The Watch World's New Indie King

Rexhep Rexhepi designs meticulously crafted watches that are just shy of perfection-and that is exactly what makes them so desirable. We sat down with the young legend in his Geneva workshop (just after the $2.3 million sale of one of his watches) to understand what makes him tick.

- CAM WOLF

IN THE CENTER OF Geneva, on the fourth floor of his workshop, the watchmaker Rexhep Rexhepi is staring through the loupe he's kept around his neck all day at the Chronomètre Antimagnétique, a piece of his that recently sold for $2.3 million at auction. It is Rexhepi's first to sell for over a million dollars, a landmark achievement for the 37-year-old. Rexhepi is examining the glossy black enamel dial, a unique finish made of powdered glass that's painted on the watch before it's baked in an oven at 700 degrees Celsius. He uses his thumb and pointer finger to expertly twist off the caseback revealing the watch's engine-the movement-glimmering like a diamond mine and organized in Rexhepi's signature symmetrical style. The piece's many wheels require so much hand-polishing, it takes Rexhepi an entire day to do just one before it's sealed completely off from view. Rexhepi closes the watch and turns it back over with a sigh. "It's a disaster," he says.

Rexhepi proceeds to enumerate all the defects on this $2.3 million watch, a one-of-one piece that he made and donated to Only Watch, a charity auction, in May of this year. The lugs are too strong from overpolishing, the hour hand needs to be bigger, the enamel dial is not up to his standards, and all of the screws need to be properly aligned. "But at the end, it's who you are," Rexhepi says, philosophically. "We are not perfect. Our girlfriends love us for who we are, and this is what people love."