Czapek Antarctique Passage de Drake Beauty Ice White

Franciszek Czapek fled Warsaw after the failed November Uprising and reached Geneva in 1832, gallicising his name to François. In 1839 he went into partnership with a fellow Polish exile, Antoine Norbert de Patek. That firm — Patek, Czapek & Cie — ran six years, and when it ended Patek went on to found what became Patek Philippe.

Czapek founded Czapek & Cie on 1 May 1845 with Juliusz Gruzewski. He became watchmaker to Prince Napoleon, and at its height the company had an atelier on the Quai des Bergues in Geneva, a boutique at 23 Place Vendôme in Paris from 1850, and a third in Warsaw from 1854. Then, around 1869, he lost control of the company and disappeared from the record entirely.

The name was resurrected in 2011 by Harry Guhl, later joined by Xavier de Roquemaurel and the watchmaker Sébastien Follonier. Rather than seek a single backer, they raised over two million francs from more than a hundred collectors — a house owned by the people who buy from it.

The relaunch model, the Quai des Bergues, took its two-subdial layout from an 1850 Czapek pocket watch and won the Public Prize at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève in 2016. Collections since are named for the old boutiques: Place Vendôme, Faubourg de Cracovie.

The Antarctique brought an integrated-bracelet sports watch on an in-house micro-rotor calibre, and remains the model most people meet the brand through.