ECAL and alloyed turn lasered titanium into 3D printed watch straps at watches and wonders

Ecal and alloyed’s 3D-printed titanium watch straps

At the Watches and Wonders 2024 event in Geneva, ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne has paired up with Alloyed, a company specializing in metal printing, to present a series of 3D-printed watch straps designed by the students of the Master of Advanced Studies in Design for Luxury and Craftsmanship program.

The watch straps have been developed using 3D modeling software, and five of these concepts have been 3D-printed from a fine powder of titanium – an alloy composed of titanium, aluminum, and vanadium – that was melted at around 1,600 degrees Celsius using a laser beam. These watch straps can be seen in person by visitors to the Watches and Wonders 2024 event in Geneva between April 13th and 15th, 2024.

Nuttiya Ratchtrachenchai’s watch strap | images courtesy of ECAL | photos © Basil Denereaz

Student-designed watch straps at watches and wonders

The 3D printing technique that ECAL and Alloyed used is called Laser Powder Bed Fusion, which is typically used in the aerospace and medical industries. It can help create objects with high-performance mechanical properties, thus making the 3D-printed titanium watch straps, which Watch and Wonders 2024 can see in real life, appear flexible and futuristic with their organic and uniform features.

These five wristbands that were selected to be printed include Emilie Seguin’s Maille and Alix Malamaire’s Alligatoridae. Maille showcases the gradual metamorphosis of the links by having each hook in the chain individually crafted and subtly altered according to the shape and curves of the previous link. It deviates from Alligatoridae, which intends to recreate the alligator leather strap using a 3D modeling program while retaining the characteristics and visual elements of the reptile’s scales.

Murilo Weitz’s 3D-printed watch strap at Watches and Wonders 2024

ECAL and alloyed’s nature-inspired 3D-printed straps

The 3D-printed watch straps, such as Sacha Dufour’s Mercury, Seunghyeon Yoo’s Re-Code, and Blanche Mijonnet’s Silice, are also shown at the Watches and Wonders 2024 event through the collaboration between ECAL and Alloyed. The plant world serves as Mercury’s inspiration, with each link seemingly a climbing plant that grows and revolves around a central loop, the watch’s case.

Nature may have a rhythm, and this pace is something Re-Code may want to capture, given it reinterprets how frequencies work, as illustrated by constant waves on a printed metal band. The theme of nature persists in Silice, where the microscopic structures of aquatic flora, particularly marine plankton with silica-based mineral skeletons, are mirrored in a series of watch links. These 3D-printed watch straps by ECAL and Alloyed grace Watches and Wonders 2024 in Geneva between April 13th and 15th, 2024.

John Stagaman’s 3D-printed watch strap