A watch with a story: how an Augustin Matei piece starts from a memory

An article from September 2026 on how a personalised watch comes about at Augustin Watches: not from a shop window, but from a conversation about the life of the person who will wear it. Augustin Matei works the dial and the assembly himself, under a microscope; a delivered design is never repeated.

AiStil also goes back to the beginning: a Patek Philippe replica bought online and worn unknowingly, then four years of attempts until the first finished watch, with a geology microscope in place of an engraving one. The quotes come from interviews given to LIFE.ro, Republica and Gândul.

The article goes through the Swiss calibres listed on the product sheets, the cases from Germany, the straps made by hand by Vasile Uglai in Oradea, and the sapphire crystal, and gives the timing of a piece: from a few days of making to a year or two, the time an idea sometimes takes.

The summary is written by the workshop. The article, its headline and its photographs belong to the publication.