Latest news with #hautehorlogerie
Times
20-06-2025
- Business
- Times
Inside Patek Philippe, where watchmaking runs in the family
Coming up with a new watch isn't a nine-to-five job for Thierry Stern, the president of watchmaking house Patek Philippe. It's more of a 24-hour preoccupation. 'I get new ideas when I'm sleeping,' he says. Even though he had to give up being head of the creative division when he took over the leadership role from his father in 2009, he says he's still very hands-on with new timepieces. 'To me, designing's the best part and I don't want to give it up.' Quadruple Complication A showpiece of highly sophisticated micro-engineering, featuring a minute repeater, a tourbillon, an instantaneous perpetual calendar and a split-seconds or rattrapante ('catch up') function, housed in an elegant white gold case. £1,060,000 He's at Watches and Wonders, the international watch fair held in his home town of Geneva, to meet clients and collectors and also keep an eye on what competitors are up to. 'Other watchmaking companies might complain, 'We don't know what to do. Everything has been done,' ' he says. 'But for me, creating new watches is a passion. It's my favourite activity and I'm quite good at it.' Founded in 1839, Patek Philippe is the last remaining family-run haute horlogerie house in Geneva. Thierry is the fourth generation of the Stern family that has run the business since 1932, with his grandfather Henri becoming president in 1958 followed by his father, Philippe, in 1993, now honorary president. The house is renowned for timepieces considered by connoisseurs and collectors to be among the world's finest. They're characterised by a refined and timeless aesthetic as well as trailblazing technical innovations, from chiming minute repeaters to perpetual calendars, which have earned the company more than 100 patents. Cubitus Adding to the handsome 'square with rounded edges' Cubitus family, launched last autumn, are two new relatives with a slightly smaller case size at a versatile 40mm, in rose gold paired with brown and also in white gold with a blue dial. £65,600 As an independent manufacture with everything done in-house — from R&D and creating and engineering all complications to assembly — Patek Philippe benefits from full creative freedom. That's what allows Stern to keep dreaming about bezels and bridges. The creation process begins with a four-strong team. 'We share experiences of travelling, relating feedback from international markets, from retailers and clients,' he says. But mostly, 'We think of new ideas for watches. I always push to the limit — the others are perhaps too respectful to do this; they need me for the edge. Then we imagine if the idea can fit into our collections and whether clients will accept them.' Turning the dream into reality takes a long time. 'We work three years in advance. What you see today we finished a year ago and started the project two years before that. We're now working on watches for 2028.' New-movement projects can take a minimum of 4-5 years, and a supercomplicated calibre 10-12 years. 'The target at Patek is two innovations each year,' Stern says. Projects can span decades. 'There's a clock in the new collection we just unveiled and it's one I started 15 years ago — I had to convince the commercial team and, at the time, my dad — and now I have it.' Calatrava A striking daily wearer, a fresh take on the reference first launched in 1932. Now in platinum, the 38mm piece continues the range's Bauhaus-inspired minimalist aesthetic and its clean, opaline rose-gilt dial delivers a vintage vibe. £40,370 Passing the horological legacy to a new generation is hardwired into the firm. 'You won't be excellent in watchmaking until you have a minimum of ten years' experience. That's what I'm teaching my sons now. I ask them, 'Are you really motivated to work for Patek?' You need the passion, the drive. They have it: my older son, who's 23, is already working with us, then my younger son has to finish school. I tell them they need to learn from the ground up and stay down to earth. That's important. I say, 'You can always ask me, as I learnt from my father and grandfather.' ' Keeping it in the family is the secret to Patek's success, Stern maintains. 'It helps in times of decision making — there's no one pushing me,' he adds. 'There are no shareholders to please. It's a chess game. I have my plans.'
Khaleej Times
23-05-2025
- Business
- Khaleej Times
Breguet marks 250th year with the single hand Classique Souscription 2025
Two-and-a-half centuries ago, Frenchman Abraham-Louis Breguet, considered one of the greatest watchmakers of all time, etched his name into the annals of horology with a series of technical triumphs that forever altered timekeeping. The tourbillon, the gong spring, the pare-chute shock protector, even the world's first wristwatch — Breguet's inventions were as poetic as they were revolutionary. More than just an inventor, Breguet was an artist and philosopher of time, wielding restraint and elegance in an era known for baroque excess. As Breguet's eponymous house readies itself for its 250th anniversary, it pays homage not with pomp or mechanical fireworks, but with a watch so pure, so quietly audacious, it could only have been conceived by the master himself. Enter the Classique Souscription 2025, a single-hand wristwatch that harks back to the original Souscription timepieces of the late 18th century. It is both a resurrection and a revelation. The original Souscription watch was born of necessity and genius. Returning to post-Revolution Paris in 1795, Breguet needed a way to rebuild. He conceived a subscription model: pay a quarter of the price upfront, and a simplified, robust timepiece would be made to order. Not only was it an early example of direct-to-consumer marketing, but it was also the democratisation of haute horlogerie. Large in diameter, legible in enamel, and novel in having a single hand, these watches became a touchstone for the collectors and the curious. The 2025 reinterpretation channels this legacy with finesse. The grand feu enamel dial is an ode to purity — crisp, radiant, and graced by a solitary, flame-blue Breguet hand, inarguably one of the most recognisable of watch hands. The Arabic numerals, inclined ever so slightly, whisper of another era, while the chemin de fer chapter ring brings structure to the minimalism. In this unconventional layout, time is measured not with to-the-second precision, but with elegant approximation: the hand sweeps across the dial in 12 hours, with five-minute intervals marked between the hours. Reading the time becomes an act of intuition rather than obsession, a quiet ritual for those who embrace time as a fluid presence, not a constraint. This is not a watch for the hyper-scheduled. It is for those who move to a slower rhythm, who understand that sometimes, not knowing the exact minute is a luxury unto itself. It is for the poets and the philosophers, the aesthetes and the artisans — for those who savour time, not chase it. The 40mm case is fashioned from a proprietary 18K 'Breguet gold', a warm, blush alloy that melds gold, silver, copper, and palladium — a modern interpretation of 18th-century metallurgy. Gone is the familiar fluting; in its place, there are a satin-brushed middle and gracefully curved lugs, lending the watch an intimacy with the wrist that's rare for something this steeped in tradition. And then there are the secrets on the dial — the almost invisible 'Souscription' and serial number engraved in enamel using a diamond-point pantograph, a nod to the brand's historic war against counterfeiting. As Breguet CEO Gregory Kissling aptly puts it, this watch bridges the history the brand wants to share with the future it desires to shape. And for Breguet, whose 'pomme' hands have become icons in the watch world, it is a statement that one hand is — and always has been — enough.
