Designing watches a profession not always recognized
Before Rodolphe Cattin, this profession did not have a legitimate place in horology. The designer had to remain discreet, only the brands were in the spotlight.
By Joel Grandjean
Editor-in-Chief
Thanks to avid collectors of backstage secrets, everything ends up being common knowledge and the profession of watch designer has finally come out in the open. Before that, he often worked discreetly in a watch case manufacture. A factory which, in order to run its machines, had to provide its clients with creativity. Therefore, it is the case-maker who, sometimes in connivance with a dial-maker, brought the designs likely to generate orders. This is how most of the new models were born. Today still, the watchmaking brands balk at admitting that they are not behind everything they manufacture and that the very fashionable naming: Manufacture implies that everything is done in-house.
Suddenly, at Longines, a first name changes the situation. The Saint-Imier brand works with its home-designer, a certain Rodolphe Cattin, on a new ladies’model. With his looks of a new Beaux-Arts graduate from La Chaux-de-Fonds propelled member of the direction, the one that the big boss Walter Von Kaenel nicknames “the artist” becomes a bit by chance the first glamourized watch designer.
The collection named Rodolphe by Longines will be successful. Every contemporary watch designer should feel indebted.
Other designers, sometimes more seasoned, then gradually come out of anonymity. René Banwart, father to all of them, created the Corum brand in 1955, after having written major pages, firstly at Patek Philippe where he enters in 1933, then at Omega where he creates and runs the first creation department, behind the iconic Constellation model. An adept of streamlining, he brings out other striking models under his own colors: the Sans Heures, a watch without index whereby only the position of the hands indicate the time; the Romvlvs, whereby the hours in Roman numerals are engraved on the bezel; in 1960, the Admiral’s Cup, the first water-resistant square watch which became dodecagonal in 1983, referring to the 12 water flames; finally, the Coin Watch, a watch without cover whereby the extra-flat movement is put in an authentic gold coin.
Like him, the other great man of watch design, Gérald Genta, deceased in 2009, is from now on regularly evoked. Before creating one of the first eponymic brands, he survived on the selling of his designs – 15 Swiss Francs each at the time. One day, at the Foire de Bâle, he shared the same restaurant as the Patek Philippe people. While observing them eating, he scribbled on the tablecloth. The mythical Nautilus is born, it bears some resemblance to another star watch which celebrates its 40 years this year, the Royal Oak by Audemars Piguet.
With the arrival of the computer, the world of watch design has become accessible to all. Those who go in for line drawing, so delicious, are no more the only masters on board. Creators from all horizons, sometimes geniuses, invent new display systems. The luckiest ones will sell their design and their rights, inciting the buying brand to begin another much longer creation process: the development of a complicated calibre.
WATCHES DESIGNERS OF TODAY
Rodolphe Cattin founded his own MRC brand, Manufacture Rodolphe Cattin. While a certain Eric Giroud gets some media coverage, boosted by Maximilian Büsser, who stages his suppliers by calling them his friends – MB&F, Maximilian Büsser & Friends – other references continue to crack down in the midst of the brands. Janek Deleskiewicz, at Jaeger LeCoultre, the only one authorised to conjugate the famous Reverso, Serge Rabassa to whom we owe the new Ballon Bleu de Cartier. In their wake, some names, though prolific, insist on being discreet: Astrid Victoire Wikberg, Eddy Burgener, Elena Brioschi, David Quinche, Nicolas Chablais, Jean-Claude and Emmanuel Gueit, father and son…
Others hide under social reasons: Philippe Moser (Dalo Creation), Stéphane Avranches (Blade Design), Xavier Perrenoud (Atelier XJC), Claudio d’Amore (Cosanova), Nicole Dupont (Dupont Design).
Watchmaker, more than just a profession
By Joel Grandjean
, Editor-in-Chief
Ever since the revival of mechanical horology, in less than forty years, small hands have become gold fingers, manual activities have been set up as fine...