Master Watchmaker Vincent Calabrese Presents His Calasys System at Vicenzaoro September 2021 Exhibition

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During the Vicenzaoro September 2021, the international jewellery show organized by IEG – Italian Exhibition Group and ongoing until Tuesday 14th September in Vicenza, Vincent Calabrese unveiled his Calasys system destined to rewrite the history of watchmaking.

This mechanism is capable to replace the spiral hairspring – the oscillator created in 1675 by Dutchman Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) – and simply and effectively eliminate its defects.

System Calasys - A point d'équilibre

The self-taught master watchmaker, born in Naples in 1944 and apprentice watchmaker at the age of 13 to then emigrated to Switzerland in 1961, with an extraordinary career that led him to found his famous homonymous, high-range brand of magnificent Carousel and Tourbillon with 18-carat gold cage and become co-founder of the prestigious Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants, demonstrated the workings of his invention on an pre-existing movement – the well-known Eta 2892 – in which the spiral hairspring was simply replaced by the Calasys connected to the escapement, keeping the rest of the mechanism totally intact.

With an industrial prospect of global importance, the aim of Calabrese’s Calasys System is to “eliminate the defects of the hairspring simply and effectively” and “to be suitable for use in every type of escapement” obtaining “greater performance” and “much easier maintenance”.

As he himself explained on demonstrating the details of the presentation, the architecture of the oscillator has completely changed. With Calasys, there is a double recall with two identical independent arms that guarantee less gravitational affect and greater rate of precision. Until now, nothing of the kind had ever been seen before.

The other extraordinary aspect of Calasys is that Vincent Calabrese will not sell the new system to the highest bidder. He will, instead, share the discovery with the entire watchmaking world: “I’m more interested in the philosophical development of our sector than making money.”