retrograde date indicator is the watch's main complication.
The Souscription began as Gaspar's school project at the Morteau watchmaking school, built between the ages of 17 and 19. He did not plan to put his name on the dial or release it. Ten years later he rebuilt the idea from the ground up and signed it.
Who is Gaspar
Gaspar is the great-grandson of a watchmaker who spent forty years at Lip. He trained at Lycée Edgar Faure in Morteau and won silver as one of the Meilleurs Apprentis de France.
Breitling then took him on as one of three apprentices chosen from fifty. He spent four years at Sellita before joining MH Horlogerie in Les Brenets, where he became partner and head of workshop.
There he developed and repaired grand complications for other houses, including flying tourbillons, minute repeaters and natural escapements. He built the Souscription between those jobs and founded his own atelier in 2026.
The incubator behind it
Ateliers Associés was founded by William Massena, who runs the creative studio Massena LAB, and Louis Westphalen-Lemaitre. Westphalen-Lemaitre previously worked at Breitling and took part in the relaunch of Daniel Roth and Gerald Genta under La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton.
The incubator plans to back four new independent watchmakers, giving them "the money and the team to turn a first watch into a house that lasts". Its services cover technical development, production and after-sales, imagery, press, pricing and the collector relationship worldwide.
The pitch is simple. "The watchmaker's hours go to the bench, and to the watches only he can make." The Souscription is the first project.
