Kari Voutilainen has been steadily amassing a veritable treasure trove of guilloché tooling and expertise, having recently acquired the complete collections of renowned guillocheurs Georges Brodbeck, previously based in Saignelégier, Switzerland, and Wolfgang Lötterie, of Pforzheim, Germany.
Ludwig Oechslin in an interview with Sam Kessler at Oracle Time:
To be a true watchmaker means that you make the parts of the watches and can calculate how to do it. You have both the mathematical skill to be able to design and understand the concept, and manual feeling for making pieces. Most in the watch industry are not watchmakers; an assembler is not a watchmaker. A watch designer, without the feel for the materials and what you can do with them, is not a good watch designer.
An excerpt from Dr. Rebecca Struthers new book, Hands of Time:
You build a closer relationship with what you’re making when you work by hand. You can hear when the cutting speed of a lathe or drill is perfect, and you can feel from the resistance whether the pressure of your tool is correct. We like this sense of connection to the objects, and to the generations of artisans who came before us.
Levi Keswick rounds up the current state of the Swiss watch industry's shortage of skilled watchmakers:
The watchmaking industry is currently facing an unprecedented challenge—a severe shortage of skilled watchmakers and other professionals essential to the craft. This scarcity poses a significant risk to the industry’s growth, particularly for high-end luxury brands that heavily rely on manual craftsmanship.
It is true that there simply aren't enough watchmakers to go around. This has been the case for upwards of two decades now and I don't foresee the bean counters at the top being able to substantiate even satisfactory change without first removing the blinders that have had them focused on profit at all costs. While the decisions being made at the top have bolstered shorter term profits, the mounting costs to many (but not all) brands' reputations among watchmakers and the scorched earth of burnt trust they've left behind on a global scale isn't favourable for healthy, long term growth and success.
On the manufacturing side of the equation, the ramp-up in automation is addressing the gap more with each passing year for masstige brands. Meanwhile the high-end watchmaking entities that are respectful of the craft and treat their watchmakers with dignity literally have candidates knocking at their door.
On the after sales service side of things, overreaching parts restrictions and poor working conditions at brand-owned service centers have led to movement swaps becoming the norm, along with higher prices and longer turnaround times for consumers. It's getting dire and, with more and more clients feeling burned when it comes time to service their timepieces, I've witnessed firsthand the impact that it is having on the sales of new timepieces. An effect that is presently getting lost in the noise of booming sales that are being driven by the mass consumption and global one-upmanship frenzied by social media.
Talk to the retiring generation of boomer watchmakers that Keswick refers to and I'm confident you'll find most loved the work on an innate level. You'll also discover an unfortunately large proportion of them are grumpy about the how they've been treated by the brands since the turn of the millennium. It's not a good look and the up-and-coming generations are savvy.
Alexey Tarkhanov, reporting for the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, reflects back on the achievements of Gerald Genta and sheds some light on the work of some of today's leading watch designers in the Swiss watch industry, including Fabrizio Buonamassa Stigliani, Martin Frei, Eric Giroud, Guy Bove, and Emmanuel Gueit. The latter of whom built upon Genta's work at Audemars Piguet, with the Royal Oak Offshore, and assisted Rolex with their—now retired—Cellini Collection.
Anthony Traina writing for HODINKEE:
"Auctions can be marketing as much as they're a true market."
Patek Philippe was arguably the first watch brand to home in on this phenomenon decades ago and, for better or worse, a good number of big players in the industry have followed their lead since.
Philippe Dufour to auction off a one-of-a-kind Simplicity in platinum, featuring an aventurine dial, in support of a new charity he has established alongside his wife, Elisabeth Dufour. Pictured here in a cast of Dufour's hand.
Jason Fried sits down with Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt, at Relay FM, to discuss Fried's Lange 1.
Mechanical watches are basically, I feel like, one of the last objects on earth, that humans make, that will last forever.
While this was not, objectively, the most factual discussion, subjectively speaking the trio provide some interesting perspectives on the design of A. Lange & Söhne's masterful Lange 1 reference.
Omega dupes itself into acquiring a Speedmaster they never created for a record $3.3 million at auction.
The company alleges three former employees colluded to profit from the scheme.
It is worthwhile noting that Phillips' high estimate was 25x less than what Omega ultimately bid for the watch back in November of 2021 and that the auctioned Speedmaster was accompanied by an extract from Omega's own archives. When a brand can't even trust itself in assessing the authenticity of its watches on the secondary market—particularly when it comes to big ticket items like this—where does that leave collectors and connoisseurs?
Dominique Buser and Cyrano Devanthey have opted to eschew the annular balance used in their debut timepiece, in favour of a more traditional, free-sprung balance wheel. The duo's team has grown since the release of their initial offering, as well. Doubling in size, two additional watchmakers have joined the fold, David Friedli and Yan Hegelbach, assiduously plying and preserving the application of age-old watchmaking techniques.
Crafted by hand, the influence of the likes of Dufour, Voutilainen, and Rexhepi are evident in both the movement aesthetics of the Fundamentum as well as the level of excellence in the finishing techniques applied.
Brian Ng, reporting for The Financial Times, pays a visit to the acclaimed Lycée Edgar Faure school of watchmaking in France and follows up with the graduates who have avoided "being absorbed into the machinery of the Swiss giants."
None expresses the desire to reach the size of FP Journe, let alone Patek Philippe or Rolex: their grand ambition is to make the best watches and clocks they can, from start to finish, under their own name. In so doing, they are preserving the traditional methods of horology in the modern world.
