That same year, the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak ‘Jumbo’ A-Series Ref. 5402ST, attested as belonging to the late creative director of Chanel—Karl Lagerfeld died in 2019—was auctioned by Phillips in association with Bacs & Russo. This was a 1973 watch that had been customised by coating the case and bracelet with black PVD to match the factory original black dial. Lagerfeld only ever wore black and white, and the modification of the watch suits the idea that he could have asked for a personalisation such as this one. The watch was estimated to fetch between CHF 100,000 – 200,000, but ultimately realised CHF 937,500. In most cases, heavily modified watches don’t hold huge market value, even if they belong to a top brand as original details have been changed. What differs in this case is the celebrity connect.

With both McEnroe’s and Lagerfeld’s watches, what comes to the fore is the idea of creating and owning something that is not just unique but also inherently a reflection of the owner’s style and taste. No one will argue that the watches we pick, we do so based on the stories they tell and the emotions they represent for us, and in that sense, modified timepieces are no different. Also, watch lovers will agree that there’ve been times when they would have happily bought a watch if they had been able to change a small detail in it. For this very reason, today, there are plenty watch brands that offer customisation of their pieces—Czapek & Cie., TAG Heuer, Sarpaneva, Greubel Forsey, Trilobe, along with heavyweights like Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, and Audemars Piguet—within the realm of their design ethos. But what if you want something in the extreme, something that a brand won’t do (refer to McEnroe’s Rolex above)? Then there are individuals and independent workshops one can turn to. There are people and ateliers that specialise in doing this—last thing you want is for your prized piece to be damaged past repair, or your vision not properly executed. Read on to know the independents who are blazing a trail in the arena of customisation of watches:

McEnroe’s Lefty, musician Adam Levine’s Neon, a personalised gold Rolex Cosmograph Daytona Ref. 116508; singer Lenny Kravitz’s LK01, a customised Rolex® Daytona® 116523; former F1 racer Juan Pablo Montoya’s La Montoya made from his Rolex® 116520/Rolex® 116508—Artisans de Genève’s list of customisations is long, high-profile, and impressive. An independent Geneva-based workshop offering handcrafted timepiece customisation and restoration services, it was established in 2005. The team is highly accomplished, undertaking a variety of modifications that are carried out after careful planning and discussion with the customer, and the watches modified and reassembled following a very specific and complex technical sheet. The website showcases their work with various Rolex, Aquanaut, and Nautilus models. Demand for Artisans de Genève’s work is high, and at the time of going to press, the team was not taking new customisations (interested customers could get on a wait list). The atelier is clear that they do not sell watches, neither are they associated nor affiliated with the brands of the timepieces they work on, carrying out their work at the sole request of the customers, on their own timepieces and for their private use only. For this, they provide a 5-year warranty. 

This British watch customisation brand’s scope of work and operation is pretty large. Founder George Bamford is often credited with making watch customisation mainstream, given that Bamford Watch Department is the official watch customiser for Franck Muller, Girard-Perregaux, TAG Heuer, and Zenith. This means that specific models of the brands—Casablanca, Cat’s Eye, Monaco, Autavia, Carrera, Defy and more—can be customised to one’s liking based on options offered by Bamford Watch Department. The universe of things that can be changed include strap, stitching, dial, dial ring, custom initials, date, date wheel, hand lume, and much more. Bamford Watch Department has also collaborated with the aforementioned brands, and names like Bulgari, Chopard, and Bremont, to create limited edition or one-of-a-kind pieces, apart from the non-limited editions which are referred to as ‘George’s Designs’ on the website. Lastly, the brand also stocks its own brand of watches called Bamford London, which includes chronographs, GMTs, and time-only models, of which the GMT can be customised.

The brainchild of Cooper Zelnick, Cloister Watch Co. is a New York-based studio whose mainstay is restoring and reimagining vintage watches. Born of Zelnick’s love for watches and a Rolex he personalised that the customer eventually did not take, today the studio works with individuals to personalise their timepieces. Examples of the studio’s work include a 1972 Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Ref. 5402, whose original dial was removed and replaced with a bloodstone dial without a date window, and a 1940 18K rose gold Rolex ‘Bubbleback' Ref. 3131 redesigned with a salmon/pink hue for the dial and ‘California’ style text in a contrasting maroon with lume in an off-white hue. Zelnick’s customisations are elegant and poetic, and done with the kind of respect and elegance that watches that have weathered time deserve. 

Truly democratising the idea of a personalised watch is the Hong Kong-based set-up of techies, creatives, and watch industry veterans, called Undone. Established in 2014 by Michael Young, Undone’s core philosophy is to enable all to create their unique personalised watch at an affordable price point. So while Undone might not be an independent customisation workshop, the scope of personalisation that it offers is so large that it could well be one. There are a plethora of collections and timepieces to choose from on the brand website, and customers can control the entire aesthetics of their watch. The brand also has collaborative watches that one can choose from. Production is in-house, allowing the Undone team to have full control over their watches.

MAD Paris is a French watch customisation workshop that works on some pretty heavy-duty pieces. Its latest collaboration is with seconde/Seconde/’s Romaric Andre—the two have produced the limited-to-10-pieces Royal Order watch that reconfigures the Royal Oak Ref 15400ST to give it a gradient dial. The hour-markers, indexes, the Audemars Piguet logo, and date window are all aligned onto the left side of the watch face—the concept of this piece centres on the notion of ‘ordered disorder’. This is just one of many creative works of MAD Paris. In the past, the studio has created the late designer Virgil Abloh’s one-of-a-kind blacked-out Nautilus and singer Drake’s baguette emerald-encrusted Patek Philippe Nautilus. In 2021, MAD Paris collaborated with department store Browns to create an Audemars Piguet capsule collection of four watches, where two of them were reimagined by designer Matthew Williamson, and the other two by designer Charaf Tajer. Williamson’s watches were pared back and stripped down to basics with a brushed effect, while Tajer’s were coated in ceramic pastel hues.