The former head of Audemars Piguet introduced his own brand

The new Pattern Recognition brand already has its first product, a B-Theory watch with an astronomical tourbillon.

After Francois-Henri Bennamias another former Audemars Piguet manager announced the launch of a new project. We are talking about the head of the department of complications, Michael Friedman, who has 30 years of experience in the field of fine watchmaking. He left Audemars Piguet almost at the same time as Bennamias and recently founded his own watch brand called Pattern Recognition.

Friedman’s company has already introduced its first product. The B-Theory model has a curved titanium case that mimics the natural curve of the wrist. The case dimensions are 52 x 32 mm, and the thickness is 9.9 mm. The curved three-plane movement of the watch combines an indication of hours and minutes, a central floating tourbillon and an indication of the lunar phases, which takes into account the position of the Moon in the sky above the owner’s hometown.

The silhouette of the model refers to the watches of the 1920s, when the era of wristwatches was just beginning. Examples of such models are the Cartier Tank Cintree and the Movado Polyplan. The concept of the watch is based on combining the analog past, engineering solutions of the present and the imaginary future.

Both the watch itself and the manual winding mechanism installed in it were developed by a team of specialists. It includes a watch designer from Artime and a specialist in complex mechanisms from Vanguart. The watch will be delivered on both a leather strap (CHF 120,000) and a titanium bracelet (CHF 150,000).

The volume of production was not disclosed. Watch deliveries will begin in the third quarter of 2026.