Inside Hogwarts for watchmakers

Just over 5 km from the Swiss border, in the small town of Morteau, is the Lycée Edgar Faure, one of the most prestigious watchmaking and watchmaking schools in France. Several of his recent alumni are already winning awards for their work as independent watchmakers, including the prestigious gold medals from FP Journe’s Young Talent Competition and Best Apprentice in France. They are also finding their pieces in demand by serious collectors.

A watchmaking school was originally founded here in 1836 to train unemployed French youths in watchmaking skills in an effort to compete with the Swiss. It closed after 14 years due to lack of funds, but reopened as Lycée Edgar Faure in 1947. When the “quartz crisis” devastated the Swiss watch industry in the 1970s, most schools closed, leaving Lycée Edgar Faure as the only one that represented France in the Franco-Swiss watchmaking region.

At watch school, students learn the trade of watch servicing and maintenance (along with standard school subjects). Most students enter their seven-year program at age 14. Many come from the region and have family members who are also in the business, but the school also accepts interns from all over the country. In their senior year, each student must make their own watch with a complication: from a tourbillon to a chime mode to a date display. “In my opinion,” he says Florence Lecomtewho has taught here since 2009 and recently started making his own watches, “these are the ones that make the school’s reputation”.

Most graduates go on to work as restorers or manufacturers for the myriad of companies on both sides of the border. But, in recent years, some have gone off on their own and started their own maisons. Even more controversial, some have chosen to open businesses and workshops located in France.

Their friends help fuel their businesses and provide a support network.

rémy gets cold and Theo Auffret both were winners of the FP Journe Young Talent Competition in 2018. Cools, who grew up near Morteau, decided to pursue watchmaking after visiting a factory (now owned by blancpain) When I was 11 years old. “When I finished my studies, I had the idea of ​​starting my own workshop,” he says, but decided to work for a Swiss manufacturer to learn about commercial production. He stayed for only three months before feeling confident enough to go it alone, at age 22. In 2019, he sold his first watch (each costing around €85,000) using a subscription model, with collectors paying part of the price upfront to help finance production. His Tourbillon Souscription (€85,000), an improved version of the one he made in school, features a 15.5mm tourbillon visible through a domed sapphire crystal, and has its winding and setting mechanisms on the caseback instead of the standard crown on the side of the watch. .

Cools is currently based in a workshop in Annecy with one employee, and production has increased from nine pieces a year to 12. It does not intend to grow as much as an independent company as FP day (which produces about 900 watches a year), instead of limiting it to 40-50.

Auffret came to watchmaking a little later, having finished high school and obtained his baccalaureate before going to the Lycée Edgar Faure; she chose the school because it was the only one that offered apprenticeships. After graduating, he left the Swiss border area and settled an hour west of Paris because he found Switzerland too far from the places he considers “dynamic.” Paris is convenient for clients and has a large watch industry (mainly in the restoration of pendulum clocks that have passed down the hands of Parisian families), but, says Auffret, “there aren’t a huge amount of possibilities if you want to work in France. . The solution was to found my own”. His latest watch, the Tourbillon Grand Sport (€128,000), saw Auffret shortlisted for the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève last year as one of the few independent watchmakers. It features a second hand attached to the tourbillon and a torque reserve indicator that, like a fuel tank gauge, shows how much power is left before the watch needs to be wound back.

It is no coincidence that this new generation of independent watchmakers is around the same age (late 20’s and early 30’s). “It’s the result of a snowball effect,” says Lecomte, who taught them all. Their friends have helped jumpstart their businesses and offer a support network, from figuring out how to run them (like the prevalence of subscription models) to which providers to use and other geeky stuff.

This is not the first time that there has been a new wave of independent French watchmakers; Back in the 90s the same thing happened. That generation, now in their 50s and 60s, counts illustrious names like François-Paul Journe, Vianney Halter and Denis Flageollet among them. However, they had to base their brands in Switzerland since all the machinery was there. These days, not only are there more second-hand items available, but fellow experts around the world can be contacted for help. The ability to communicate via social media and the internet, as well as not having to be tied to Switzerland, has also spread the bug again.

John-Mikaël Flaux is the mentor of this year’s senior class at Lycée Edgar Faure. He argues that the need for the “made in Switzerland” label is no longer crucial. “I’m French,” he says (he’s from Brittany). “Why do I have to start a business somewhere else?” With his own workshop, Flaux has found new freedoms: in addition to making watches, he has been able to create automata watches (including one in the shape of a car, priced at €30,000 before it sells). Last year he collaborated with the house ben and brothers on a watch called Tribute to Al-Jazari (49,000 Swiss francs, about £43,590), which shows 24-hours without a hand but with 13 holes that change from black to white and vice versa (like moons).

This freedom has also been taken away by Cyril Brivet-Naudot, who makes only one watch a year (before there were two, but now he adds and changes things between each piece). Originally from Ardèche, he chose the Lycée Edgar Faure because it was the only school where he could spend the weekend. Then he did an internship in Swiss companies, but he didn’t like how sectorized everything was: “Watchmakers, in the end, don’t do much,” he says. More processes are being automated, reducing the number of tasks watchmakers have to perform themselves. Brivet-Naudot prefers to continue traditional practices, so after running a workshop with his friend for a few years in Lozère, he moved to a farm in Brittany. He compares what he is doing to 18th century horologists in the Jura mountains, who originally worked in agriculture, making watches as a second job during the long winter months; .

The reason he can live so far from Switzerland is because he makes nearly all 300 parts of each watch by hand, rather than cutting them by machine (the only parts he doesn’t make are the jewels, mainspring, and balance). spring). While Brivet-Naudot doesn’t intend to hire employees, he does have interns for four-week terms to pass on skills. He doesn’t see the need to be in Switzerland: “We have a lot of talent in France. we have a lot of know to do.”

While all of these watchmakers work independently, collectively they provide a model that does not mean being sucked into the machinery of the Swiss giants. None express a desire to reach the size of FP Journe, let alone Patek Philippe or Rolex: their great ambition is to make the best watches they can, from start to finish, under their own name. In doing so, they are preserving traditional watchmaking methods in the modern world.