ercigoj watches
Macro of a chenille-embroidered watch dial in dramatic low light

The House of Ercigoj

Five generations at the needle. One watch was always next.

A Ljubljana embroidery house, now on the dial of a wristwatch.

Chenille-embroidered watch dials in the studio's wooden tray, ready for casing

The watch

CORNELY

Embroidered, not printed. Swiss within.

No machine can print this dial. Each is embroidered to order, its ground and marker colours agreed with the studio.

  • Case in 316L steel
  • Swiss Sellita movement
  • Numbered edition of fifty

2,500 €

Discover CORNELY →

Next from the house

JACKART

The second watch. Cushion-cased, and still on the needle.

On the needle now

Discover JACKART →
JACKART prototype, cushion case and dark blue-violet chenille dial, resting between the studio's signed wooden plaque and a spool of thread
Chenille-embroidered watch dial emerging from darkness, needle-shaped hands catching the light

The watch, known. Now, CORNELY begins as thread.

It begins not with a movement, but with a single thread.

Chenille dial pinned in the calibration device, macro view from above

Prepared by hand. Stitched by the machine. Since 1923.

Before a movement is ever fitted, the dial is centred, then embroidered.

Chenille-embroidered reproduction of Michelangelo's Creation of Adam — the two reaching hands, full view

The Creation of Adam

Chenille embroidery, after Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel fresco.

Centred by hand; the stitch runs on the Cornely machine.

The Maison · since 1923

A century, one thread.

Ercigoj is a fifth-generation embroidery house, founded in Ljubljana in 1923. For a hundred years it has held to one craft and pushed it far past decoration, turning embroidery "from a technique for decorating textiles into a true art medium."

From a mural of millions of stitches to the dial of a wristwatch, the discipline does not change. Only the scale does.

  1. 1923 Ercigoj's shopfront in the 1920s, two women in the doorway

    The shopfront opens in Ljubljana.

  2. 1969 Firefighters' parade carrying Ercigoj-embroidered ceremonial banners

    Chenille banners lead the parade.

  3. 1985 Placeholder: chenille-embroidered Madonna work (temporary preview image)

    Placeholder station, preview only

  4. 2010 Macro detail of a chenille-embroidered flag-bearer figure, thread work, 2010

    A century on, the same stitch, seen up close.

  5. 2015 Placeholder: chenille-embroidered anemone study (temporary preview image)

    Placeholder station, preview only

  6. 2020 Macro of a chenille-embroidered reproduction of Van Gogh's swirling sky

    A swirling sky, after Van Gogh.

  7. 2023 CORNELY watch resting face-up on a chenille-embroidered mural fabric

    The first watch, on the house's own mural.

  8. 2025 Macro of JACKART's dark blue chenille dial

    The second watch, still being stitched.

Beyond the photograph

What a photograph can't carry

A photograph holds the pattern. What it cannot hold is the depth of the thread, or the way a raised stitch catches the light and shifts as you move past it. It asks to be seen far closer than a photograph allows.

Ultra close-up of the crescent moon in the embroidered Van Gogh, individual chenille loops raised in orange, gold and blue thread
The raised stitch, close enough to see the loop.
The whole embroidered work after Van Gogh's Country Road in Provence at Night — cypress, crescent moon and star above a road with two walkers, rendered entirely in chenille thread
The Sky, after Van Gogh, stitched, not painted.

For a century, the house has worked a single raised thread through cloth, an art made to be framed and hung.

That same thread now keeps time on the wrist, the craft unchanged, only small enough to wear.

Extreme macro of the CORNELY dial: a spiral of raised blue and violet chenille loops, needle-shaped steel hands across it

CORNELY

Ready to reserve.

Reserve →
Extreme macro of JACKART's small seconds sub-dial, chenille loops in silver-grey thread against a near-black ground

JACKART

The next thread begins.

A closer look →