Introducing A New Way Of Looking At The Date: The Krayon Anyday Is The World’s First Mechanical Agenda Watch

In 2018, Krayon, the brand founded by independent watchmaker Rémi Maillat, won the Innovation Prize at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) with its Everywhere watch. Four years later, Krayon bagged another GPHG award. That time, the complicated Anywhere won first prize in the Calendar and Astronomy category. With the new Krayon Anyday, a new GPHG seems ready for the taking. According to the brand, the Anyday is the world’s first mechanical agenda watch, and I can’t fault that statement. To find out what a mechanical agenda watch exactly is, please continue reading.

Krayon is young and different. The brand’s founder and owner is Rémi Maillat, an incredibly talented watchmaker who debuted with the Everywhere watch in 2017. Today, a staff of about 12 people produces around four dozen watches annually in the brand’s Neuchâtel atelier. Maillat is not just a watchmaker, though; he’s also somewhat obsessed with mathematics. The fact that Krayon has, so far, produced watches indicating sunset and sunrise is no coincidence. A watchmaker specializing in complications and working for an Haute Horlogerie brand once told me that building a tourbillon requires engineering skills, while creating complex calendar watches requires a mathematician. Krayon’s latest creation is again a calendar watch. The Anyday undoubtedly took a lot of complicated math for skilled watchmakers to eventually bring it to life.

The Krayon Anyday is the world’s first mechanical agenda watch

At first glance, the Krayon Anyday (CHF 88,000) is “just” a handsome watch. That’s a compliment. Complications often get in the way of aesthetic beauty, and this watch combines a good-looking exterior with a complicated interior. The bonus is an entirely new way of looking at the date. Let me rephrase that: the Krayon Anyday tells you the date in the context of the entire month. If you ask me, that’s a great idea because now you can, for instance, quickly tell what dates the weekends are due to them being a different color than the weekdays.

The Anytime’s dial continuously displays each day and date for the entire month, just like a planner. It allows the watch’s wearer to see five full weeks at a glance. The good thing is this “planner” isn’t made of paper or shown on your phone screen; it’s encased in an 18K white gold case with a modest 39mm diameter and a slim 9.5mm profile. Inside the case and underneath the blue dial, which shows Krayon’s signature “Y” pattern with intricate guilloché, beats a sophisticated movement with 378 components.

It’s all about the cams

The 46-jewel caliber C032 has a 3Hz beat rate, a 35.4mm diameter, a mere 5mm thickness, and a power reserve of 72 hours. Among this hand-winding movement’s 378 parts, two cams visible through the display case back are crucial to the watch’s one-of-a-kind date display. One cam builds up energy every 24 hours to advance the date daily at midnight in 1/1000th of a second. The second and larger cam rotates once every 31 days and causes the date pointer to jump forward five positions at the end of each month. The calendar operates on a 35-position cycle, displaying a full 31-day month and previewing the next four days.

Three lightweight discs in sapphire, aluminum, and open-worked titanium ensure smooth, instantaneous progression of the date. Two of these discs are hand-decorated with miniature hand-painting by a Swiss artist, and each indicates the day and date of the week.

Dial in your month

The Krayon Anyday resembles a “normal” watch with its central hour and minute hands and a date display along the periphery. Only when you look closer will you notice that a moving crescent moon indicates the current date. Signifying the days of the week are two colors distinguishing weekdays from weekends — the weekdays are dark blue, while the Saturdays and Sundays have a lighter shade. The first week of the following month is indicated by four small dots positioned at 6 o’clock.

Although the Krayon Anyday offers a unique function, operating the watch does not require a new skill set. Like previous complicated Krayon creations, the design of the movement combines absolute robustness and reliability with ease of operation. Therefore, in the crown’s first position, you wind the movement; in the second one, you can quickly adjust the date forward by turning it clockwise. When you turn the crown counterclockwise in the second position, you also quickly adjust the day of the week setting. Finally, in the crown’s third position, you can set the time in both directions at any hour.

With the Anyday, a watch with a maximum annual production of 45 units, Rémi Maillat and his team at Krayon have once again built a complicated, user-friendly calendar watch that looks elegant and clean. I can’t wait to see the watch in real life and find out if it finally helps me keep track of a month all at once.

What do you think of the Krayon Anyday? Can you envision a mechanical agenda watch being useful to you?