Rexhep Rexhepi’s new RRCHF chronograph sparks huge collector demand

Rexhep Rexhepi did not ease back into the market. After nearly three years without a new watch, he introduced the RRCHF with more than 1,700 requests already in hand and a price tag of CHF 150,000 for both versions. That is the kind of number that tells you everything: this is not a collector’s watch for the curious, it is a collector’s watch for the committed.

The RRCHF is Rexhepi’s first eponymous chronograph and his first flyback chronograph under his own name, a meaningful step for a maker whose reputation was built on severe discipline and emotional restraint. The watch uses a new hand-wound, integrated in-house movement with a central flyback seconds hand and an instantaneous minute counter. It also brings a 72-hour power reserve, 320 components and 30 jewels into a case that measures 38.8 mm by 9.70 mm, making it one of the slimmest chronographs on the market.

He offers it in two sharply different executions. One comes in platinum with a stormy blue Grand Feu enamel dial and smoked sapphire counters. The other is rose gold with a black dial. Both are the kind of object that reads less like a seasonal launch and more like a permanent line in a serious collection, especially for someone who already knows the difference between technical density and decorative noise.

That matters because Rexhepi’s output is tiny. His 54-person team is expected to make no more than 60 watches in the coming year, perhaps as few as 50, and Robb Report puts his annual production at fewer than 50 timepieces. In practical terms, this is the opposite of “buying a watch.” It is entering an allocation system where patience, relationships and taste matter as much as money.

Rexhepi founded Akrivia in 2013, and the RRCHF follows the 2023 Akrivia x Louis Vuitton LVRR-01 Chronographe à Sonnerie collaboration. But this watch feels more personal and more ambitious, with reviewers pointing to a symmetrical, pocket-watch-inspired three-register layout and a movement architecture that is deeply refined rather than loud. Rexhepi’s workshops in Geneva’s Old Town, spread across seven ateliers within four blocks, reinforce the point: this is a maker who still treats every part of the process as a craft problem to solve by hand.

If you are thinking about who buys a watch like this, the answer is simple. It is the person who already owns the obvious trophies and wants the harder one, the watch that signals judgment instead of volume. Most readers will never get one, and that scarcity is the point. The RRCHF is built for the handful of collectors who want their watch to say they were early, attentive and serious enough to wait for the right name to return.