I have been following TAOS since their 2024 debut, and the trajectory has been unmistakable from the outset: this is not a brand that explores watchmaking’s periphery. Founded on the combined vision of Atelier Olivier Vaucher’s 40 artisans and Geneva watchmaker Olivier Gaud, TAOS produces one simple category of object: unique pieces that each demand over a thousand hours of work to realise. For Geneva Watch Week in April 2026, the brand presents Genèse and Odonata, two watches unified by a theme of nature’s forms and separated by almost everything else.
Two Dials, Two Disciplines
Genèse presents itself as a geological cross-section, and its material choices communicate ambition immediately. Black jade and blue agate occupy the dial through traditional stone marquetry: the artisans carve precise pockets into the dial plate and seat each stone fragment, cut to the micron, into its dedicated space. The tolerance requirements are exacting, because any misalignment destroys the visual continuity of stratified mineral layers.
To deepen the geological reading, Atelier Olivier Vaucher applies engraving under transparent Grand Feu enamel across the darker zones, alternating shadowed relief with light-catching surfaces to produce a landscape of apparent rock under tension.
In the lighter sections, the team uses under-fired enamel: a deliberately restrained technique in which reduced kiln temperatures preserve the granular texture of the surface, retaining a raw, organic quality that fully vitrified enamel cannot replicate. The chromatic range runs through anthracite, black, and blue, with each zone asserting its own density and character.
Odonata is, in my assessment, the most technically demanding dial TAOS has produced since founding. Taking its name from the dragonfly family, it constructs a layered world in sky blues, mauves, and iridescent whites where plant and insect forms converge into a single vision. On a white gold base engraved in high relief, Vaucher’s team applies paillonné enamel: tiny metal foils fired beneath translucent enamel layers that generate dazzling brilliance as the wrist rotates.
Over certain zones, the artisans add plique-à-jour elements, firing translucent Grand Feu enamel without any metal backing so that light traverses the material directly, as miniature stained glass. Mother-of-pearl marquetry and diamond settings occupy additional layers within the same composition. The entire structure builds across multiple superimposed levels, yet the dial cannot exceed 1.3 mm in total thickness, a constraint imposed by the need to accommodate the hands, sapphire crystal, and movement integration.
What distinguishes Odonata as an object of craft is that no fixed final result existed during its production: enamellers, engravers, and gem-setters adjusted collectively as transparencies revealed effects that no rendering could anticipate.
The Calibre: Engineered for the Burin
Both watches run on calibre VOP318, developed exclusively by Télôs in La Chaux-de-Fonds to Olivier Gaud’s specifications. The brief Gaud gave Télôs differed from conventional movement commissions in one significant regard: every bridge had to offer maximum surface area dedicated entirely to hand engraving. Thicknesses, cutouts, and bridge geometry all serve the engraver’s burin first. The movement operates at 4 Hz (28,800 vph), uses a double barrel mounted in parallel, delivers approximately 72 hours of power reserve, and counts 26 jewels across a 30.40 mm diameter and a 4.20 mm height. Télôs delivers components in raw form, and from that point Atelier Olivier Vaucher takes complete ownership of each part.
For Genèse, the engraving programme introduces a new geometric decoration developed specifically for this piece, with a single artisan investing between 100 and 150 hours on the bridges alone. For Odonata, the decoration follows the softer, rounder visual language of the dial, creating coherence between the watch’s face and its interior depths. Across either version, completing one full calibre demands over 150 hours from one person, responsible for the piece from receipt to delivery. The oscillating mass hides beneath the case back, and even its arms receive bevelling and satin-finishing in the finest Geneva tradition.
The Case
The case measures 38 mm in diameter and 10 mm in thickness, crafted entirely in 18K white gold. Sharp lugs, crisp angles, and an inclined bezel give the silhouette a deliberately architectural quality that frames the dial without competing with it. Hands take the form of slightly curved leaves in 18K white gold, individually bevelled and mirror-polished by hand.
For Odonata, the bezel and lugs carry diamond settings, extending the iridescent world of the dial outward into the case itself. Both watches fasten on alligator-style leather straps hand-sewn in Geneva with visible saddle stitching, closed through an exclusive TAOS pin buckle in 18K white gold.
An ode to nature
Genèse and Odonata demonstrate precisely what becomes possible when a workshop operates free from production targets. Olivier Gaud and Atelier Olivier Vaucher produce only a handful of unique pieces each year, and the investment of over 1,000 hours per watch is not a figure constructed for marketing purposes. It reflects the documented reality of 15 distinct trades, one movement engraved by a single artisan from start to finish, and a dial built on multiple levels under a 1.3 mm total height constraint.
Genèse carries a retail price of 150,000 CHF excluding tax. Odonata, given its unprecedented plique-à-jour construction, its diamond setting, and its unmatched complexity even within TAOS’s own history, retails at 200,000 CHF excluding tax. Both watches are unique pieces. No second example of either will ever exist.
TAOS Genèse & Odonata Technical Specifications
TAOS Genèse – Unique Piece, 150,000 CHF
TAOS Odonata – Unique Piece, 200,000 CHF
Movement
- Calibre VOP318, developed exclusively by Télôs (La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland) for TAOS
- Automatic winding with double barrel mounted in parallel
- Hand decorations, exclusive to TAOS by Atelier Olivier Vaucher, Geneva
- Invisible mass, concealed in the case
- Power reserve: approximately 72 hours
- Diameter: 30.40 mm
- Thickness: 4.20 mm
- Frequency: 4 Hz
- 26 jewels
Case
- 18K white gold
- Diameter 38 mm
- Thickness 10 mm
- Odonata: diamond-set lugs and bezel
Dials
- Genèse : Dominance of black, anthracite grey, and blue:
- Dial crafted in engraving under enamel, under-fired enamel, and stone marquetry, black jade and blue agate, hand-adjusted and worked in matte, polished, and textured finishes, to create a stratification of materials and reflections.
- Odonata : Dominance of sky blue, mauve, grey, and white:
- Luminous and iridescent palette, multi-level integrating high-relief technical engraving, paillonné enamel, diamond setting, mother-of-pearl marquetry, and plique-à-jour (translucent stained-glass-type enamel), creating plays of transparency and depths. Multiple layers of enamel requiring multiple Grand Feu firings.
- Hours and minute indications: Hands in 18K white gold, bevelled and mirror-polished by hand, in the shape of slightly curved leaves
Strap
- Leather, alligator-style, hand-sewn in Geneva, with visible saddle stitching
- Pin buckle in 18K white gold, exclusive TAOS design
