The Watch Maker

His introduction to the watch making industry came when a business partner went bankrupt leaving him to make good on several large orders for plastic and promotional watches. To fulfill this he had to go into production for himself, over twenty-two years ago. He still keeps thousands of these colourful little novelties in his vault beneath the atelier. As he proudly shows examples of these small plastic timepieces with rubber straps covered with corporate logos and cartoon characters, it’s clear that even then he put his heart and soul into what he was doing, and a part of him still ticks in these dusty relics. It’s what he was, and he loved it, but he has no intention of going back there. It’s yet another example of this man’s past being in plain view and driving him forwards.
“I made more money selling plastic watches for twenty-five or forty francs each than I do creating individual pieces for two thousand to four thousand francs or more.,” he says. “However, the money isn’t the driver. What I have had to learn, what I have had to create, to make watches as I do today – that is the satisfaction. It is the creative process, the transmission of care, knowledge, design, quality into the hands of the client – that is the satisfaction”