There are collaborations that feel strategically neat on paper and others that make immediate, intuitive sense. The coming together of Ressence’s founder, Benoît Mintiens, and industrial designer Marc Newson sits firmly in the latter camp. Not because the two men share aesthetic codes, but because they have each spent their working lives interrogating how objects behave, how they are read and how design can completely revolutionise the way we navigate the world.

Mintiens came to watchmaking without the usual horological apprenticeship. Trained as an industrial designer, his early career was spent considering user interaction, ergonomics and mechanical clarity. When he launched Ressence in 2010, his proposition was disarmingly simple: if you removed the habits of traditional watchmaking and treated the watch as a designed object rather than a vessel of inherited rules, what new solutions might emerge?

The answer, in those first years, was a new way of displaying time. Hands were replaced with orbital disks; depth was neutralised through the now-signature oil-filled chamber; the crown disappeared; and the time-telling information floated under the crystal in a way that felt almost disobedient to horological convention. Ressence watches were postmodern without trying to appease any predefined rules of the genre. These were objects that placed function first and treated mechanics as a means, not an end.

Ressence Type 3 Marc Newson Edition (©Revolution)

Across the TYPE 1, TYPE 3 and TYPE 5 families, a visual language developed. The watches were readable, stripped back to essentials and executed with an almost obsessive regard for ergonomics. Nothing was purely decorative, but the watches were far from austere. In a landscape increasingly driven by nostalgia, Ressence steadfastly rejected it.

While Mintiens was establishing that identity, Marc Newson was already a huge presence in the world of industrial design and had hitched his wagon to some uber successful horology projects. His work for Ikepod in the 1990s introduced a look that was radically new for the time. With soft, elliptical cases and bold colours, he approached watches as three-dimensional objects with a purpose that extended beyond the obvious, in a similar way to his previous work with furniture, marine design, jewellery and aircraft interiors.

The instinct carried through to later projects. His transparent Atmos 561 for Jaeger-LeCoultre pared down a mechanical icon to its barest essentials. His work with Apple brought a new sensibility to the wrist: interface merged with object, color trained to guide behaviour, and simplicity deployed with great discipline.

Atmos 561 by Marc Newson

When Mintiens and Newson began to talk about a project together, the connection was not style but approach. Both designers place enormous value on clarity and user experience, and both are drawn to the idea that design, when properly executed, should feel natural rather than forced.

It was in those earliest conversations that Mintiens first understood how deeply Newson grasped the Ressence philosophy. “When Marc told me it would bring his original design to where he always wanted it to be. Looking at the watch – now that it is ready – strikes you with its clarity, with modernity. The Pebble is not half steel half glass with a concave dial, but it feels complete in one piece, one unity, one logic.”

The resulting watch, the TYPE 3 MN, is therefore not a collision of identities but an alignment of two parallel paths. At its core, it remains unmistakably Ressence: a watch defined by its oil-filled upper chamber, magnetically driven disks and the ROCS module that continues to express time as a constellation of rotating information. Its floating display retains the same purity that redefined the TYPE 3 when it launched in 2013.

The significant oil-filled upper chamber (©Revolution)

But this project required decisions about how much of the Ressence universe could be reinterpreted and how much had to remain constant. As Mintiens explains, “From my experience working with guests for our special editions, I learned how to identify the people that have an approach that fits our requirements. Not only philosophically but also technically… Now that the brand is more self-assured, I play the game without restraint. I basically give a carte blanche and then we adapt where needed from a production point of view.”

Newson’s collaboration is obvious. The silhouette is softer in the hand and on the wrist. The dial’s celadon and grey tones, accented by precise flashes of yellow, introduce a calm palette. The sculptural hands are a subtle nod to Ikepod without being retro. The entire watch feels as though it has been reconsidered rather than redesigned.

The dial’s celadon and grey tones, accented by precise flashes of yellow (©Revolution)

One area where Newson made an immediate impact was the outer form, in particular, how the case transitions into the dial. As Mintiens recalls, “He taught me something really interesting… There are two ways to define a curve. With radii or splines… Well Marc taught me that splines reflect light in a much more natural way then radii. [Before] I always based my designs on radii as they are easy to define for production.”

Color and form, too, revealed something fresh when seen through Newson’s eyes. “When I saw the finished T3MN for the first time, I had the same exciting feeling I had when I made the first Type 3 prototype back in 2012… A kind of new paradigm from another moment in time.”

Collaboration often comes with creative tension, but here the dynamic was unusually smooth. “The size of designers egos usually prevents them from fitting in one room,” Mintiens jokes. “Sorry for the [lack of clickbait here], but all went super smoothly… No drama, rather the opposite.”

That harmony was reinforced by the shared instinct for simplification – a principle central to Ressence. “This word is only applicable in the context of the industry of fine watchmaking offering an antithesis to complications. The goal to simplify is embedded in Marc’s brain.”

Looking at the final object, the merging of two voices becomes obvious. “I think the most visible point is the transition from the case to the dial. It feels like the dial is printed on the watch, increasing the pebble effect thanks to the oil. Material has merged into information.”

Ressence Type 3 Marc Newson Edition (©Revolution)

And if one sentence is needed to define what sets the TYPE 3 MN apart, Mintiens offers it without hesitation: “1+1=3.” This is not simply one designer’s aesthetic grafted onto another’s. In the style of every true collab, it reframes a modern classic. Working within the original codes set by Mintiens – simplicity, legibility, wearability – it brings an added refinement born out of Newson’s experience with the elliptical form.

Ressence Type 3 Marc Newson Edition (©Revolution)

Ressence Type 3 Marc Newson Edition (©Revolution)

There is nothing here to upset the Ressence story. The TYPE 3 MN sits naturally within the lineage, retaining the distinctive absence of a crown and tactile caseback interface. Yet it also feels like the most mature iteration of the concept to date.

And perhaps that is the real significance of this partnership. It shows what happens when two designers combine their perspectives to rethink a familiar idea. This is a collaboration that respects the integrity of the original design while allowing space for a second voice. The result is not a headline-grabbing diversion, but a thoughtful evolution of one of the most interesting horological concepts of the new millennium.

Ressence Type 3 Marc Newson Edition (©Revolution)

Tech Specs: Ressence Type 3 MN (Marc Newson Edition)

Movement: Patented ROCS 3.6 module driven by the minute axle of a customised automatic calibre; magnetic transmission; compensating bellows system; caseback winding and setting; 36-hour power reserve; 28,800 vph; 47 jewels; 44 gears; 4 ball bearings
Functions: Hours, minutes, runner (180 seconds); day; date; oil-temperature indication
Case: Grade 5 titanium; two sealed chambers with 4.15ml oil in the upper; double-domed sapphire crystal with internal AR; titanium caseback; 45mm diameter, 15mm thickness; 1 ATM
Strap & Buckle: Synthetic rubber strap; titanium ardillon buckle
Dial: Grade 5 titanium; convex disks with eccentric biaxial satellites (inclinations: 3°, 4.75°, 6.25°); engraved indications with blue and green Grade A Super-LumiNova
Components: 387 total; 95g including strap and buckle
Price: CHF 46,000 (excl. taxes)
Availability: Limited to 80 pieces, available from 4 December 2025 via Ressence e-shop and select retailers