I’m not sure if you’ll agree with me, but I think we are currently living in a golden age of independent watchmaking. We’re regularly treated to a pantheon of wildly creative watches, both stylistically and mechanically, thanks to a boisterous band of free-thinking, financially autonomous watch brands that don’t have to answer to a board that likes on safe bets. While many of these unconventional watches are reserved for those with bottomless bank accounts and the vast majority of regular watch enthusiasts are relegated to admiring them from the sidelines, it’s still an important component of the modern watch landscape. Like high fashion encourages what high-street brands put on their shelves, high-end watchmakers can set trends and drive what more accessible watch companies focus on and tinker with. A new player in the independent luxury watchmaking field is Raúl Tena, a brand that aims to combine métiers d’art and haute horlogerie into each of its bespoke watches. Raúl Tena custom watches revolve around a Télôs and Kari Voutilainen movement, which features a jump hour and retrograde minutes display housed inside a bulbous sci-fi-like case; almost everything else, including the case material, bezel design, dial decoration, and strap style is up to the customer.

Before we dive into the watches, it’s worth talking about the man behind the eponymous watch brand and the team he’s cultivated. Raúl Tena, the man, is an aeronautical engineer from Spain with stacks of childhood notebooks filled with watch sketches inspired by studying his father’s timepiece. As an adult, Tena designed a collection of watches, imagining mini 3-D sculptures as the star of the show. Understanding his limitations in actually making and delivering watches, he reached out to industry insiders and now, the likes of Kari Voutilainen, Christophe Beuchat, Franck Orny, Michèle Rothen, Zeljko Gosic, and Gerald Roden are lending their respective watchmaking, designing, decorative, production, and business expertise to the Raúl Tena watch project.

To be clear, the point of Raúl Tena watches is customization. It starts with a hand-wound movement jointly developed by Télôs and Kari Voutilainen — the former responsible for the mechanism and the latter for design and decoration. The movement is the Caliber RT01.A, which operates at 28,800 beats per hour (4 Hz), supplies 72 hours of power reserve and drives the jumping hours and retrograde minutes displays on the dial side. That movement is housed inside a 44mm in diameter, 18.4 mm thick case that’s furnished with a dramatically domed sapphire crystal and large faceted integrated lugs. Steel, titanium, gold, or platinum can be chosen for the case material and all cases are water-resistant to 50 meters.

The face of a Raúl Tena watch is where the true customization process can take place. For instance, the inner bezel can be fashioned from a range of materials and include any type of decoration the customer wants, be it engraving, painting, gem-setting, and so on. Adjacent to the bezel is the large time display ring with a digital jump hour window at 6 o’clock wedged within the retrograde minute scale. While the layout stays the same, the typography of the numbers can be modified.

Thanks to the size of the case and the height of the sapphire crystal, the center ring of the dial is where the customer can get as creative as he or she wants. It’s a generous canvas for mini sculptures, teeny tiny paintings, complex engravings, blankets of gems, or a mix of all of the above. As illustrated by these photos, some Raúl Tena custom watches have included a patinated bronze Statue of Liberty with a mosaic-style enamel skyline behind her, a birds-eye view of Manhattan complete with three-dimensional skyscrapers and bridges, and a depiction of Hokusai’s famed Great Wave off Kanagawa.

These mini works of art look pretty impressive in photographs so I can only imagine they would elicit plenty of oohs and ahhs in the metal. For those with means and esoteric tastes who want a unique watch that no one else has, Raúl Tena custom watches may be just what is needed. Rather than all the official collabs that have flooded the watch market in recent years, this is a collaboration between brand and buyer, resulting in truly bespoke pieces. Prices start at CHF 90,000 for steel, CHF 100,000 for titanium, and CHF 120,000 for gold or platinum, which includes a hand-engraved 3D sculpture, guilloché or enamel dial, and customized engraved text on the bezel and caseback. Any additional requests will cost more. For more information about Raúl Tena watches, please visit the brand’s website.