You have noticed the cheesy Patek Philippe advertisements, gazed in your boss’ Rolex watches during meetings, possibly even threatened to get your grandfather’s pocket watch fixed one day… and now you’ve saved a bit of money, it is time to bite the bullet and invest in your own Swiss timepiece.
That last particular word is probably one of many reasons why it’s taken so long — do you really need to be the sort of man who calls his watch a’timepiece’? Or, worse, a’chronometer’? It is correct the watch world could be a rather snobby, anorak-clad institution, whose idiosyncrasies you might forgive if it wasn’t for the astronomical cost of joining this particular club. Even supercars figure out how to retain an everyman appeal (though, to be honest, there aren’t many teenagers’ bedroom walls trapped with Breitling posters).
The good news, if you’re seriously thinking about doing this, is that a decent Swiss watch is usually worth its cost — created as exactingly as a Ferrari, by artisans whose skills are generally limited to the valleys of the Swiss Jura mountains. But why wear one at all, once the exact time is displayed anywhere in our’always on’ electronic era?
“There is an element of style and status symbolism, for certain,” says ex-watchmaker and shop manager Sandy Madhvani of David M Robinson jewellers,”similar to that Porsche that seldom creeps over 20mph in city. But wearing any sort of watch, Swiss or not, is rarely about telling the time these days — rather, it’s an investment to something sentimental and eternal…
“It is no wonder an increasing number of women are buying engagement watches to get their new fiancés, in exchange for their ring”
Madhvani’s idea of life isn’t so far-fetched. Only a little TLC will mean your mechanical wristwatch can tick forever — its timeworn technologies is completely protected from obsolescence, unlike that shiny new men smartwatch.
“With brands such as Patek Philippe and Rolex,” he continues,”your view may potentially accrue in value, even. In terms of mechanical objects, only a completely restored classic Ferrari is effective at that. In terms of price per wear, there is simply no comparison — unless you can name an item of clothing or pair of shoes that you have worn every day for years, which looks and functions just as well?”
Why Switzerland? Its hundred-odd miniature components are all machined laboriously and precisely from brass or steel, polished to varying levels of shimmer and shine, then hand-assembled by one of the world’s most skilled workforces in light-drenched mountaintop ateliers. A joyous anachronism in this electronic world, with costs that can stretch to the equal of a three-bed Croydon semi automatic (try Googling’Greubel Forsey’).
But while the inherent mechanical principles of mainsprings, gear-trains and ticking balance-wheel escapements were more-or-less shared around the planet (and are still ), the Swiss managed to mark themselves from London, New York or Paris’s artisans. How? Division of labour.
It had been down to the genius of goldsmith Daniel Jeanrichard (1665-1741), who invented a system known as établissage from the Jura mountains. This cottage industry (chalet market?) Saw the tightly guarded knowledge of a few watchmakers spread to separate workshops, each with its own specialism. The machine survives to this day.
Actually, many of the workshops dotting the valleys of the Jura were conducted from the local dairy farmers who, come the harsh, isolating winter snow, could round their livestock up and turn to their home assignments. Making wheels with cows turned into making wheels of alloy with lathes.
“From the 1740s to the early 1800s,” explains Michel Golay, that conducts Audemars Piguet’s watchmaking museum in Le Brassus,”the farmers-turned-watchmakers in the Jura walked to Geneva each spring to sell the movements they had made over the winter into the cabinottiers and établisseurs, who finished the moves and cased them up as whole, branded watches.”
Soon , the mountain farmers realised they could make more money by placing their own names on the dials, states Golay. “Many of them stopped farming altogether and started making watches all year. Families through the valley co-operated, and gradually the quality of the craftsmanship improved, as did their standing.”
The Jura’s La Chaux-de-Fonds is known as the authentic’cradle’ of Swiss Jura watchmaking — the maximum city in Europe at 1,000 metres above sea level, colloquially known as’Watch Valley’.
