A limited edition watch is the reason designer Alfredo Häberli has checked into Oslo. We open the leather case and take a closer look at the model.

AV Yvonne Gull

»I only work with people I like, and I love it when they call me. I need a sparring partner to motivate me.«

ALFREDO HÄBERLI SLOG like a colourful bomb in many homes with his little striped eggcup created for Rörstrand in the late 1990s. Some years have passed since then, and when we meet up in Oslo, where he is exhibiting with Rado at Designers’ Saturday, he is ready to meet both the press and design students to tell them more about ”sin” new watch. With an Argentinian mother and a Swiss
far has Alfredo Häberli had roots and references he could fall back on in his career. The combination of colour and form is evident in much of what he has done over the years. He has designed small and
large, from the aforementioned egg cup and stylish wine glasses, to furniture, hotels, houses, and cars. Since completing his design studies, collaborations have been his trademark:

– I only work with people I like, and I love it when they call me. I need a sparring partner to stay motivated. It was also a phone call that led to Alfredo Häberli For Rado, he was commissioned to design an anniversary edition of their DiaStar watch model for their 60th anniversary in 2022. It was a dream assignment, and he himself says that he has a collection of watches from the 1960s and 1970s. Just one DiaStar He didn't, but a good friend had one. We ended up looking, feeling and taking it all in.

For me, design is a combination of precision and poetry. When it comes to inspiration, it's something Alfredo Häberli constantly collects. He says he has images and observations stored in his memory, which he then sorts and retrieves when needed.

– I always scan my surroundings, he says, and then describes me in a cunningly analysed way, mentioning my eye colour and how I'd organised my notes specifically for our meeting.
Back to DiaStar. The work went quickly. He looked, observed and concluded that he wanted to do it ”Nicer”. At the same time as it was about a watch that could be worn every day, he wanted to bring the model into the present. The faceted sapphire crystal was a central detail, a detail that makes the watch extra elegant in reality but makes it somewhat harder to photograph. The watch's name was also an interesting aspect where both Dia, the diamond, and Star, the star, were to be incorporated. Diamonds in the form of the faceted glass and the star in the form of the fine lustre of the material as a whole.

DiaStar Original 60th Anniversary Edition, price 26,400 kr from Rado. It features an automatic movement with an 80-hour power reserve, a size of 38 mm and is water-resistant to 100 metres, and as we've established on this page, has been redesigned by Alfredo Häberli.