The London Lounge

Hi all,

I just wrote an article on an afternoon spent with a small, independent watch maker living in the Swiss Jura.

Unlike shoes or suits, watches are easy to fit, and therefore bespoke as we know it in the clothing industry is not a phenomena in horology. Instead, some of the smaller firms offer customization on the watches (some larger firms like Patek Philippe will also customize the higher end pieces on request). These often take the form of unique dials, or for the more adventurous, speciality complications or combinations of.

The amount of handwork typical in a high end watch, especially those manufactured by one of the large houses, is fairly low. To get to products in which a high amount of handwork, and personal work done by the maestro himself, one would have to seek out one of the small independents.

One such atelier manufacturers is Philippe Dufour featured in the article are able to offer almost completely hand finished products. I hope you enjoy the article.


http://people.timezone.com/pchong/Dufou ... lippe.html

Excellent article Peter! And well illustrated by photographs. You captured a true master at work.

Peter:

Good to see you here on the London Lounge too. I read your article earlier today on TZ, and must say it was very well written and illustrated, and think even readers with little or no knowledge of the inner workings of a mechanical watch movement can appreciate the handwork and labor that goes into one of Dufour's masterpieces. Thanks for sharing.

Regards,
Tom

PS - Just curious, what watch was the maestro wearing in the photographs?

Philippe professes that he cannot afford any of his own creations other than the Simplicity. He wears a WG Simplicity, with guilloche dial, in the original 34mm.

...