Four out of five times when a designer is praised for his or her work (mostly his, let’s face it,) that person is Gerald Genta. Even though Mr. Genta has designed many iconic and outstanding watches during his expansive career, the world of horology is acting as if he was the only designer who can claim to have many great accomplishments under his belt and who deserves our undivided attention, past and present. But there were many talented designers that came before him and many more who have arrived after him, and today we the world of horology is such that there are a few who I would deem to be as creative and talented as him but who, thus far, have only operated in the discreet world of micro and independent horology. Designers who do not seek fame or recognition but who instead are ruthlessly dedicated to developing their creative sensibility for these little machines we so adore to collect. And amongst them, there is one particular individual whose work evokes particularly beautiful emotions. 

Growing up I was enchanted by the worlds Hayao Miyazaki created in his animated films, worlds which partially felt familiar but mostly fantastical. His creations invited us into a dream-like state where objects and decors were carefully crafted and imagined, where new shapes and life forms appeared real and magical just the same. In our niche world of horology most of what we see everyday has been done before and looks the same, and most new visual innovations consist of either little tweaks of something that existed before or too bizarre of creations to make any sense. Designers either do not know how to re-shuffle what they see in new formations or do not have the capacity to create new design languages which we can identify with and which makes sense to us. Just like Miyazaki could create fictional worlds which appeared real, rare are the designers who can propose something new we understand. This leads us to Kevin Pedral’s latest masterpiece: the Triomphe Émeraude Vert or the watch from a dream-like world. 

Specifications 

Sometimes I just want to get straight to the design and marvel and gush over the nuggets and gems the artist has infused into his latest model. But as we saw with the Maestro a while back, the Triomphe isn’t “just” a visual masterpiece but also a practical watch to wear on the daily. A rare combination which puts to shame so many of the so-called industry disruptors so many uninspired journalists and influencers waste their breath on. (Am I angry? Perhaps.) As many high-end and Métiers d’Art horological creations are not fit for daily usage but are more at home behind an exhibition case and handled with silk gloves. No, Kevin Pedral decided to bend the rules of design and specifications to marry both into a superb object which I would have taken hiking or racing should I have had the time to do so and his permission of course. All of this is to say that the Triomphe is two things: a beautiful design and a solid timepiece. And as always then we’re going to gush over its specifications because they do matter here. 

The Triomphe is built from 316L stainless steel and measures 38mm in diameter, 38mm lug-to-lug, 8.80mm thick and comes with a 20mm lug width. This is the second lug-less watch we’re looking at in a week as the Hemel Eylandt The Avenger was also deprived of those. 8.8mm is thin though the case appears taller on account of its singular design over which we will drool in a little while. Inside we find an ultra-thin manual-wind Sellita SW210-1B élaboré which ticks at 4Hz, comes with 42 hours of power reserve, and is adjusted in five positions to run at ±5 seconds per day. The movement is visible through a screwed-in sapphire case-back which together with a push/pull crown endows the Triomphe with a good 50 meters of water resistance. The top crystal is also made of sapphire and complemented with inner anti-reflective coating. The Triomphe will ship on either a leather strap or this gorgeous steel bracelet* licensed from Australian brand Second Hour which Pedral tweaked for this release. 

I photographed and wore the Triomphe on the bracelet because it fits it perfectly and adds to its singular charm. The bracelet has a seven-link construction where three of the central ones are polished, held together with strong screws complete with flat heads, polished chamfers, and a tool-less micro-adjustment mechanism of the ratcheting type. (Push down on the button to lengthen or shorten the bracelet.) As mentioned earlier, Kevin Pedral didn’t just design a beautiful watch we would be too afraid to actually use, but instead a marvelous one we can indeed wear everyday to do many things with. Instead of being a museum quality piece of Haute Horlogerie, the Pedral Triomphe is a practical watch that just happens to be drop-dead gorgeous. In terms of prices, the Triomphe in its two versions—yes there are two of them, the Émeraude Vert and Tempest Stone—retails for €1,299/$1,511 USD on pre-order on the leather strap and €1,499/$1,743 USD full retail after that. (More on that in the conclusion.) 

*The stainless steel bracelet will be included for free in the first ten orders. 

Design

In some ways, the Pedral Triomphe is extremely classic. In other ways, it strikes me as being a fantastical machine Hayao Miyazaki would have drawn for one of his characters. It is therefore many things at once, organized in such a neat and tidy way that it all comes together nicely and makes sense, even though some of its design aspects are frankly odd and bizarre but made good and fine by Kevin Pedral’s singular talent for unexpected harmony. The central piece of the Triomphe is the dial which is composed of no less than four CNC-machined guilloché patterns: panier (basket) weave in the center of the dial, Sauté Piqué present on the three circles which surround the hour markers and minute track, Satiné Circulé** where the hour markers are, and Moiré Ripple on the edges of the dial. Looking at how finely executed the guilloché patterns are and how neatly each section of the dial is delineated from one another, I am in awe thinking of how little money you’re gonna have to spend on the Triomphe.

**Satiné Circulé is generally considered as a brushing technique, not a guilloché pattern. 

So working from the center of the dial where we find the basket weave guilloché pattern and the brand name printed on top of it, we move outward to the first line of Sauté Piqué which frame the painted Arabic numeral hour markers from below, printed crisply against a radially brushed silver ring finished in a Satiné Circulé as we saw earlier, then another line of Sauté Piqué which together with the second, frame the painted dots marking the minutes where the larger ones mark the five-minute increments. Then beyond them we find, as we know, the Moiré Ripple CNC-machined guilloché pattern and realize perhaps for the first time that the dial is shaped like a soft-sided octagon which is also how the top sapphire crystal was manufactured. Whilst I could find visual references for the CNC-machined patterns in the most classic of horological creations, it is how Kevin Pedral combined them with the octogonal-shaped dial and crystal which endow the Triomphe with a Miyazaki-like quality of fictional story-telling which I find mesmerizing. 

The dial is further made interesting by the handset: skeletonized hour and minute hands, faceted and polished, where the hour hand reaches right to the edge of the hour markers whilst the minute hand goes beyond the minute markers. The seconds hand for its part is also polished and reaches the Moiré Ripple on the further edges of the dial, and is equipped with a hollowed-out arrow. This superb dial is then framed by the octogonal crystal and bezel, the latter showcasing a radial brushing and which falls down onto the mid-case by way of a vertical polished flank, which is matched by a polished shoulder underneath of which we find something rather singular: a deeply set coinedge-type CNC-machined pattern which was inspired by a unique architectural feature of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. This portion of the case is then framed by a polished element which narrows down towards the middle and a polished chamfer below it. The icing on the cake: the onion crown which is topped by a six-sided nail head. 

The Heart of the Matter

In my ambitious analogy and introductory comparison of Kevin Pedral and Hayao Miyazaki I meant to convey that the former, just like the latter, has a particular talent for transforming shapes and design elements we are familiar with to endow them with new meanings and characters, and to complement them with new ideas which together create a familiar yet whimsical world. With the Triomphe the most classical and revered elements of horological design—the four CNC-machined guiloché patterns and Roman numerals—are paired with—or pitted against—an almost alien-like shaped dial, crystal, and bezel, and side case work which is geometrical and a bit animalistic (I see gills) which together do make me think of timekeeping device which either could have existed a century ago or in a different dimension from ours. Mixing and matching various design elements in this way require special skills and talents which I find to be rare nowadays and which make Kevin Pedral indeed a particular individual in our niche world of horology. 

Conclusion 

Both versions of the Pedral Triomphe—the Émeraude Vert we looked at today and the Tempest Stone—are limited to 15 units each and available on pre-order from December 12, 2025, through January 3, 2026 at the discounted rate of €1,299/$1,511 USD including free worldwide shipping. The first batch will be shipping on December 18th and a second batch in late January 2026. As mentioned earlier, the first ten will receive a complimentary stainless steel bracelet (pictured in this article) and full-retail after that the pre-order period closes will be of €1,499/$1,743 USD. Last but not least, the Triomphe Émeraude Vert and Tempest Stone are limited editions created in collaboration with the Micro Indy Collective (see the dual branding on the movement bridge) and more versions of this collection will be released in the future. That is all for now and I will leave you to discover more about the Triomphe on the brand’s website. 

Thanks for reading.